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It occurs to me that, despite everything wrong in my life, I am actually quite grateful for a great many things. Culture and history aside, Thanksgiving Day can certainly be a day to reflect on the good in one’s life. Whether or not you care about why we celebrate it, it can be a day to take stock of what matters in life. For the first time in a long time I am taking care on this holiday to do just that.

I am also acutely aware that what I think of as my good fortune stands in inescapable contrast to the experiences of others. For instance, I am very grateful that I have a steady, secure job that is currently offering me overtime. Even as many people are presently wondering how on earth they’re going to find a new job since being laid off, I am enjoying a sense of permanence. The bank I work for is one that did not need any money from the recent bailout, having stayed clear of the mortgage/home loan market and so having escaped the fiasco of its collapse. In fact, my department has recently added some new clients and business has gotten more brisk and robust. Also, I am working in a department with people I actually (in a general sort of way) like. And these people like me, too. So I am thankful for being fortunate right about now, but I am worried for those people whose jobs have failed them, people who are now wondering how to make ends meet without a sense of when the next steady work may be found.

As an atheist, I of course do not think that I am “blessed”, or think that “were it not for the grace of God” I’d be in some worse place. Such thinking lends itself to the idea that those who are in a worse place are there because “God” does not favor them or because they’ve somehow come to deserve their misfortune. At the very least, one would have to suppose that “God” was testing their faith or something. I don’t think that’s a healthy idea at all. What makes more sense to me is that life is hard, and the complexities of our society sometimes work out against people and sometimes for them, regardless of who they are or what they think or do. Anyway, my sense of gratitude is non-specific and unharnessed. What it means to me is that I become more conscious of myself and others as equals in the same world.

Over the last few years I’ve had plenty of opportunity to view life from both fortunate and unfortunate sides, to greater and lesser degrees. No matter what the situation, it’s given me reason to be more conscious of the world I live in and the life I have to lead. I am grateful for all the lessons I’ve had the opportunity to learn. I am especially thankful for the good others have done, and for the chances I’ve had to do good. I have learned that doing good for others is its own reward, but that I cannot always do good for others just because that’s what I want to do. I have seen, better than before, how complicated our interactions can be. But I have also seen that there are a few things that, if we are lucky, are simple and important. So I hold the door for strangers, and pick things up that others have accidentally dropped in order to give them back, and offer smiles and kind words whenever possible and appropriate. I do my best to smile at children and give people the right of way. I am thankful for the opportunity to do so because I know that it frequently leads to good feelings for everyone. It is, I think, self-evident that doing right by others is the surest way to invoke a genuinely healthy society. Being good makes the world a better place. How could anyone not see that? I am grateful that I see it so clearly.

I have also seen my partner struggle so hard to deal with her periods of illness. Her pain has touched me time and again, and I have seen her at times fight with all she has left not to give up. I am grateful for having had all the opportunities I’ve had to support her, to comfort her, to assist and aid her, even as it breaks my heart that she has suffered so much. She has done her best for me in a myriad ways. She has always striven to help me see that the better side of life is the one to focus on, that my own health flows from the side of me that empathizes with others, the side that seeks understanding and comprehension. She has done more to teach me, for myself, what a man should be than anyone else. A good man is the same as a good woman; in such light, differences of gender perspective are, in the end, simple and subtle nuances to be noted and let go of. I offer my partner what she needs, as a man, as a lover, as a friend and companion. I am thankful for my ability to love her so well. I am grateful for her love of me. I am thankful for love.

Today I want to express my gratitude for my friends as well. I am a difficult person to know at times, but my friends have accepted that about me and continue to put up with my moody silences and opinionated attitudes. They seem to find something worthwhile in me and it makes me want to bring that out more. I try harder because of them. I also try harder because I want to show them that they matter to me as well. Honestly, even if I did not personally know them I’d be rooting for them. My friends are good people. They do their best, and even when things aren’t working well for them and they feel like nothing’s going their way they are still such inherently good people. I have faith in them, that they will work things out and find their way back to the good life they deserve. When they are happy, I am happy. There are numerous people out there who I don’t know very well at all, but from what I’ve seen of them I can only hope that they find much to be joyful about in life, because they’ve certainly done good in my esteem. I cherish all you good people and am thankful for your efforts in life. Your actions inspire me to strive to do my best.

Today I want to express my gratitude to my parents. Life has been long for them, turbulent and filled with complications fit to break most people. They have learned a lot over the decades. Now, as my mother’s life draws to its inevitable conclusion, she still finds the time to express her love for me and my sibs and the life she’s had. Despite her suffering and pain, she never fails to tell me that I bring her joy and that she loves me. My father has done his best as well, and has helped me when he could ill afford it, because I am his son and he loves me. I am thankful for all they’ve done, more than I could ever say. I am humbled by their lives and the efforts they’ve made. Even in their past failures there was a kernel of the utmost integrity of character. They have been true to their world, as I’ve been to mine, as we all are. It pays to remember that the world is not perfect. There is always room to grow, and the only real crime is failing to make the effort to do just that. My parents have made that effort, and will continue to do so until they are no more. I am grateful for the example they have made. I am thankful for their love.

There is much today that I am thankful for (my full stomach, certainly, and the hard work of my partner’s mother in preparing such a sumptuous repast), and I doubt that I could put it all here in one post. From my perspective there is no inherent reason for me to be here, or to be at all. Life just is, and I have simply found myself in it. There are reasons I behave as I do, in the broad sense. Certainly, I have learned from science about the history of life on this planet, and my place on the great tree of life. Here am I, hanging out on this amazing little branch, poking out into the vast universe of existence that continues to grow and flower as we continue to grow and flower. Even as I know how I got here or, rather, how I came to be possible, there has never been another me and my experience of life is unique, even as it remains a common life in many ways. How could I not be grateful for my life? Nothing said it had to be or was destined to be or was created especially. Life is, it seems to me by its very nature, a surprising thing. I continue to be amazed, even as I come to better understand that I am alone responsible for how I deal with it. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, to be responsible for what I learn, to accept that no one can escape that responsibility (one can only do poorly by it).

I hope that you and yours have a wonderful day, and that you find much to be thankful for.

Get Firefox!

Updated: 01/03/2009.

Firefox has been my browser of choice almost since it was introduced to the general public. One of its biggest features is the ease of installing useful add-ons that enhance or otherwise improve upon the basic functionality of the browser. Some of these add-ons, I would argue, should actually be considered necessary nowadays. Others are simply, but undeniably, useful.

Although I expect that most people visiting my site will already have installed (or dismissed for whatever reason) the add-ons listed here, it is my hope that at least a few people will find something useful that they didn’t know about. I also hope that I’ll be lucky enough to have someone visit who knows of some new, indispensible add-on that I didn’t know about! Please do feel free to make a suggestion.

(Read the list of fifteen sixteen fabulous, if not Fortean*, Firefox add-ons below the fold.)

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Today is my significant other’s birthday. I am using her birthday as occasion to write the first post here in a good long while. Really, I want to just draw a portrait of the Zeitgeist and its garments while noting that, for me, there is nothing more important today for me than my love’s birthday.

Life has never been an easy proposition for me. I’ve had trouble for most of my years. Some years have been bad enough that, to this day, I wonder how it is I survived them. This is doubly true for my partner. Yet, here we both are, living our lives as best we can, imperfectly and not always (or often) easily. We’ve been together for over seven years now. As this day commemorates the day she entered the fray, unarmed and as innocent as any newborn child, it seems to me important to note that she has come a long way from the worst of her life and has reclaimed a great deal of all that was, by force and cruelty, taken from her. I am proud of her more than I worry about her; I trust that she will only get stronger, hold her life more tenaciously, find ever more to take joy in.

The world around us in chaos. Chaos is not a bad thing, per se, but it often is troubling for those who find themselves thrown by it from the comfort of stability into the maelstrom of uncertainty. The fires recently raging in California, having claimed the homes of so many, having injured people and having seriously disrupted the lives of so very many, seem to underscore the chaos of the times. Then there’s the Prop. 8 (”Propostion Hate”) issue still unfolding. A longtime friend of mine only recently married her partner, and now there are those who’d see their marriage and the possibbility of marriage for all gay people denied on grounds that are selfish, bigoted, narrow, myopic and solely self-serving. It is the touch of chaos in people’s lives again. And then there’s the financial crisis in America, and California’s deep debt. Job loss is significant. Job scarcity a problem. Mortgages and foreclosure are topics of anxious conversations everywhere. Chaos visits us all. I’m so glad Obama won.

My partner lies across the bed, napping, an audiobook playing in her ear (I can hear it, like a cricket scratching at paper or a radio with a poor AM signal playing in the other room). I made sure she had a good birthday this year. Her mom wasn’t going to make sweet potato pie this time, which would have been a first, but I paid for the ingredients and ensured that it would get done. I couldn’t let her down, couldn’t see her let down. After more than seven years, I’ve only come to love and appreciate her more.

The light falling through the window is yellowish from all the smoke. If I look out, I can see Chihiro, my Toyota Corolla, parked in the shade of the trees. Someone recently broke into the car. The thief broke out the back window and went through the car, pulling stuff out, opening everything. All the thief took as the power cord for my iPod and the cord that connects it to my stereo. I’d taken my stereo face inside, like always, and I’d never leave my iPod in the car. Minor damage, really, but I felt violated. I got the window (and its tinting) fixed the next day and installed a car alarm. I feel safer, a little more protected from the chaos.

More recently, I was able to go out to dinner with my ex-wife. She was on her way through Southern California (where our marriage ran its course) on a roadtrip to San Francisco to see the Legendary Pink Dots play. She lives in New Mexico now. It was a really nice visit for the most part, the only real faux pas being committed by yours truly. sigh But it all turned out well, and we had a nice dinner at Real Food Daily in Santa Monica. We shared music in the car as we drove. We talked about our lives. I dropped her off at her motel and came home with this sense of my life being just so long, this long series of events, a collection of changes and adjustments, with retrospect always coming in clearest. I came home to my partner and wanted nothing more than to fall in her arms… followed by some Web surfing, of course. Chaos prowled in the distant miles.

My throat is sore and my sinues are irritable. Still, in this tiny little pocket of the world, there is peace. I wish it belonged to everyone. I’m glad that it exists at all.

Happy birthday, my love.