God and gratitude

In your worldview, there may or may not be a God. You may not need an invisible friend in the sky, being a rational type of person. I very much feel there is a God, a purpose to the Universe, a far deeper meaning than a collection of atoms turning into a lifeform randomly and becoming conscious for a few decades, before death and that's that. Such is my worldview.

This post is directed at my materialist-rationalist readers who don't believe in any supreme being or overarching force/direction guiding the universe.

This post is to do with gratitude. 

Do you ever feel the need to express gratitude for your lot? Are you ever grateful for life, for consciousness, for health, for what you've experienced? I feel moments of existential gratefulness several times a day; times of reflection, times when I reflect that things could have been far, far worse today than they were. Sometime those feelings are particularly strong, other time, they're weak, vague - but nevertheless there, and have been since childhood. 

Covid accentuates these reflections. I've long had the habit of using the times spent brushing my teeth each day to give thanks for my health, and of those around me. I think of all those times in a shop or train last week or the week before when I could have randomly caught Covid off someone but didn't - and I feel grateful that I've managed six months into the pandemic without coming down with it.

Rationalists would counter "Only 70,000 confirmed cases out of a population of 38 million. Your chances of catching it were only 1 in 584. And you take proper precautions."

But even so, it's good to be grateful for good fortune, is it not?

And if we do feel gratitude, to whom should one be grateful? We continually teeter on the edge of chaos, do we not?

If there's no God, if everything that happens is coincidental or mathematically pre-ordained from Big Bang to the end of time - what is there to be grateful for? What happened just happened - end of story. Romantic sunset? Lovely bike ride? So what. Feeling good physically and mentally? Just the way it was. One day you're up, next day you're down. Have you got any influence over events that may or may not befall you? No. 

I must say, this is not my worldview. I do believe that we have some influence on the outcomes of our lives - not just the positive choices that we make, decisions that could turn out one way or another - but blind chance. The speeding driver that didn't see you. A virus or tumour. Early-onset dementia. Heavy shit coming down. Can being grateful for good fortune in your immediate past stave off bad things happening to you in the near future? I certainly believe there's a link. I can't prove it going forward - but my past experience has suggested it has been so.

There is the allied concept of appreciation, of being appreciative of the good things in life. Now, being grateful is different in that you have to be grateful to someone for something. Being appreciative doesn't require an object - only a subject. In this context, is appreciation enough - or is even the act of appreciation (without any link to whom one should be appreciative towards) an acknowledgement of a higher realm?

Below: a late-evening storm is coming - wind is rustling the tall trees, the downdraft from a cloudburst. Within minutes heavy rain would be pouring down on Jakubowizna. But the day was good - I managed two (local) motorbike rides, 12,000 paces of walking, and a lot of gardening, sunshine and 26C top temperature. Bought a heavy-duty doormat and a few things for the kitchen. Weekend music: Fat Old Sun, by Pink Floyd. Grateful for the day.

This time last year:
Defending one's country is a costly business

This time eight years ago:
Back to work

This time nine years ago:
Clinging onto summer - cycling to Powsin

This time ten years ago:
Composition in blue and yellow

This time 11 years ago:
Z-9

This time 12 years ago:
My favourite aircraft

This time 13 years ago:
Утомлённые солнцем