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A Few Thoughts About Gratitude: The Dark Side of Gratitude

2/24/2018

Most people generally regard gratitude as a positive virtue and in most cases it is; nevertheless, not all examples of gratitude are virtuous. As with other virtues, gratitude has a dark side that is rarely considered. I have written about negative forms of gratitude in my novel and short stories and have included a short list of some kinds of negative gratitude I have explored in my writing.

Gratitude for evil deeds or actions of others.

This one is quite obvious. Showing or feeling appreciation for the evil deeds and actions of others is not virtuous in any way, shape, or form. If anything, it is little more than indulging in a form vicarious revenge or sadism. Regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, this form of gratitude makes you an accomplice in the evil deed.

Gratitude for the misfortune of others.

The German word Schadenfreude (harm/joy) perfectly captures the essence of this kind of negative gratitude. Experiencing satisfaction at the misfortune, ill-luck, failure, or humiliation of another is nothing more than malice. Though this kind of gratitude may bring pleasure, it is hardly a respectable form of gratitude.

Gratitude for the possibility of shirking ones duties and responsibilities.

Everyone appreciates a snow day now and then, but feeling grateful for being given the opportunity to shirk your duties and responsibilities when the possibility of fulfilling those duties and responsibilities is viable is false gratitude. It reeks of irresponsibility and immaturity.

Gratitude for getting away with lies and evil acts.

A common example of this is the unfaithful husband who is grateful that his wife knows nothing of his illicit affairs. Another is the relief one feels when one is able to float a lie past someone else. Regardless, the gratitude one feels is often short-lived, for lies often have a way of resurfacing later until they are ultimately revealed.

Gratitude as an excuse for accepting something suboptimal when a more optimal option can be attained.

Being grateful for little things is virtuous, but there is nothing virtuous about sacrificing one’s potential for the contentment of little things. Of course, there is nothing wrong with contentment, but gratitude that is content with small things breeds a false sense of satisfaction that could prove limiting and harmful in the long-term. This kind of gratitude inspires passivity and acceptance. It is the gratitude of the coward and the slave – there is no dignity or nobility in it.

There are a few others, but these shall suffice for now. On the whole, gratitude is a virtue, but not all forms of gratitude are virtuous. Negative gratitude is an interesting subject to include in novels and stories, but one should be aware of them in life as well.

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A Few Thoughts About Gratitude: A Candle in the Darkness

2/23/2018

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Over the past five or six years, I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about gratitude, its various aspects, and the role it might play in the pursuit of a fulfilling life. I plan to record some of these observations in a series of blogposts over the next week or so. Some observations or insights may even be original.

A Few Thoughts on Gratitude: Candlelight in the darkness

When I wake up in the morning, I remind myself to be grateful. I draw a deep breath and appreciate the opportunity of having been given another day. I savour this feeling for a moment or two before contemplating the sombre idea that the day ahead could also mark the day my existence in this world ends because, whether I accept it or not, I know that day is out there waiting for me. Rather than instilling terror or depression, this realization deepens my sense of gratitude. If the day ahead does hold my demise, I am comforted by the notion that my life on this Earth has been and continues to be filled with immense blessings. Verily, my life, like all lives, has had its share of misfortunes, failures, blunders, tragedies, pain, and suffering, but it has also had its share of good fortune, success, victories, joy, and vitality. As strange as it sounds, I am thankful for both the positive and the negative, for they have both taught me much.

Though my sense of gratitude is usually bright, there have been calamities or episodes of ill health that have reduced it to a mere, dull flickering. When faced with challenging times when it seemed I had nothing for which to be grateful, I have always made a point of maintaining and nurturing my gratitude as if it were the soft glow of a candle flame. Like a small flame from a candle, I have come to recognize that even a minute amount of gratitude has the uncanny power push back against darkness and puncture the oppression of night’s formless boundaries.

Also like a candle flame, I am aware that gratitude can become vulnerable and exposed when confronted by dark challenges. A careless breath, the slightest air movement, a small drop of water can all quickly snuff out a candle flame. Similarly, a careless thought, the slightest loss of perspective, a small drop of despair can extinguish the flame of gratitude. If I allow the flame to go out, I know the amorphous, chaotic darkness will be quick to invade and reclaim the space the flame once occupied. If I do not relight the candle, the darkness will remain; I know that if I remain in the darkness for too long, it will consume me.

Therefore, I have come to the realization that it is crucial to keep the candle of gratitude lit during challenging times. Whenever I am confronted by hardship, I carefully cup and guard the flame with my hand as I make my way in the darkness. Though the light gratitude casts may appear weak and insignificant, the illumination is often enough to help me safely navigate through the darkness until sunrise. In this sense, gratitude is akin to hope. During times when it seemed sunrise would never come, that little fleck of light provided enough illumination to ward off the tempting nihilism and meaninglessness that lay hidden in the darkness. Thus, even in moments when I was sure despair would overcome me, I used the dim glow of the candlelight to discover or create something for which I could be grateful.

When I go to bed at night, the last feeling I experience before I close my eyes is gratitude – even if the day had not been a good one, I cannot help but appreciate the opportunity of having experienced it. I keep the candle burning all night and when morning comes, I quickly light a fresh one when I remind myself to be grateful after I open my eyes.

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Thou Shalt Not Pander - The Unwritten Commandment Serious Artists and Thinkers Should Obey

2/21/2018

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There is a person I followed for a little while on social media who, until recently, provided some fairly interesting and unique insights into Shakespeare and Elizabethan poetry. He recorded his observations, posted them on YouTube, and attained a small, but loyal following of people who were authentically interested in the material he presented. This artist/scholar later received some publicity when he appeared in a series of videos featuring a famous academic. In these videos, they discussed the deeper implications of poetry from the Elizabethan era and applied some of the themes and concepts to the contemporary landscape of ideas. Naturally, interest in the artist/scholar grew after these videos, which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

He has real talent, this artist/scholar guy. He possesses some deep poetical insights and writes some great poems himself. Then one day he posted a video in which he analyzed a vapid science fiction movie. To his astonishment, the application of the ideas he had expressed in his earlier Shakespearean and poetry videos proved to be quite popular when grafted onto the sci-fi blockbuster. His sci-fi interpretation earned ten times as many views as his earlier videos. His following on social media increased significantly and his reach expanded markedly. Once again, this is a good thing.

However, our artist/scholar sensed an opportunity after his sci-fi video and quickly made a few more videos focusing on pop culture movies. Unsurprisingly, the Shakespearean side of his analyses began to fade and grow fainter with each pop culture video he made. I imagine the Shakespeare stuff will likely be eclipsed by whatever popular movie he happens to examine in the near future. I may be proven wrong, but I predict he will do fewer Shakespearean and Elizabethan videos in the future until, one day, he will abandon them altogether for the simple fact that they do not garner nearly as much interest as his Hollywood film interpretations do. (Nor do they, hypothetically, garner as many Patreon dollars, etc.) A few of his original followers have voiced mild objections about the Hollywood stuff. The artist/scholar responded by stating that he is planning to alternate between his original material and his newfound pop culture interpretations. To me it sounds a little like he plans to serve two masters.

So what? An individual can choose to do what they want, and besides aren’t modern Hollywood movies just an extension of Shakespearean drama which itself is merely an extension of older narratives? There is no harm in trying to hook an audience that may not have had exposure to these earlier narratives, right?

Yes, yes, of course.
So, what is the big deal then?
Well, nothing . . . and everything.

You see, I fear the poetry guy is falling into a trap. He is turning away from what truly made him great and has started pandering. He is indulging the baser tastes of the masses. The question is - to what end? Is he truly trying to enlighten the broader public whose conception of culture rarely rises above Hollywood schlock or is he merely working on building a larger audience base from which he hopes to extract a greater amount of fame and money? Is he remaining true to his roots, or is he selling out? I cannot answer that question, but I have my suspicions. I imagine the artist/scholar justifies his current course of action by telling himself that his real goal is to use his Hollywood movie interpretations to expose his new viewers and followers to Shakespeare and Elizabethan poetry, which, he will argue, they never would have even considered had they not stumbled across his pop culture videos. Maybe a few of these new viewers will even become Shakespearean scholars themselves, thus fortifying the field and spreading the glory of the immortal bard to an ever wider group of people.

Yeah, okay. Except that probably will not happen. The twin lure of money and fame can lead many astray, and the stench of potential money and fame is overpoweringly potent the closer one gets to the formless, faceless masses. The more attention he gains from the mainstream mob, the more inspired he might become to please their whims and fancies until, one fine day, he will find himself doing nothing but yielding to the fickle demands of the vulgar crowd. Rather than wooing people to discover the refined elegance of Elizabethan poetry, he may become the one who is wooed away from the refined elegance of Elizabethan poetry.

Our poetry scholar may thus end up very much like Pandarus, the mythical/fictional figure from which the modern word pander draws its source. Pandarus first appears in Homer's The Illiad as a bold and fierce Trojan aristocratic warrior. He is a noble character - strong and worthy of respect. Yet centuries later in the play Troillus and Cressida, Shakespeare depicts Pandarus as a degenerated, aged lecher and coward who caters to male desires by serving to arrange access to female sexual favors. In short, Pandarus is reduced to the stature of a pimp.

Though the underlying sexual conotation of the word pander has faded, this latter depiction of Pandarus is where our contemporary definition of the verb comes from. People who choose to pander are essentially pimps - they sell out the thing they should respect and cherish to quench the vulgar and base desire of others all in the hope that the transaction will yield immense personal benefits.

Once again, I can sympathize with those who might object to my criticisms concerning pandering. After all, all artists and thinkers engaged in building larger audiences for themselves are pandering in some manner or other, are they not?

Well, it depends. Ask yourself this: Does the artist's promotion involve some kind of betrayal, however small?

I approach the topic with a rather straightforward line of thinking . . .

Artists and thinkers of integrity do not pander; those who pander cease to be artists and thinkers of integrity.

Therefore, one of the unwritten ten commandments artists and thinkers must follow if they desire to be taken seriously in all things aesthetic or intellectual is:

Thou shalt not pander.

It really is that simple.

I wish the poetry guy a lot of luck. I sincerely do. Perhaps my criticism of him is off the mark. Perhaps I am being too cynical. Regardless, I hope the audience he is currently chasing supplies him with all he desires. He should be careful though - there is a price to be paid for seeking the favor of men; it often requires placing that above or at the expense of something much higher and far more significant.

Note: My Elizabethan scholar above is a fictional representation of a real artist and thinker who focuses on other matters and who, in my humble opinion, has fallen to the sin of pandering. He recently asked his followers if they would like to hear him interpret the new superhero film, Black Panther. (Hey, why not? It is really popular and controversial, you know.) Perhaps he should call the video, "My Take on Black Pander" or something like that. Just an idea.

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Sadly, My Fictional Depiction of Radical Leftist Hit Piece Writers Is Pretty Close to the Bullseye

2/6/2018

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1. Read this hit piece from Jacobin Magazine

2. Then read my depiction of the kinds of people who pen hit pieces like the one above.

3. Ask yourself if my over-the-top depiction of these kinds of writers is really that far from reality after all.

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My Faith in Reading, Literature, and the World in General Just Increased Tenfold

2/6/2018

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Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known to his millions of YouTube subscribers as PewDiePie recently posted a book review video.

Yes, a book review video.

No video games.

Just book reviews.

Fahrenheit 451. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Brave New World. 12 Rules For Life. And a couple of sci-fi books.

That is all he talked about.

And it was fantastic!

I hope it connects with his audience as much as it did with me. Check it out. Link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_qiYc133U

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A Satirical Response to the Jordan Peterson Hit Pieces

2/2/2018

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I do not normally write puerile, satirical short stories like the one I have written below, but I felt the need to respond creatively to the laughable articles some writers of minor repute have lobbed at Jordan Peterson over the past few weeks. I am not averse to articles criticizing Peterson's ideas and views, but the most recently published articles I have stumbled across have been anything but fair, objective, or accurate in their depiction of Peterson and his ideas. Many of them are nothing more than hit pieces - false and biased articles written purely for the purpose of swaying public opinion. I noticed something peculiar about the articles as I read them. In addition to being obvious hit pieces, they are also rather self-reflexive in nature. In other words, they reveal much more about their authors than they do about Peterson. In this sense they are akin to Peterson's now famous interview with Channel 4 reporter Cathy Newman.

My first instinct after reading three of four of these hit pieces was to compose a formal rebuttal of them, but that would grant these articles far more attention than they deserve. Instead, I chose to write a silly and satirical short story where I take a speculative peak at the possible motivations driving the composition of a Jordan Peterson hit piece. Though it is a bit provacative, I wrote the story in the spirit of good fun, packing it with every cliché and oversimplification I could muster. It is painfully over-the-top in its sweeping fictional depiction of a hit piece writer, yet I have the sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, my story cuts much closer to reality than the Jordan Peterson hit pieces do. In any case, I humbly invite you to give my story a read.

The Glorious Motivation Behind the Writing of a Jordan Peterson Hit Piece (Through Which The Author Hopes to Become Famous AND Signal His Virtue to the World - A Short Story -

Like many writers whose articles have appeared here and there and some other place, I currently live on the corner of Unknown and Oblivion. Lots of writers like me live here. Most days, you can find us at the local Starbucks sitting before Apple laptops trying hard to make it look like we are actually working diligently to destroy the patriarchy and usher in the utopia. We call each other comrades and wear fifty-dollar t-shirts emblazoned with Che Guevara and red stars. Once in a while, one of us manages to emerge from our collective nihilistic coma just long enough to clickety-clack together an article criticizing the horrors of capitalism, the swellness of post-modernism, and the glory of identity politics. Some of us even work as professors at universities where, thankfully, the sheer sophistry of our disciplines manages to shroud our collective academic incompetence. I am one of these professors. I wrote my PhD dissertation about the malevolent and misogynistic patriarchal oppression symbolized by women’s thong undergarments. No, really. It's a very problematic issue.

It’s an okay life, I guess, this writer/professor life. It's about all a useless blob of sub-atomic particles like me could hope for. Though my life is okay, I think life overall is nothing but meaningless suffering. Most of the time all I want to do is complain bitterly. Nevertheless, there are times when I experience a strange yearning – times when I wish I could reach my full potential. Even though I hate the profit motive and loathe hierarchies of every type, there is one thing that makes me feel all hot and tingly inside. That thing is power.

Though life is meaningless, I want to spend mine creating a world where suffering no longer exists and everyone is equal. Everyone but me, of course. I make a point of not revealing this to any of my social justice warrior comrades, but I feel no shame in telling you that the initials SJW represent something else when applied to me. You see, I am not just a social justice warrior – I am really the Supreme Justice Warrior. And yes, one day the world will come to its senses and recognize me as the anointed one. Though I despise heroic archetypes and other Jungian gobbledygook, I am convinced, down to the very core of my soul, which, by the way, I vehemently deny the existence of, that I am destined to be the Supreme Leader of the Best Dang Utopia the World Has Ever Known. Unlike Stalin, Mao and all the other failed comrades before me, I know I will make it work because I am good enough, I am smart enough, and by gosh, people will fear me. Yes, one day I will become a shining red star perched atop the Pareto Principle pyramid. All I need is a break - an opportunity to escape from the oppressive oblivion of this six-figure professor's salary. If I could just make myself known, I could rally my forlorn comrades and begin the work of my true, glorious calling.

But how? How would I catapult myself out of insignificance and take my rightful place as the leader of the next revolution? The question plagued me for weeks. After much agonizing, I woke up this morning and vowed that the day to find a solution had come. I vowed not to leave the claustrophobic confines of the cluttered catastrophe I call my bedroom until I had found the key to my personal emancipation. Squinting against the sunlight streaming in through my window, I got up and fed my cats, Derrida and Foucault, their daily ration of organic tofu cat food (which is imported from Japan and available exclusively from Whole Foods). Once I had fed the cats, I sat down on the edge of my bed and channeled all the mental energy I could summon into the activity I detest above all others - thinking.

After three excruciating minutes, I still had not discovered how I would make myself known to the world. Feeling exhausted and dizzy from the iron-fisted abuse thought had inflicted upon my mind in its savage attempt to cerebrally colonize my mental safe space, I picked up my iPad with the hope of distracting the victimized confines of my skull from the trauma it had suffered. I went on YouTube with the intent of finding some soothing Antifa protest videos, but to my utter horror, I was instead subjected to the most terrififying, violent, and brutal macro-aggression I had ever experienced.

Rather than seeing soothing hordes of pajama-clad ideology ninjas triumphantly subduing a rabid pack of Trump fascists in MAGA hats, I came face-to-face with the devil himself - Jordan Peterson.

(I hate to ruin the mounting tension of the story here, but I have to let it be known that I don't really believe in the devil and all that religious stuff. I just like using religious language for dramatic effect because people seem to get religious allusions and ideas even though it’s all nonsense. Anyway, back to the story!)

The evil, transphobic, misogynistic, alt-right cult leader the world knows as Jordan Peterson glared menacingly at me from within the confines of the iPad screen. I swear I could smell the scent of his Patreon money wafting up through the glass. He smiled a rare, brief, close-lipped smile, and then slowly raised his right hand to reveal a Pepe hate symbol-inspired Kermit the Frog puppet. Before I had a chance to recover from this brutal amphibian micro-aggression, I heard a voice speaking in a commanding tone reminiscent of a story I once heard about some old, white guy who came down from some mountain holding two tablets upon which some patriarchal, make-belief god had inscribed ten tyrannical rules.

"Sort yourself out!" a voice boomed.

I could not tell if the terrifying voice had come from Peterson or Kermit.

"Clean your room!"

My hands began to tremble. Faint hints of the seven vanilla soy-chai lattes I had consumed the night before gurgled threateningly up the length of my throat. I reeled back from the screen and overcome by a sudden desire to flee. I looked reluctantly upon the mess that was my room and noticed my cats, Derrida and Foucault, squatting over a framed picture of my father that had somehow found its way onto the floor which, incidentally, is little more than a variegated landscape of cheese-doodles, porn magazines, and pizza boxes.

“Rescue your father from the underworld!” the fascist crustacean king barked from the iPad.

A blood-curdling scream began to build up inside me as my terror mounted, but when I opened my mouth to release it, all that came out was a chai-dampened whimper. Unable to bear it any longer, I hurled my iPad out the open window and collapsed onto the sordid sanctuary of my moldy bed. I had barely blinked when, out of nowhere, an imaginary angel faintly resembling Judith Butler spoke to me in a vision.

“Write a hit piece against Peterson!” the angelic illusion sent from an imaginary infantile need for a father figure declared. “Find your fame by attacking your enemy. Use the quills of bias, dishonesty, disrespect, misrepresentation, and oversimplification to write a venomous and vitriolic piece SJWs worldwide will sing the praises of for a thousand years.”

Before I could respond, the winged Judy Butler angel melted away in the air like a tender little snowflake hitting a white-hot, cast iron frying pan. (I don’t need to tell you that the frying pan is an obvious representation of the patriarchy.)

“That’s it!” I chortled as I swallowed hard against the soy-chai lattes rebelling to emancipate themselves from the oppression of my stomach. “Though I know barely anything about him and have not taken the time to examine his work objectively, I shall find my glory by writing a hit piece targeting Jordan Peterson!”

Immediately after I made this declaration, I stumbled into the bathroom, knelt down before the toilet, and let the soy-chai lattes liberate themselves from the tyranny of my stomach. A few minutes later, I walked back into my bedroom and watched Derrida and Foucault ceremoniously empty their bowels on the framed, glass-encased image of my father. It was undoubtedly a sign from above (even though I steadfastly refuse to believe in that sort of archaic rubbish)!

A moment later I was out on the street clad in a Trotsky hoody, skipping gleefully towards Starbucks, my Apple laptop snugly tucked under my right arm. As I neared the coffeeshop, I was accosted by the smelly, homeless war veteran who lives in the dumpster behind the Bed, Bath, and Beyond store. As had happened countless times before, the bum humbly asked if I could spare a dime. I curtly informed the imperialistic brute, as I had countless times before, that he should beat it and get a job. I had no time or money for losers like him. Couldn't he see I was dedicating my life creating that sacred utopia where he would finally be treated fairly and equally?

Inside the Starbucks, I greeted the comrades with a surly nod, and then sat down at my usual table. Once I had scanned the room to ensure it had not been infiltrated by any Peterson cult members, I flipped open my laptop and made a concerted effort to look like I was ruminating about something really deep. I wanted to get to work on the article, but I was not really in the mood. Even though I knew the hit piece article was the only way I could ever hope to rise above the mediocre herd that is humanity, I could not find the discipline to write it.

I stared at the laptop screen and concluded that writing was oppressive.

Ten minutes of nothing followed. I yawned, got up, and ordered a soy-chai latte. As I returned to my table, I had an unexpected revelation. I could incorporate my illustrious PhD dissertation into the Peterson hit piece. If I did that, it would cut the writing down by at least fifty or sixty percent. I worked out the first paragraph in my head after I sat down again. The first paragraph would go something like this:

Jordan Peterson’s philosophy is akin to a thong on a woman when viewed from the back. At first glance Peterson's thought, like the thong undergarment, seems to contain an emancipatory dynamic, but like the G-string snaking up into the valley of the female gluteal landscape, the sheer bulk and volume of the curvaceous space he exposes is deceiving. On closer inspection, the hidden strand of divisiveness that runs through his thinking is instantly revealed. Worst of all, like the thong, Peterson’s philosophy is patriarchal and tyrannical. In addition to completely obliterating and oppressing the female space in the front, it also serves to hide and oppress the less visible anus, which here symbolically represents that marginalized group of intellectuals working incessantly to liberate humanity from the seemingly soft and silky, but ultimately repressive and constrictive confines of patriarchal oppression.

I took a sip of my latte and grinned. The article would cause a sensation. A scandal. A revolution! It would lead to calls for Peterson arrest. After I became Supreme Leader I would be sure to have him hauled off the gulag, and I would make a point of having his entire collection of Soviet socialist realism paintings confiscated and transferred to the walls of my crummy apartment. Better yet, I would just move into his house after he was gone and rule my empire from there. It would all be so glorious!

Inspired by these visions, I hunched over my laptop to type the first line. Nothing happened. I did not feel like writing the article at all. But the article simply had to be written for the revolution to occur! Rather than panic, I quickly went online and began to search for cheap ghostwriters.

"I'll hire some wretch in India or the Philippines to write it for me," I thought cheerfully. "It'll probably cost me less than the price of a vanilla soy-chai latte!"

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A Few Thoughts About Gratitude: The Dark Side of Gratitude

A Few Thoughts About Gratitude: A Candle in the Darkness

Thou Shalt Not Pander - The Unwritten Commandment Serious Artists and Thinkers Should Obey

Sadly, My Fictional Depiction of Radical Leftist Hit Piece Writers Is Pretty Close to the Bullseye

My Faith in Reading, Literature, and the World in General Just Increased Tenfold

A Satirical Response to the Jordan Peterson Hit Pieces

​The Glorious Motivation Behind the Writing of a Jordan Peterson Hit Piece (Through Which The Author Hopes to Become Famous AND Signal His Virtue to the World - A Short Story -

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The Glorious Motivation Behind the Writing of a Jordan Peterson Hit Piece (Through Which The Author Hopes to Become Famous AND Signal His Virtue to the World - A Short Story -