It is sometimes called gratitude, sometimes thankfulness, sometimes gratefulness.

It means the proper and fitting response to the good things we have or receive in life. The experience of gratitude is a cornerstone of almost ever major religion in the world, it is considered an essential step towards a peaceful or meaningful life, towards the idea of humanity.

The absence of gratitude or thankfulness is present all around us, it is anger, envy, judgment and violence. Yet for all that it is invoked and preached, gratitude is so rarely practiced.Our harsh political exercises are so far behind the better angels inside of us.

Even on this official holiday of thankfulness, an appreciation of generosity and sustenance, we turn away from gratitude and towards commerce and gratification. Thanksgiving, to me, is now the most selfish of holidays, not the most selfless. That’s just me, I have many friends who love this day, mapping out their elaborate strategies for buying the newest devices at the lowest possible cost.

I suppose they are grateful for the chance to do that. Families once sat down together to count their blessings, and now they rush off together to compete on the shopping field, to add up their bargains and discounts. Who am I to say one is more righteous than the other?

I have written of my gratitude towards Maria, who has turned my life towards love and goodness. Today, we are heading off to an inn in Vermont to eat a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner and give thanks for one another. We will return in the morning.

We cannot be with our families today, for various reasons, but we do wish them well. We are so thankful we were able to change our lives.

I want also today to give thanks to this blog. If Maria turned one part of life in a new direction, the blog turned me in another. The blog is my voice, my creative beacon and inspiration. I love my blog and am passionate about it and about protecting it. No ads, no commercial links, no Buy buttons for my books.

I don’t give my work away to a dozen sites and venues in the hope of striking gold, all of my writing and photography and ideas go into this blog exclusively, no one who reads my blog is deprived of any of my work, apart from my books.

I have been fighting for my blog since the very beginning. My publisher said it would threaten book sales, a publicist derided my photographs as “Hallmark Cards” online, literary writers turn their noses up at it, my publishers wish I would do more selling, advertisers would like me to take their ads. The vast majority of writers reject the idea of a blog, they see blogs as a kind of digital prostitution.

I say no to these people and will continue to say no.

My blog is a monologue, not really a dialogue, and the only concession I have made is posting it on Facebook. But everything on Facebook appears on my blog first. I have a contract with many good people and it is sacred to me. The blog will always be free (voluntary contributions are certainly welcome), I will never turn my backs on the people who wouldn’t turn their backs on me.

My blog is my great creative work, my lifetime work, my living memoir. The snobs are always sniffing at it and wondering why I am so committed to it. If it were bound as a hardcover, it might well be hailed as the new memoir of the future, I can’t say. That’s what it is to me. It has guided me, challenged me, inspired me.

The blog has supported my search for authenticity. I am open and honest here, and when I stumble, I am told so quickly. The blog has made me a better writer. It has  given me the community I have never been able to find in the material world until now.

The blog has raised nearly $200,000 dollars for a number of good causes, including individual rights, the support of persecuted farmers, the idea of community, to help good people in sudden need. I can’t imagine a book doing that.

I publish my blog ever day, except for rare short trips, sometimes five or six times a day. It is my great, the record of my life that will be long outlive me.

I believe the process of education is unending, from the beginning of life to the end. The blog is my mentor, it helps me know what it is I think, it helps me to change where I need to change, learn what I needed to learn. I am so much better for having it. The blog is the home of my photographs, without it, I would have no place to take them, and I happily give them away free.

You will never see a watermark on one of my photographs, you are welcome to use my pictures in any way you wish, and bless you for loving them and following me here.

I am grateful for all of you.