E9: “Gratitude Attitude” -_-
Hi everyone!
How do you practice gratitude? Is it kind of like, a list you draw up every now and then that runs through all of the things you have to be thankful for?
Today’s episode is about gratitude. And I had to be careful to not release this episode anywhere near the genocidal celebration known in the US as Thanksgiving. Those reasons should be obvious. And I am very much an advocate and will make the case for thankful living, but I am 100% opposed to the celebration of that holiday and as a personal choice I do not attempt to re-appropriate it and give it any sort of spotlight in my life. But also because the way that we think about gratitude surrounding that holiday is also just not quite where I’m going to be for in this episode.
We think of being thankful as tallying up our good fortune and trying to see the good in it, and that’s real and important on its own, and I address that, but I wanna explore beyond that. I wanna approach and consider thought as a way of thinking, of Being and of cultivating our joy and brain activity that will ultimately be a part of what saves us, should we accept the challenge to change the course of this out-of-control ship we’re all on, heading straight for an iceberg.
In today’s episode I consider what about our society has made a fundamental turn away from gratitude and abundant mainframes by examining the following:
Colonialism/imperialism, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy
Nietzsche’s Nihilism & will to power and Freud’s death drive
Lack as a necessity to and an energetic result of the aforementioned phenomena
The result of all of these; the dampening of our spirits, depression, destitution, and paralyzation we feel from insecurity brought about my lack
Then, I consider how we can face this dilemma to find a solution and our strength through gratitude and even joy, in order to carry out the revolutions that have to happen if we’re going to survive. New agers and the manifestation-obsessed like to think it’s a mere “abundant mindset,” and it is, fundamentally, but it’s also so much more.
We look at the following about gratitude as thought:
Our focus and spirit has to be aligned daily and regularly with its reality. It is not meant to be considered once a year, or in the morning in a journal.
Gratitude is a way of thought, not something that the mind visits along its ways and through the various thought stops that it takes throughout the day.
Heidegger called thinking, thanking and thanking thinking. It’s cultivation, along with joy, beauty and grace will save him from the nihilistic wasteland laid out by Nietzsche
The meaning and etymology of “thanc” as human’s innermost mind and the heart’s core.
Gratitude’s inherent role in creating joy and the role of joy as explained in the “Blueprint for the Black Joy Era,” by @femmetoodeep’s friends Amber J. Phillips, The High Priestess of Black Joy, and Jazmine Walker, the King of the South of the @TheBlackJoyMixtape podcast for the future.
Through Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic,” and the need to recognize and facing the power of the erotic (which is not the pornographic version we refer to in modernity, rather all that we love, brings us joy and that we are thankful for ) in order to create and activate radical change.
I hope that this offers a new perspective on abundance/gratitude mindsets, because if you’re like me, the current ones, though relevant to the rules of cause & effect in this realm, were lacking a little dry. I needed some spice. Heidegger, Nietzsche and Lorde all came through, and I thank them for their work and ask for their continued illuminations and guidance as some of my guides
Have an amazing week!
All power and love to you all,
Baby Ange
@femmetoodeep
ange@babyange.com