In many ways this feels like a strange year to be giving thanks.
2020 hasn’t been a great year for nearly anyone. Many of us will be spending the holidays alone, only able to connect with our loved ones virtually. And particularly in a year marked by mass movements to address racial injustice, the problematic history of Thanksgiving mythology and the historical atrocities against Native peoples should make this time of year cause for reflection more so than gauzy Hallmark nostalgia.
But like much of American history, there’s a core of idealism at the heart of our history and traditions, and if we’d just finally live up to those aspirations, we could actually have the character and society that we too often celebrate uncritically, as if those ideals have already been achieved because we merely wrote them down long ago in our founding documents.
That means eschewing some of our myths that mask the raw brutality of the “rugged individualism” that justified slaughtering herds of buffalo in the midwest to starve Native populations and enslaving millions of human beings. It means actually living up to our ideals around equality, inclusion, and community.
Just as the modern Thanksgiving holiday was established by Abraham Lincoln at a crossroads in American history during the Civil War in 1863, we’re at a new juncture this Thanksgiving where we’re re-fighting some of our old battles and where we face stern tests of personal and civic character.
A lot of us have choices this Thanksgiving.
We can live up to our democratic ideals that respect the will of the people, or we can selfishly try to take what isn’t ours and convince ourselves it’s something other than a new manifestation of the same pure, self-interested greed that led to some of the darkest moments in our history.
We can make personal sacrifices this holiday season to avoid spreading COVID-19, or we can put our loved ones, health care workers, and vulnerable populations at greater risk of dying from a pandemic that’s already taken 250,000 of us and left vastly more with bodies that will never be the same.
We can stare reality in the face and reflect on the true history of this holiday and the current injustices of the world, or we can retreat into fictions that make us feel more comfortable and salve our egos.
Still, even in the most jarring and stressful year many of us have ever experienced, there is still plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. We’re still here.
I’m very grateful to all of you who read this blog, all of the wonderful clients I’ve worked with, and for the country that is ever-striving in its own jagged and inconsistent way to be a more perfect union.
There’s work ahead to dig out and rebuild from this time and address our continued shortcomings, and I hope it’s our ideals, not our selfishness, that serve as our north star.
Have a very safe Thanksgiving and thank you again for enriching my life with your presence! I’m going to take a quick blog break this week and will be back with writing and publishing advice next Monday.
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.
And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!
Art: Still life with a turkey pie by Pieter Claesz
All the sentiments you have towards us, Nathan, we feel towards you. You’ve been a great friend and please keep on doing what you do so well.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We’ll catch you on the flipside.
All the sentiments you have expressed towards us, Nathan, we wish back to you. You’ve been a great friend and mentor to us and do appreciate it.
Have a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving and we’ll see you on the flipside.
Sorry for the repeat! I guess I feel this so strongly I had to say it twice!
Like with so many things, it isn’t so much the acknowledgement of a thing, it is the reckoning, the atonement that should follow through on the acknowledgement, brings healing, even to situations long ignored, surfaces like facades shoddily covering festering things. Oh the day when we work together to heal instead of grating the mask of “greatness” into place to hide it will be a humbling day, and a beautiful, cleansing of the heart and soul towards a true unity of this union.
May it come sooner than later.
Many thanks for your truth. Happy Thanksgiving, for I agree, while 2020 has been a year to live in infamy, there is much for which to be grateful and thankful.
What a year it has been. A surreal year. However, comparing this year with all the terrible occurrences, historically, I’ve got to say we’re still in a much better position, globally, than those back fifty, a hundred, two hundred, five hundred and a thousand years or more ago.
Women only got the vote about one hundred years ago in Britain, 1918, and then only two thirds fitted the stringent criteria. Australia and the U.S. quickly followed. Can you imagine what it must have been like for the female gender when they couldn’t even vote? Election promises would have been geared towards men, and women would have been greatly under-served by the Governments of the time.
And even though women had voting rights in the sixties and seventies, they still didn’t have equal pay or the status of men. Now, they’re the leaders of countries and industry. People can only achieve what they believe is possible for them at the time.
People of colour are gradually getting a better deal, and this year after the issues of police brutality in the States and Australia came to the fore more people are aware of modern day struggles on different levels. BLM. South African inequality and apartheid are a thing of the past.
Society is becoming more broad-minded and empathetic and less judgemental regarding divorce and other issues that affect people. Back fifty plus years ago, divorce was considered something shameful, and people remained together to avoid the shame and guilt. But domestic violence was often worse than the shame although it was considered shameful, too, preventing the victims from speaking up. The police in Australia often refused to attend domestic violence situations because they felt it was such a difficult and complex situation to become involved in. The #MeToo movement has further high-lighted matters that before weren’t taken seriously. And here in Australia only fifty or so years ago, life for someone who was LGBT was intolerable. There were what was referred to as ‘poofter bashings’ while employment at schools or in Government political positions was impossible.
Fifty years ago, we had relatively nothing as far as technology goes. Well, ok, we had radio and a very few homes boasted of black and white tv’s with horrendous reception…here in Australia. And movie theatres showing black and white movies. But the drama there was if you didn’t have anyone to go with, you’d have to sit in the theatre by yourself feeling a bit self-conscious.
Compare this to the joy of having a personal computer. One of my greatest joys is my laptop. It sits on a table overlapping my bed and from there I do shop paperwork, my projects and watch movies and YOUTUBE. Internet is the gift that keeps on giving. Tons of expensive encyclopedias are a thing of the past.
Remember when there was a phone box in every second street? Remember the frustration if it was filled with change? No phone call! Remember when trying to drive somewhere new with miles of maps on our knee while dogging other cars? And my grandmother still used a heated copper to do her washing. The water was heated by a fire beneath it. She stirred the clothes around in the copper with a long stick. Life these days is much richer and easier with washing machines and driers, dish washers, supermarkets that do home deliveries–and there are credit cards which can serve us greatly if we’re careful with them. I remember the first credit card only appeared when I was in early twenties, again, I’m referring to Australia. Of course, there are third world countries struggling with increasing poverty and crime rates. At least their struggles are known and various agencies are trying to help out the best they can. This is not a perfect world; nor will it ever be. But there have been massive improvements through the centuries, even just over the last fifty years.
And not the least of these improvements are democratically elected governments. Historically we’ve seen how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And let’s not get into the various plagues and diseases that swept across many countries at different times over the last millennia. Okay, I will: fourteen century– black death. People affected became gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus. Over the five years of the 1300’s that it swept across Europe, the Black Death killed more than 20 million people—almost one-third of the continent’s population. Sixteen Century: Cocoliztli epidemic of 1545-1548 that killed millions of inhabitants of Mexico and Central America. The American Plagues are a cluster of Eurasian diseases brought to the Americas by European explorers. These illnesses, including smallpox, contributed to the collapse of the Inca and Aztec civilizations. Some estimates suggest that 90% of the indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere was killed off.
Check out this page for a successive list of the terrible plagues that affected people globally through the centuries until the present:
https://www.livescience.com/worst-epidemics-and-pandemics-in-history.html
I speculate that this is by far the best era to be alive than at any other time in history. I’m really thankful to be alive now when there is so much increased awareness and better technology and health services and tolerance towards people of all genders and
beliefs. And better governments exist which are by the people and for the people.
AND who knows what further innovations await us in the coming years? I rather fancy getting around in the flying car featured in the US TV show, ‘The Jetsons’. 😉
There is much to be thankful for in the worst of times. It’s easier to count our blessings against a dark backdrop like 2020. Against a plague, behind conspiracies, truth prevails. When faced with intimidation, good people struck back with their principles. When men with shields and guns block a road, we see how much of the street is broken. People, who far exceed those in the way, can begin repaving a new path. In an absurd, existential way, ugly 2020 has created the potential for significant, new endings. I am thankful for that. As for my writing, I am grateful for your blog and your critiques.
Be well on this reflective Thanksgiving.
Another poignant post. Thanks for all you do and also for your openness and integrity.
A very Happy Thanksgiving Day to Nathan and all commenters, particularly Wendy Peterson, who reminded me of what we owe to technology and innovation, at a time when many people glibly condemn “Modernity” while taking its many benefits for granted.
Thank you, John.
Thanks Nathan. These have been trying times for almost everyone. Too many deaths. Also it’s been economically disastrous for many.
But, despite all that, I still feel hopeful that many of us still recognize the humanity of others and, as best as each person can, take steps to reach and connect to others.
Thanks Nathan and Happy Thanksgiving
I am a UK writer, who has been following your blog since you were writing it as an agent!
2020 has been an horrendous year for everyone, and personally I have suffered the loss of my husband (not Covid related) and living two hundred miles from my family made it even harder. But your post was not only thought provoking, but a reminder that we still have much to be thankful for, despite nearly every person on the planet being affected in some way by this awful pandemic. Let’s hope and pray 2021 is a better one for all of us!
I’m so sorry for your loss and yes, fingers crossed for a better 2021!