Hi all! Here is the aforementioned short Thanksgiving post. Sorry this is a day late, I didn’t calculate that I wouldn’t have time to write on Thanksgiving itself. Last year I also did a Thanksgiving post – so what’s the difference? Well in that post, I explained the history of Thanksgiving. In this post, I will explain the meaning – and how we can apply it to our modern holiday. All that said, let’s get into the post!
We all know the basics of thanksgiving; your family invites over/visits relatives who you don’t know but everybody expects you to because you met them when you were 3, you all talk, sing, or pray, and most importantly, eat. And there is a general, hazy theme of “giving thanks”. But what is giving thanks? Who are you thanking, and what are you thanking them for?
If you are religious, there is a simple answer to the second question: you are thanking god. If you aren’t, you need to find who you ae thanking. And as someone who doesn’t believe in god, I have come up with an answer – you aren’t thanking anybody. because you can’t thank nothing; nothing can’t have intentions, let alone reward somebody with good fortune. Many atheists make the mistake of thinking you can thank simple fortune or good luck, but you can’t thank something with no will. Rather, you are acknowledging & appreciating. this is just as valid, but it is important to notice the difference, or you risk “thanking” in bad faith.
Ok we have the “who” down; now for the “what”. What are you thankful for? The obvious and most common answer is: your possessions. Everything you own, whether it be currency, food, or housing. Some might say they are thankful for simply having good health. Some people don’t give thanks for what they own, but rather their general environment. The people in their life, their job, where they live. My answer is something that contains all of these: everything you normally take for granted. Your health, your family, your friends, running water, electricity – I rarely even notice any of this, only noticing faults when these privileges aren’t up to my standards.
And so I suggest that for Thanksgivings to come, instead of thinking what you’re thankful for, think about what you’re not thankful for; the things you never even consider.
Happy belated Thanksgiving!
Doro Count: 5/6
Much Ado About Something 
Being conscious of and thankful for the things we take for granted is good advice. My take on Thanksgiving is that it amounts to a harvest festival – celebrated in the past to mark a successful harvest and the prospect of a survivable winter. It’s not hard to translate the symbolism of those things into our modern, mostly urban context.
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