Gratitude in the Year 2020

It would be very cliché of me to talk about how monstrously bad 2020 has been. I don't think I need to explain to most folks that this year has been exceedingly different from any expectations anyone might've had of 2020 this time last year, but this is a near universal truth. The idea, then, of trying to find gratitude in the midst of so much suffering and pain seems misguided at best and, at worst, asinine. At least, that's what the cynics amongst us (myself included) might have you believe. (Even the idea of trying to use Thanksgiving, a day rooted in an oft-overlooked history of brutality toward indigenous people, is worthy of a certain amount of questioning by the cultural skeptics, of who I will also willingly claim myself a part of.)

But, and hear me out, we need to find gratitude. We cannot survive the existential annihilation which is facing us if we don't find a reason to find gratitude right now. It is paramount to our mutual survival that we find resilience. I believe that, in order to find resilience, we must find hope (that stirs us to action), and in order to find such hope, we must find what we can (and must) be grateful for.

Now, I need to clear this up before we get too far: there is such gratitude that leads to inaction. How do we avoid falling into the trap of complacency, allowing our gratitude to be weaponized against us such that we continue to be lulled into a total lack of action. Well, there really is only one thing I can imagine that might help us in this scenario. That "thing", of course, is pragmatism. What we are aiming for, then, is pragmatic optimism. That is the oil that will temper the sword of gratitude.

Okay, but what does this look like in practice? Well, we can find things to be grateful that are within our control. We can be grateful in ways which encourage us to grow, which challenge us to continue to improve and work towards betterment. We can be grateful for the good things, too, the things which our out of our own control, but it's good to put things in perspective. If we rest on our own laurels, or simply expect good things to continue, then what do we get? When those things end, suddenly we might find ourselves in less than ideal situations (again, think 2020).

So here's my list of things for which I'm grateful. I'm grateful for my relationship with my family. Knowing it hasn't always been perfect, I'm glad that we mutually put in the work to stay united and supportive of one another. I'm grateful for my roommates and my friends, and for how they have helped me in this year. I hope to keep that up, and to continue to be the best Jorge I can for them. I'm grateful for the pockets of stability I've found in uncertain times, particularly the work I've been able to find. It's far from ideal, but it's made getting through this tough year much more manageable. I'm grateful also for I Need Diverse Games, which helped me find my fitting when it comes to streaming, Tulok the Barbarian and Scott of NerdSync for giving me so much experience with streaming D&D, and to all the folks that have let me play or DM in their TTRPG games both privately and on stream. I need to, of course, give thanks to Grace of @D20stats who made the discord server that was the inception to me playing games with so many folks so publicly (and just in general making so many incredible virtual friendships with some truly phenomenal people). Though, at the moment, I'm still working out how to move forward in terms of all of this streaming and gaming, I'm grateful that I have any semblance of a platform right now. I promise to use it responsibly, to educate and inform, and lift up marginalized voices whenever possible. I'm grateful for a thousand things, but I'm especially grateful for those who've found value in the things I have made, done, and said. I look forward to continuing to write, work, and make, and growing in this voice I have.

Hopefully this is a good example of pragmatic optimism manifested into gratitude on this Thanksgiving day. I hope you all have a good day, and that the year 2020 be merciful to us all. May we all work towards a better future, and in these moments of rest find the fortitude to continue with the work.