Letters from Tomis

Gratitude, that most disarming of emotions, presents itself as a virtue so universal it risks being unexamined. In an age suffused with self-congratulation, where we are urged to “count our blessings” as if the act itself were a transaction with the cosmos, I am moved to ask: gratitude for what, precisely? And to whom is this sentiment directed?

It is easy—perilously so—to mistake gratitude for an act of servility, a genuflection before some presumed benefactor, be it divine or human. To those of us who take a secular view of the world, this can feel like a category error. One may feel a deep sense of thanks without presupposing a cosmic puppeteer. I, for one, have never needed a deity to feel overwhelmed by the beauty of a day well-lived, the unbidden kindness of a stranger, or the bounty of conversation and learning. These moments demand not worship but recognition—a reckoning, if you will, with the improbability of their occurrence and their transient nature.

Gratitude, properly understood, is a defiance of entitlement. It is a conscious acknowledgment that the universe owes us nothing and yet offers, on occasion, more than we might dare to demand. The evening sky does not paint itself in hues of auburn and gold for our benefit, and yet we find ourselves moved by it. The company of friends, the pageantry of a great book, or the warmth of a lover’s embrace—these are neither our rights nor our wages. They are accidents of fortune, but what accidents!

One must also consider gratitude as an antidote to the petty grievances that dominate so much of our private and public discourse. To be grateful is not to surrender to complacency or to accept injustice, but to resist the corrosive pull of envy and resentment. The habit of gratitude reminds us that life, for all its flaws, is not entirely a vale of tears. Even amidst struggle, there are consolations, and it is these that fortify us against despair.

But let us beware of gratitude becoming an instrument of manipulation. Those who wield power have long known its utility in demanding compliance: “Be grateful for what you have,” they intone, as if gratitude should preclude the aspiration for something more. Gratitude, like any virtue, is corrupted when it becomes a cudgel. True gratitude is not passive. It is active, dynamic, and, above all, discerning.

In my life, gratitude has often been tied to curiosity—the profound joy of discovering, arguing, learning. If there is a deity I revere, it is the god of inquiry, whose gifts are inexhaustible but never unearned. To be grateful for the opportunity to think, to engage, to wrestle with ideas, is to affirm the best of what it means to be human.

And so, I end not with a prayer but with a toast: to life, to its improbabilities, to its fleeting moments of joy. To gratitude, rightly understood—not as a submission to fate but as an embrace of what is, and what could yet be: a more just world where all are accorded a life with enough to eat, a rewarding job for work, and a comfortable home for rest.

For those that celebrate this day or not, I wish you a thoughtful, Happy Thanksgiving.