What is gratitude and what is it worth?

Quoting TiredThinker

Lots of people say in our lives we should try to be grateful. But do we do it because we are in fact grateful, or we want to disguise any sense that we feel we earned something and paid the price for it?

I think few are the former, many are the latter and some are both.

Does gratitude without a debtor make sense?

Do you mean 'without a benefactor'?

Assuming [s]there is no God should[/s] we feel grateful for life or this world we have come to know?

Yes.

And assuming there is a God do they require our gratitude if everything this all knowing being does they do with exacting purpose?

'Gratitude for being alive' is a(n existential) stance towards nature (or existing at all) and not an address to some invisible sky daddy. Besides, any entity expecting – feeling entitled to – gratitude, IMO, forfeits it.

Is gratitude really tentative humility?

No.

Gratitude, it seems, is an attitude from/of fulfillment, of abundance, of surplus.

The song of the nightingale, lion cubs playing with their mother while their father is basking under the sun, bears tumbling down the hill after a meal......the blooming of a flower.....the sprouting of a seed...

Gratitude has nothing to do with your "idea" of God (whatever 'God' means). There is no need to make everything so petty.

"What is it worth?"

Good Lord! Its like asking the lover, "what is love worth"? The lover will probably ask, "have you ever been in love"?

Quoting TiredThinker

Assuming there is no God should we feel grateful for life or this world we have come to know? And assuming there is a God do they require our gratitude if everything this all knowing being does they do with exacting purpose?

I feel grateful for aspects of life but not life in general. Grateful for access to medicine, resources, electricity, health, not living in a war zone, etc.

I would not accept that gratefulness is an appropriate word to describe how one should feel towards a creator god. From my perspective this must be a messed up deity with entitlement issues.

In the whim of grace- gratitude- for the many things to be grateful for, otherwise null response to life(being gave/being alive)?

Quoting TiredThinker

Is gratitude really tentative humility?

I find words like 'birthright' or 'entitlement,' offensive when used by an aristocrat or a plutocrat/autocrat etc, regarding their social/economic/influential status. I find the same words 'essential' when people use them to refer to basics such as water, food, shelter, fair and equal treatment etc. To me, if you express gratitude when you don't really feel it then you either don't understand the concept and are just suffering from some lack of social education, (like a toddler who insists that all the toys in the box belong to them and they will fully control their access and use and if they want the toy you currently have then you must comply.) or you are deep down, basically, a nefarious b******.
I feel the same way about personal demonstrations of the concept of 'humility.' Like gratitude, humility is a trait of a 'good person,' imo, if its demonstration is genuine.
For me, it's a question of 'does your demonstrations of gratitude and humility stand up to scrutiny?'

I think gratitude is an extension of empathy or mirroring. I think we realize how much work it takes to make things go right for ourselves or others in life. When we see nice things happen to ourselves from things outside of our control, I believe its taking that sense about our self, and attributing that to whatever it was that had to work to make the reality you are experiencing.

Reply to Philosophim

:smile:

Putting God aside. Do we fear the direction our psyche might go in if we don't take stock in things of a positive nature that we receive that we didn't directly contribute to? Is it part of the expectation managing system more than anything?

From a Buddhist point of view...

People will either give you sorrow or joy.

If they give you joy, gratitude is in order for obvious reasons.

If they give you sorrow, gratitude is in order still for you're given the golden opportunity to pay off your karmic debt i.e. pain is atonement for your sins, past and present.

To get right to the point, always be thankful/grateful irrespective of how you feel, happy/sad.

:snicker:

Reply to Agent Smith Like anger (à la Buddha), ingratitude is a double-edged sword.

There is a not terribly old expression of uncertain origin: -- "To the privileged, equality can feel like oppression."
Which one can turn around. To the oppressed, equality feels like a privilege.

But life is complex, and everyone is to an extent privileged and to an extent oppressed. One might feel one's privilege and be grateful, or in the same circumstances, feel one's oppression and be resentful. It is more pleasant to feel grateful than resentful, I find.

Quoting 180 Proof

Like anger (à la Buddha), ingratitude is a double-edged sword.

:ok:

Reply to TiredThinker I once had a brief and unsettling exchange with a psychologist who researches gratitude. On his blog, I asked how to express gratitude when I feel thankful for things where I can't direct the thanks to any specific person, such as being grateful for good weather, that we didn't have a hailstorm, that plants grow at the expected rate, that a strange spot on my skin disappeared.

He replied per email, and expressed his suspicion that I was merely trolling him. I tried to explain myself, to no avail. Apparently, scientifically, the only thing that matters about gratitude (and gratitude is a posh research field recently) is that it makes one feel good, and to hell with whoever provided the good stuff that one is grateful for.

Quoting 180 Proof

Like anger (à la Buddha), ingratitude is a double-edged sword.

Not for the self-confident, self-assured.

Quoting skyblack

Gratitude, it seems, is an attitude from/of fulfillment, of abundance, of surplus.

Actually, it should come from a sense of lack, from a recognition of one's insufficiency and indebtedness.

What is gratitude? One of Newton's laws applied to social dynamics, "Every action has an equal or opposite reaction."

Quoting baker

Actually, it should come from a sense of lack, from a recognition of one's insufficiency and indebtedness.

Really? Perhaps you will explain? I'm listening.

Reply to baker

To be clear there is no dispute in "the recognition of indebtedness". We are in agreement. My post you are responding to clearly acknowledges the point, and has also tried to use some metaphors to drive home the point. What you seem to be objecting is to my usage of the words "of fulfillment, of abundance, of surplus". You are instead saying it comes from "a sense of lack". So abundance vs lack is the issue? Go ahead.

I wonder which gratitude is most important. If I were perpetually grateful I'd be exhausted and feel unworthy of everything and start to stop driving my life in any particular way.

The 3 magic words:

1. Please

2. Sorry

3. Thank you

[quote=Grace (Terminator Salvation)]Don't thank me yet![/quote]

:snicker:

Quoting TiredThinker

If I were perpetually grateful I'd be exhausted and feel unworthy of everything and start to stop driving my life in any particular way.

:sad: "We can't do it, it's impossible! That's why we must do it!" said the idiot!

Quoting TiredThinker

I wonder which gratitude is most important. If I were perpetually grateful I'd be exhausted and feel unworthy of everything and start to stop driving my life in any particular way.

Hence gratitude requires a metaphysical framework in order to be meaningful.

Quoting baker

Gratitude, it seems, is an attitude from/of fulfillment, of abundance, of surplus.
— skyblack

Actually, it should come from a sense of lack, from a recognition of one's insufficiency and indebtedness.

Quoting skyblack

What you seem to be objecting is to my usage of the words "of fulfillment, of abundance, of surplus". You are instead saying it comes from "a sense of lack". So abundance vs lack is the issue? Go ahead.

One cannot provide for oneself. The default is lack. One is left to the mercy of millions of other beings. Starting with plants which make breathable air. All the people who produce the food we eat, who make sure there is electricity in the power sockets so that we can plug in our devices, etc. etc. etc.

If any person or other entity in this vast system of production and consumption doesn't do their job, we're left with a lack, we're left wanting. And we cannot make up for it on our own. Without plants, we have no air to breathe, and we can't make it ourselves. Without someone to process raw oil or make electricity, we can't drive our cars. And so on.

Fulfillment, abundance, surplus imply that there is a baseline that is provided by default, that we can take for granted. I'm saying the baseline is zero, a dead universe which isn't conducive to life. Everything that is more than that is not a given. Hence this is where gratitude should be directed.

Reply to baker

Let me ask you, you are speaking from your own understandings, right? You have understood gratitude? You speak of gratitude because you understand it and live it in your everyday life and living?

Along the lines, you have also understood lack? The nature of it? How it arises in a person? What are its effects. How we respond to a perception of lack etc? The entire movement of lack? You have reflected and processed all these?

Reply to skyblack Not sure what you're asking.

It seems that for most people, their intuitive response to an experience of lack is not gratitude, but sadness, contempt, or anger.

Quoting baker

Not sure what you're asking.

These are straightforward questions.

Quoting skyblack

Let me ask you, you are speaking from your own understandings, right? You have understood gratitude? You speak of gratitude because you understand it and live it in your everyday life and living?

Along the lines, you have also understood lack? The nature of it? How it arises in a person? What are its effects. How we respond to a perception of lack etc? The entire movement of lack? You have reflected and processed all these?

Are you having problems reading them or understanding them?

Reply to skyblack It seems you have an underlying assumption here, but it's not clear what it is.
It seems you're after a universally applicable explanation of gratitude that will hold for every person, regardless of said person's specifics.

Gratitude is likely associated with desired brain states (a feeling of satisfaction/peace/love). If love were an island, folks living on it would be bonded in mutual trust through acts of authentic gratitude. One would be more often genuinely grateful and show it in reciprocity with another.

The self-help psychologists say you can fake gratitude until you make gratitude, exercise the circuits, like the Buddhists might exercise loving kindness (Metta) toward establishing a good social habit.

Just never show gratitude toward your boss, or he'll likely pile on the workload. There is no room for gratitude in master/slave relationships, unless of course you enjoy your work and can picture yourself as a free man instead of a precariat slave in our Capitalist utopia.

Reply to baker

You came and disputed what i had said. I am asking you to explain your dispute. I am asking, you are speaking on these subjects because you have thought about them? Reflected? Processed? You practice it in your everyday living? You are qualified to speak on these things? So the questions are:

Quoting skyblack

Let me ask you, you are speaking from your own understandings, right? You have understood gratitude? You speak of gratitude because you understand it and live it in your everyday life and living?

Along the lines, you have also understood lack? The nature of it? How it arises in a person? What are its effects. How we respond to a perception of lack etc? The entire movement of lack? You have reflected and processed all these?

Reply to Nils Loc :cool: :up:

Reply to TiredThinker Some of my thoughts on "gratitude" from old threads:
Quoting 180 Proof

[E]xistence is gratuitous and not "mysterious" – the only reason for it all that does not beg the question with an infinite regress is that there isn't any reason for it all – and so we find ourselves each one meaningful to oneself (conatus) and then, to the degree we're a sentient species, recognizing each other as also meaningful to herself and so shared (eusocial) meanings (i.e. kinship, morals, dance, myths, communities, etc) emerge and are cultivated through time.

Quoting 180 Proof

I show gratitude for my daily bread with generosity to others I encounter everyday
[ ... ] I try to be a good Samaritan and a smart Spartacus. I also try to live by Hillel the Elder's golden rule [ ... ] the Sisyphusean courage-to-empathically-be.

Gratitude is a nonbinding IOU issued by some beneficiaries. :snicker:

Reply to skyblack Of course. How else do you think I have my opinion on the matter?


Quoting skyblack

How we respond to a perception of lack etc?

Who is "we"? Hence, it seems you're after a universally applicable explanation of gratitude that will hold for every person, regardless of said person's specifics.

Quoting baker

Of course. How else do you think I have my opinion on the matter?

I'm asking questions, ain't I? I will recommend you do the same. Instead of forming opinions that may or or may not be correct. But more on this in a moment.

First, i had to repeat the questions 3 times for you to give a straight answer, after you initially pretended-

Quoting baker

Not sure what you're asking.

What i was asking were straightforward questions, questions you were attempting to evade for some reason. Please stay away from any evasion tactics, if you wish to continue.

Quoting baker

Who is "we"? Hence, it seems you're after a universally applicable explanation of gratitude that will hold for every person, regardless of said person's specifics.

The following were my questions on "lack"

Note: continued on next post

Quoting skyblack

Along the lines, you have also understood lack? The nature of it? How it arises in a person? What are its effects. How we respond to a perception of lack etc? The entire movement of lack? You have reflected and processed all these?

You cut/cherry picked one question (italicized above) and gave your answer. I recommend you address ALL questions in the context they are being asked, and also ask questions (like you see me asking) instead of assuming, forming opinions, or putting words in my mouth. To quickly touch on what you have said, I'm not "after" anything. At this time we are simply attempting to understand your objection.

Now, again, Have you understood the nature of lack?

Quoting skyblack

Along the lines, you have also understood lack? The nature of it? How it arises in a person? What are its effects. How we respond to a perception of lack etc? The entire movement of lack? You have reflected and processed all these?

Are you going to go with what you have said before, viz

Quoting baker

It seems that for most people, their intuitive response to an experience of lack is not gratitude, but sadness, contempt, or anger.

Or are you going to answer all questions and add more?