Gratias in deserto

Being thankful helps maintain a tight seal between chronic dissatisfaction and unchecked desolation

Thanksgiving is goofy even by the standards of secular holidays. As it falls on a Thursday, it compels a four-day weekend for practically everyone. This ensures an enormous level of traveling, during which everyone is bombarded with the reminder that Holiday shopping season is officially here and Black Friday deals won’t last forever.

One can’t help but wonder what the rest of the world thinks of the planet’s most overfed nation setting aside a day dedicated primarily to both excessive eating and the throwing away of countless tons of uneaten food, all while casting an anxious eye on how to prepare for an even more Bacchanalian bonanza in four weeks. And this is all apart from whatever attacks it’s undergoing from American Zillennials happily benefiting from the overseas slave-labor of U.S. corporations while complaining about the “historical” evils of American colonialism.

I like Thanksgiving. It puts me in a better frame of mind.

For one thing, it’s in the name. I didn’t say this in my exposition about being six years free of alcohol—and holy shit, thank you for the responses both public and private, especially the ones praising the disclosures more than the anniversary—but I’ve mentioned it in other posts: Being grateful is maybe the biggest defense any of us has against committing self-destructive acts both great and small.

A gratitude list is not merely a distracting exercise that allows inner turmoil to passively dissipate while the mind is otherwise occupied. It’s a stark reminder that other people are interested in your presence and welfare even when you are not. If you can honestly convince yourself that the entire world is wrong in thinking you have nothing to offer it, then back the fuck up and try again.

People are confused about a lot of things nowadays, but compassion and warmth are as ingrained in people as they often are inscrutable. Caring is automatic and never the wrong emotional direction to take, even if the impulse is, alas, often poorly aimed. If some of it is coming your way and you feel compelled to explain it away somehow, then try thinking like a dog.

I went to watch a 5K this morning east of town proper, about two and a half miles from home. When I pass on entering yet another race and wake up to a race-ready morning like today’s (the snow forecasted for overnight never materialized), it’s tempting to dispense of the backup plan and not go spectate. But I keep showing up to these events, and not only because Rosie loves—absolutely loves—going to running events and typically tries to join the field if we’re standing within a couple hundred meters of the start, when the throng is actually a throng.

People are rarely visibly despondent in certain settings, and road races—especially “turkey trot”-style races—is one of them. Today, it was evident from the selection of license plates on the vehicles parked in Flatirons Office Park, what people wore, and the increased aura of general wonder and benign confusion that most casual runners display in what for them is a destination race.

I may be content to bask in a miasma of negative-to-nihilistic thoughts much of the time, but be it by instinct or design, when I surround myself with people, I try to pick settings almost guaranteed to produce more positive than negative interactions. At road races, the “almost” goes away. Rosie invariably attracts a share of admirers, mostly kids, and sometimes greets other dogs. The unexplained, longstanding choice among most contemporary race organizers to blast Eighties music—while decadent to the point of grisliness—usually spins me into a reverie about a race I ran when whatever song is playing was new. I wind up getting a run of some sort in.

Standing at the finish watching pack runners trickle out of the chute is energizing. There is something pure and artistic about the red-faced “Hey, I sure tried today” look on most everyday runners’ faces in those immediate post-race moments, before their minds can import any ill judgments to the exhibition.

Today, Rosie and I, having covered about two random miles at a jog as we watched people race, did what is probably Rosie’s favorite longer run. It’s around six miles, and usually takes us a little over fifty minutes with creek-dunks, snow-rolls, and other brief stops.

The northeastern reach of this route includes a three-mile-long triangular loop, the lower portion of which is shown below. The interchange at top left shows the north-south Foothills Parkway meeting Pearl Parkway, which a couple miles to the east becomes the far-better-known Pearl Street.

The office park between Pearl Parkway and what is clearly a set of east-west-running railroad tracks was purchased last year by a Boston developer for $190 million.

We approach this area from the south, giving us two options: Continue north along the Foothills Path or turn east onto the Boulder Creek Path. Rosie always demands to go north, because she knows what comes after the bridges over Walney Street and the railroad tracks: Lots and lots of prairie dogs to covet.

If you have ever run or walked with a dog that insists on making certain turns at intersections, with a pleading look over its shoulder, then you know how satisfying it is at that moment to forge ahead because you know your supposedly dim friend is experiencing a distinctly human-like sensation despite its putative lack of consciousness, which rests on complex language: Anticipation.

I have not missed a day of running in 2022 thanks to injury or illness. I’ve chosen to not run on a small handful of days (maybe five) owing to weather or just not finding myself eager to do much. That in itself is a reason to be grateful, as is the corollary—enjoying good health at a time morbidity across systems and unexplained mortality are sharply rising.

I’m grateful to my readers. And even though I issue frequent reminders that paywalling any of this content would both contradict its mission and lead me down whole new avenues of stress, every paid subscription matters both monetarily and as an affirmation something I do is on the right track, something offering a few minutes of escape or entertainment, or both. I enjoy the banter, and most of all I appreciate that I maintain an audience despite knowing that at some point I will say something that pisses you (yes, you) off.

I reckon that not one reader agrees with me on more than 80 percent of anything, meaning that lots of people can overlook the chance to be offended up to 20 percent of the time, probably because they understand that my insults spring from my efforts to process what I see rather than the reverse. If I screw up, I would rather it would be a basic blunder of intelligence-gathering than a result of being pulled down tribal roads.

Being actively grateful won’t always or even usually change a foul mood entirely for the better. Right now, I still feel penetrating despondencies about aspects of the world I believe will continue to change for the worse, not the ones most of you are thinking about (or think I’m thinking about). I don’t develop a whole new bouncy foundation on which to operate from reminding myself I am appreciated and loved.

But it’s impossible for me to go very far down self-destructive paths when I remember this. Just like you can eat while having a conversation but not actually swallow food and inhale air at the same time, I can’t feel lowly, angry, or lonely enough to exist on the edge of hopelessness when genuinely embracing thanks for someone or something. The crud will seep back in later or perhaps return in a food, but it won’t break through a gratitude force-field while its generators are working.

I could go on, but I hope everyone is thinking of their own list now and getting immersed in that instead. I’m watching Rosie, worn out in the best way, become one with the floor with what looks like a smile on her face, but doesn’t have to be.