Happy Thanksgiving — 2008
November 26, 2008 by Julia King
William Faulkner said, “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”
He might have been exactly right: just like gratitude, creating electricity is a task for which not everyone is equally well-suited. Energy is relatively easy to come by, but electricity is not – a thought I have had countless times as I’ve pedaled my stationary bike to nowhere in my living room. “If only I could use all this pedaling for something worthwhile,” I often lament, sweat dripping from my brow.
Surely gratitude production is reliant on forces at least as complicated as electricity’s electrons, positrons, and ions. Perhaps science will one day create the mathematical formula for measuring an individual’s life situation against her nature/nurture constraints to equal her gratitude quotient. Something along the lines of: In order to feel (X) amount of (G), patient (Y) will need to expend (T) amount of (E).
Faulkner’s notion of gratitude as electricity (complete with my own addition of the stationary bike) was reinforced for me this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition. While still in bed, I listened to a story about a Fort Wayne, Indiana Christmas tree with lights that connect to a generator and stationary bike. Holiday frolickers take turns pedaling to light up the tree; when the battery that holds the energy gets low, an alarm sounds.
It’s a perfect set-up and not at all unlike gratitude (or even Thanksgiving Day), because everyone involved has something a little different to contribute to the experience. It begins, of course, with an idea. Next come the wires and the generator and the battery… all those pieces of the scientific puzzle that need to be solved, but in the end it just requires the simple (but magical) fact of able and willing legs. Short stubby ones or long skinny ones, young ones that move with lightning speed, or seasoned ones that pump slow and steady. When one pair grows tired, another pair takes over. And with each donation of effort, the light burns brighter.
I can see in my mind’s eye the scene at the Fort Wayne Christmas tree, not unlike a million scenes across the nation this Thanksgiving day. Family and friends gathered around, some full of laughter and energy to share, others weary from the work of pie-making, or turkey basting, or maybe just life. There is much pedaling and much resting and when the rolls are warm and the table is set and everyone sits down at the table, there it is… electricity.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING. Go ahead, bask in the light. It’s yours to share.
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