Something I’ve been pondering recently is whether statements of gratitude need always contain subjects as well as objects. Which is to say, when we express ‘I am grateful for x’, does there necessarily need to be an invisible parenthetical: ‘I am grateful (to y) for x’? I imagine that for people of faith this question is easily answered. If such a person says ‘I am grateful for this sunny day’, it’s implicit that it is to their chosen deity that the gratitude is owed and directed. For those of us who recognise no higher power possessed of its own will, things are trickier. Perhaps the implied parenthetical can still be filled with something like ‘to nature’ in the above example, but there are other cases in which there isn’t a neat fit. When I am mindful enough to think, in a given moment, ‘I am grateful to be experiencing this’, is the gratitude owed to something as impersonal as circumstance? Is my gratitude for my good fortune being directed to the network of causes and effects…
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