It's a beautiful Thanksgiving morning here in Nowheresville, VA. Cold, but beautiful. I'd like to take a moment to reflect, and I'm glad you're reading this. I'm not exactly known for being a grateful person, in fact, I'm called an "ungrateful prick" on a pretty regular basis. I guess my dissatisfaction with many things is misinterpreted. It's just a part of my personality, I'm an ISTP with an enneagram of the Reformer with a wing of the Peacemaker. It's just how I'm going to be. Forever.
But if you read about the enneagram, and how the Reformer with a wing of Peacemaker works, it all makes sense. Nothing is good enough, because things could be better. It's not that I'm ungrateful, it's that I'm disappointed. ISTPs are also precision-oriented people who love to over-examine complex systems.... like society. My brain will get all flubbed up with information and over-processing, so sometimes I might forget to explain that my criticisms are from the approach of "Things could be better; Let's do it." I'm with the seminal hardcore-punk band D.O.A.:
Talk - Action = Zero
So what am I thankful for? The first thing that comes to mind is something Jello Biafra said in his song Stars and Stripes of Corruption. "I'm thankful I live in a place where I can say the things I do without being taken out and shot; So I'm on guard against the goons trying to take my rights away." And that's really what it's all about. To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, if you wanna end war and all that stuff, you can't sit down with a shut mouth. You gotta get up and stand up for your rights.
But I'm also very thankful that I'm alive. I'm glad I'm here. I think even if I don't say it too often, I'm where and when I belong. I just fit right in there. I might complain... a lot. But I really do like this place, it's just easy to get jaded when it seems like so few people are trying. Which is why I try to surround myself as much as possible with people I'm thankful for, my family. And you don't have to be blood to be my family. You know who you are. I'm also thankful I'm a mostly healthy young guy, with not only the ability to work, but the opportunity. Maybe not as often as I would like, but it seems life always drops exactly what I need in my lap. You just can't ask for more.
I guess you can boil it down to four things; Life, liberty, love, and the pursuit of happiness. I am thankful for all of these aspects of my life. I might not have as big a piece of pie as many or even most people, but I really appreciate what I've got. Because I like me, and all of my experiences, especially the worst of them, have turned me into who I am. To change one aspect, would be to change myself. So I am thankful for my learning experiences, and are there many. Likely many more to come.
Thanks for lending me your 'digital ear', I hope you found this enjoyable in some way and maybe you reflected on what you're thankful for. In all likelihood you could just find me a preachy numbskull, and I'll take that handle. I hope you have a blessed, joyous, and stress-free day, and hopefully you can see people you love and maybe help out people you don't even know. Just don't go shopping.
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