from John:
C-s defines gratitude in many ways throughout his less-than-ten pages he devotes to it. In fact, he probably restates the general definition at least once per page, if not more. However, a comprehensive definition can be offered as thus; Gratitude is the enjoyment of eternity, the pleasure of receiving, the joy of being joyful, the most pleasant of virtues, and the most virtuous of pleasures. (132-137, that list is a combination of three quotes).
"To thank is to give; to be gracious means to share... This joy, this happiness, they belong to both of us" the giver and the receiver (133). Thus, "Gratitude is love, not a quid pro quo" (135). Ergo it has to be willing given and cannot be forced, expected or even demanded. Because gratitude cannot be forced, then it has to come out of something else, some existential "love" (fraternal, camaraderie, just to be clear) for another. When someone is kind to someone else, it causes a chain reaction; Gratitude and generosity go hand in hand, wherein, someone is generous to another person who feels gratitude towards them and then is generous in turn. Think of the old coke commercials, where everyone passed along a coke to the next person; the person holding the coke was already smiling and happy, while the person they were about to give it to was not or was simply working hard. Once the coke was passed, the new person felt the same way and therefore felt generous enough to keep on passing the coke, so as to share the joy, in a gracious manner. The "egoist", as C-S puts it, or someone who is self-absorbed, cannot enjoy gratitude because when he receives something, he keeps the happiness to himself, by being ungrateful. "We absorb joy as others absorb light, for egoism is a black hole" (134).
Gratitude is both honorable and good because it has the ability to allow us to see from where we have attained joy from another person and then share it, thus making us good as well. However good it may be, it cannot come before other, more "important" virtues. C-S uses the example along the lines of a murderer saving your life and then them asking you to testify for them, saying that they are innocent. While it is right to be gracious for having your life saved, it is not right to let this gracious feeling come before other virtues, like honesty and justice. Conversely, it cannot take a backseat to pride, though "We all tend to see the love we have received as reason for self-congratulation rather than a cause for gratitude... Pride refuses to owe, self-love to pay" (135), in the mind of C-S. Pride often does not allow for gratitude, because, in the sense that C-S has proposed, pride is all aimed inward, at the self. However, I disagree with this point, and I feel anyone who has a family can relate; one can certainly feel pride for someone other than themselves, especially in someone that they love, in which case, the pride is humble and not arrogant, because it is sharing in someone else's success and therefore, joy, as gratitude would have us do.
Gratitude is a feeling that lives in the present, as opposed to regret or nostalgia, which linger in the past, and hope and apprehension, which lie in the future. Gratitude is the pleasure of the here and now, what is and what has just taken place. When gratitude does deal with the past, "It is time regained - the past recaptured, if you will - 'the grateful recollection of what has been'" (137).
Some parting quotes, to think about, be inspired by, etc. :
"Gratitude does not abolish grief; it completes it" (138), so that one can come out of the mourning process and instead rejoice that whatever was lost and being mourned ever existed in the first place.
"Life is not a debt: life is a state of grace, and being is a state of grace,; therein lies gratitude's highest lesson" (137).
Lastly, in gratitude, we defeat death, because death can only take away the future, which doesn't yet exist, and cannot take away what has caused you joy in the past.
from Kelsey
ReplyDelete“Gratitude is a second pleasure, one that prolongs the pleasure that precedes and occasions it like a joyful echo of the joy we feel, a further happiness for the happiness we have been given” (132).
I love this definition C-S gives for gratitude. It puts it in such a wonderfully positive light. He also mentions, though, in the beginning that while gratitude is a wonderful virtue, it is sometimes difficult. I think that is a fair assessment: while showing gratitude is a powerful and rewarding feeling, at times it is difficult to be grateful. “Gratitude: the pleasure of receiving, the joy of being joyful” (132). Gratitude is all about recognizing the blessings in our lives and appreciating them to the fullest. C-S goes on to say that “gratitude is a mystery, not because of the pleasure it affords us but because of the obstacles we must overcome to feel it” (132). Again, he is mentioning that at times, gratitude is not easy. Sometimes, we're not even sure of the reasoning behind ungrateful feelings. Or, personally, there are things that I take for granted that in reality I should recognize as a great gift and be grateful for instead of thinking that I deserve it. "Gratitude is gratuitous in that one cannot ask of it, or for it, any recompense whatsoever” (135).
I think C-S makes an excellent point here.
“Life is not a debt: life is a state of grace, and being is a
state of grace; therein lies gratitude’s highest lesson” (137). I absolutely love this line in C-S' section on Gratitude. I think we constantly need to be grateful for life and never take it for granted. Life is a precious gift that we are given and we need to make the most of it while at the same time never forgetting it's value. “Gratitude frees us from death, through the joyous knowledge of what was” (137). This means it is important no to dwell on the past, but rather reflecting on what it held and having joy in that. This turns death from something sad to just another journey.
from Michael
ReplyDeleteSponville defines gratitude as the "most pleasant of virtues and the most virtuous of pleasures" (132). In essence, gratitude is total joy transformed into a virtue. It is the recognition and authentic appreciation of life itself and what it gives the individual. It is a unselfish joy that moves outward from an individual and becomes contagious, spreading to others and strengthening that semi-virtue of solidarity. Therefore, gratitude that is simply said to manipulate others or make others envious of his or her own joy is not real gratitude. In Dante's Paradiso, there is constant joy and gratitude among those in heaven. The light of God easily passes through each person, so that it seems as if each person is a reflector of that light. None of them absorb that light for themselves. The joy from gratitude reflects from one person to another, and the emphasis is not on the joy of any one person but the joy of the whole - "…It [Gratitude] gives away itself, like a joyful echo, and in this it is love…" (134).
The people in Dante's version of heaven also are in constant motion whereas those in Dante's version of hell are trapped in ice and frozen. Similarly, gratitude is in constant, progressive motion, focusing on the present. "It [Gratitude] is therefore the opposite of regret or nostalgia" (137). When a person gives a eulogy about someone who has died, he or she describes all the good things about that person and brings those experiences into the present. That person and those hear him or her speak are thanking him or her for living and also loving that person who has died as if he or she was still alive. Indeed, the deads' qualities are still alive - inside of each person he or she has affected. Because of gratitude's effects of putting the past into the present, there is a reason to be joyful even in the most saddening of times. Therefore, Sponville says that "…gratitude is joy; it is love" (139).
"Gratitude does not abolish grief; it completes it." (138) What a powerful line. Gratitude is all about rejoicing in what has been and being grateful for what life has granted you. I can completely relate to this quote by Comte-Sponville. When my dad was killed in a car accident nearly five years ago, I never thought that joy would come out of the situation. However, after time, the cycle of grief continued, and I found gratitude to be a completion and closure to this process. Anger, questioning, frustration, and loneliness aside, you are left with pieces of the past. You are left with cherished moments that you can't help but smile upon. After the initial shock subsided, I began to reflect on the 14 years I had spent with my dad. They had been nothing but bliss. He was the perfect father and role model to all. I couldn't help but be grateful for the time spent with him and for the simple fact that he was my father. This gratitude brought me closure and allowed me to realize that we cannot live in regrets and worry, but rather must cherish every moment we have and be joyful in recalling them. Though I miss him more than anything, I am so grateful that I have memories that bring me smiles every day, as if someone passed me the can of coke. :)
ReplyDelete“Gratitude frees us from death, through the joyous knowledge of what was.” (137) Death no longer holds my dad, because he is alive and well in my memory. The joy that he brought me lives forever in my heart. Death is not the end, but rather, it is the beginning of gratitude for life.
Comte-Sponville begins his chapter on gratitude with what I feel to be a blunt contradiction. On the very first page, he states that gratitude is a virtue that is not easy to experience, and that we must overcome obstacles in order to feel it (page 132). Only a few sentences later, however, he presents gratitude as the logical partner of generosity. C-S argues that, while generosity requires us to be selfless, gratitude requires nothing more than they joy felt at the prospect of receiving (page 133). This immediately begs the question of what makes gratitude a difficult or complex virtue if, at a first glance, it occurs naturally in response to the generosity of others.
ReplyDeleteWhile the chapter begins in way that is perhaps confusing, I feel that C-S explains very well why gratitude is a difficult virtue. When a person receives a gift from another, it is natural for him or her to feel joy. This happiness, however, is not gratitude in itself; it can only be true gratitude if the recipient acts upon it. C-S thus states that egoists cannot be grateful because they focus only on the joy that they feel and are not prompted to acknowledge their debt to others or give thanks in return (page 133). The act of giving thanks is generosity; it can thus be said that generosity and gratitude have a cause-and-effect relationship.
A concept that is particularly interesting to me—and one that I feel exemplifies the concept of gratitude as a difficult virtue quite well—is that of “tragic gratitude” (page 134). C-S states that “Gratitude…knows it is graced, graced by existence, or by life, or by all things, and gives in return, not knowing to whom or how, simply because it is good to offer thanks—to give grace—in return, to rejoice in one’s own joy and love, whose causes are always beyond our comprehension...” (page 136). When we consider this quote, we must understand that, in order to be truly grateful, we must appreciate the good things in our lives along with the bad; not because they are both pleasant, but because the two combined make up our existence, and we must be grateful for our existence in its entirety.
I was surprised by C-S’s explanation that “Gratitude is a mystery, not because of the pleasure it affords us but because of the obstacles we must overcome to feel it” (132). It is interesting that C-S describes gratitude as a virtue that many are lacking. Gratitude is the easiest of virtues, C-S also explains. Showing thanks is easy and I think second nature to many when receiving a gift or a kindness. What obstacles must we overcome to practice this virtue? C-S somewhat answers this question with egotism and selfishness, but I still find it interesting that he stresses that gratitude is the easiest virtue to practice, but many lack it.
ReplyDelete“Giving always involves loss which is why generosity is the opposite of and the counter to selfishness. But receiving? Gratitude takes nothing from us…Gratitude has nothing to give” (133). This quote sums up what I believe to be one of the central lessons C-S is trying to make us understand in this chapter. Gratitude is important in regards not to oneself but to another. Showing gratitude to flaunt the praise one was given is not truly gratitude because you are doing so for your own gratification, not for another. Expressing gratitude for a gift or kindness “with a smile or dance step” (133) to another is what makes gratitude virtuous. Self-gratification is not virtue, but an obstacle that is to be overcome.
I agree with Kelsey’s comment that gratitude is important to live life to the fullest. I believe that it is that mentality, one of never taking life for granted that makes gratitude an important virtue. If we are to live our lives as though every day were a blessing and not something that we are entitled to, quality of life and happiness would significantly increase.
I was particularly drawn to C-S’s question asking, “What happier and more humble virtue, what easier and more necessary grace than that of giving thanks with a smile or a dance step, with a song or with happiness itself?” (133). With this question, he captures the essence of gratitude in that it is the art of being thankful. It is the answer and perfect counterpart to generosity. When generosity asks of us to give to others, gratitude asks that we be thankful when others express generosity towards us. When we express thanks or gratitude for something that we receive, we are, in effect, enabling a chain reaction, like passing a Coke along, of happiness and pleasure that cannot be undone. This is such a necessary effect for humanity. We all want to feel appreciated and genuinely feel like we made someone feel better through our actions when we are generous. Likewise, when someone is generous towards us, we want to make sure he or she knows that we are grateful, and we thus express, or at least attempt to express, our gratitude for whatever that person did for or gave to us. Gratitude is, in theory, incredibly simple. It does not take much; a simple gesture can suffice, to show how grateful we are. It is an expression of joy, of love, of friendship and all the greatest things of life. C-S calls gratitude “the secret of friendship, not because we feel indebted to our friends, since we owe them nothing, but because we share with them an overabundance of common, reciprocal joy” (139). It just makes life more enjoyable when appreciation and thanks is expressed. It lets the joy go on between friends and among strangers. As Epicurus says, “Friendship goes dancing round the world” (139), and with something as simple as a dance step, a thank you, a song or the like, gratitude can be expressed and joy can be carried throughout the world, spreading happiness and infecting humanity with love. What a wonderful thing, small and simple, yet so powerful and necessary.
ReplyDeleteTo me, gratitude is being grateful, being thankful, appreciating what you are given and giving back. He described it as such throughout the chapter. He backs me up the most specifically on 133, “to thank is to give; to be gracious means to share. This pleasure that I owe to you is not for me alone. This joy, this happiness, they belong to both of us.” This means that when we are given a gift, not only is it our gift to enjoy, but it is there gift to watch us enjoy it. That it why people get such pleasure in gifting others, because it brings them joy to see that smile on the gifted’s face.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what Karlie said about gratitude’s role in grief. When one passes we are saddened by the fact that they are gone, but we are able to rejoice in the wonderful times we had together. When my friends were in a car accident, I was so sad that Maria died. But I often am reminded about the good times we had together, and It makes me all the more grateful that I was able to know her and that she was able to make an impact on my life before she passed. (And can I just say, Karlie, thank you for sharing.)
I also agree with Kelsey’s comment that gratitude is important to live life to the fullest. If you are not grateful for what you have, then how can you keep moving forward and effect other people’s lives? If you take life for granted, if you are sheltered, if you are too scared to do anything, then how can you move forward and enjoy what you have? How can you be grateful for the life God gave you if you hide?
Comte-Sponville writes that “Gratitude rejoices in what has taken place or in what is…the opposite of regret or nostalgia…as Pascal would say, they hope to live and then regret the life they lived or, more often, the life they did not live” (137). He spends a section in this Gratitude chapter discussing the relationship of gratitude and time. I think this is a vital part of this important, wonderful, joyful virtue that is so hard for so many of us to achieve. In The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles writes that “the desire to hold and the desire to enjoy are mutually destructive.” He writes that you should think “I possess this now, therefore I am happy,” and not “I cannot possess this forever, and therefore am sad.” I think C-S and Fowles are getting at the same idea here. This idea of wanting to own things, instead of simply enjoying them—instead of simply feeling gratitude that they existed or are right now existing for you. Nothing lasts forever. Many waste their days in a kind of sorrowful mutation of hope—a longing that every happiness they had will stay forever.
ReplyDeleteTo use another literary example, Dickens’ immortal Miss Havisham is at the other extreme of this problem we have with time. She is consumed by the past—she refuses to leave it, stuck in a moment of time years ago when she was happy, and by trying so hard to bring that moment back, she is instead trapped in eternal misery.
Time is change—it cannot exist without it. I think that the gratitude C-S discusses in this chapter is a key part to happiness. We have to accept that time changes all, and that we cannot hold onto any joys or any sorrows, in order that we may truly enjoy the ones to come. We must joyfully remember the joys, and accept (joyfully, if we can) the past sorrows as well—in an endless gratitude that they existed at all, that they exist now, that we can look to the future with a healthy hope for we-don’t-know-what.
Gratitude is an interesting virtue. At first glance, it might seem like a really easy one--someone is nice, we feel grateful. But is it really? Real life would seem to suggest it is not. I know that there are people who are not grateful to me, but should be, and I know that I am not grateful enough to many people who have done nice things for me.
ReplyDeleteI think C-S is absolutely right when he mentions selfishness and egotism as the reason for this. I think the Catholic Church is right when it claims that pride underlies all other sins. At least, it does as far as ingratitude goes. If we have a balanced view of the world, we can see the good that comes from a good deed and be happy with it.
But if we see ourselves at the center of the universe (which is guess possibly someone is, but no more than one), then our perspective changes. Instead of being grateful for the good that someone else can do for us, we often become bitter than we have accepted their help.
I think the reason for this is that we wish we could be totally self-sufficient. I think that any degree of dependence on others irks some people, to the degree that some people actually feel bitter when accepting the help of others. C-S calls gratitude a "humble" virtue, and I think he is absolutely right. I think that humility is maybe the most difficult of the virtues, and so gratitude by extension can be more difficult than we think.