La gratitude

[...] Good has been done—but not by me, who am now in the position of receiving and blessing it without having created it. From a psychological point of view, this position is likely to give rise to a feeling of inferiority, a sense of unease comparable to that of the destitute person allocated a subsistence allowance, or to that which anyone feels when receiving a loan, a subsidy, alms, or "humanitarian aid." Your generous help is precious to me; I am grateful and thank you—but how I wish I had never needed it! This feeling is never that of the ungrateful person, whose ego is so voracious that it thinks only of enriching itself and taking everything for itself, without worrying about the origin of the "gifts," nor about the identity, motivations, and intentions of those who come to its aid. But a person of conscience may feel "indebted," suffer from being in the position of debtor, and, in order not to experience it as a humiliating pain, want to repay as quickly as possible—in other words, return to a "logic of giving" in which exchange restores parity. But isn't this forgetting the "grace" that resides in gratitude? If this puts me to the test, it is not because it puts me in debt, but because it cracks the armor of pride with which I surround myself to feel strong on my own and invulnerable, and which, in fact, is only a paper armor, a lure, an illusion – for no human being is autonomous and self-sufficient, none can be without others, without a life received, a language received, an education received, a culture received… When the armor falls to pieces, we realize that, literally, gratitude is a receipt, a “certificate” which attests that the sale and the purchase have indeed taken place, that the bill has indeed been paid – that I have received as a gift the ability to become a human being from other human beings, that I have received the capacity to do good from other human beings, who have already done it when I was still incapable of it. The logic of exchange creates symmetry. Evil, likewise, is akin to revenge—which, moreover, perpetuates it, with ever-greater evil constantly responding to the evil suffered. Gratitude, on the other hand, creates a relationship that Catherine Chalier described as "asymmetrical": to be grateful is always to respond to an action done for my benefit, but this response nonetheless awakens my conscience, which, though certainly stirred by others, can then "see" that good can be done since it has already been done. Ingratitude interrupts moral action like a refusal, provokes disappointment and regret, and causes the giver's good intention to retract like a snail's horn, thus allowing evil to resume its destructive cycles. Gratitude, on the contrary, leaves the path open to good, allowing moral action to continue, "gracious," gratuitous, and never finished. Strictly speaking, gratitude requires nothing in return—what could one give back to the God who created us, to the parents who raised us, to the teachers who trained us, to those we loved, who loved us, and who are no longer with us?—but through grace, it restores and reveals to all the beauty contained and radiated by an act of altruism. Robert Maggiori