Giving Thanks
- Isaac Cui
- Nov 28, 2020
- 8 min read
Recently, there’s been a (surprise surprise) non-Taylor Swift tune in my head. Every Sunday service at the church I went to in DC, there would be a brief interlude where the entire congregation would rise and sing together: “All things come of thee, oh Lord; / And of thine own have we given thee. / Amen.” It’s a hymn adapted from Biblical scripture — Google tells me it’s the King James Version of 1 Chronicles 29:14 — and it was always accompanied by signing the words of the song out of a desire to be inclusive. The tune has stuck with me in part because of its elegance; indeed, many of my most visceral memories from attending that church have to do with the vivacious and moving music.
There’s another reason, I think, that the tune has stuck. I think it’s also a message that I don’t hear very often, and so whenever I think about gratitude, the hymn pops into my head. Yesterday, a friend made a stray comment that seems right to me — that we who lead secular lives are probably missing some kind of spirituality. And at least in my life, I think that deficiency is most apparent when I become convinced of my own independence and, relatedly, am insufficiently grateful to those who made my life possible.
I wrote a few weeks ago about meeting a Marshall who so impressed me with her goodness, and I realize now that part of her charm was that she was very open about her gratitude and, relatedly, never came off as too self-assured. We might think that the opposite of arrogance is insecurity, but if I learned anything having survived middle school, it’s that a lack of confidence parallels an abundance of confidence. Both the arrogant and the insecure person tend to focus on themselves, their strengths or weaknesses, their accomplishments or failures. Gratitude externalizes the locus of control — it’s not about whether you are smart, or kind, or strong, but rather, how others have supported and nurtured you.
Another lyric — this time from a song featuring Taylor Swift, of course — that has been on my mind: “Everybody ain’t a number one draft pick; / Most of us ain’t Hollywood actors. / But if it’s all for one, and one for all, / Then maybe one day, we all can ball. / Do it one time for the underdogs, / Sincerely yours, from one of y’all. / I wish I was strong enough to lift / Not one, but both of us.” Thanksgiving offers that reminder to think about not how we’ve lifted ourselves up by our own bootstraps, but how we’ve been lifted together.
I’m thankful, then, for all of the new people I’ve gotten to meet over these last ten weeks in the UK. To a person, they’ve been kind, and wise, and passionate, and pleasures to get to know. Like at Pomona and in high school, I think I’ve found people who are just brilliant and who constantly push me to be a more thoughtful person. There’s a wonderful diversity of people among both the Marshalls I’m meeting and the folks at LSE; people have very different life goals and topics that they’re interested in. They’re making me think more carefully about the military, about consumption and environmental consciousness, about the role of competition law in our current economy, about race in American politics, about governmental paternalism, about ethics and living a good life. I think my beliefs are more dynamic today than they were even a few months ago, and I attribute that to all the insights (and readings!) my friends and professors have been providing me.
I’m also thankful for my enduring friendships, and for my family. Being away from the vast majority of them helps reinforce just how important they are, both to my well-being and my growth. Communities help stabilize us and remind us of who we are — they are roots. But they also hold our feet to the fire and ensure that we do what we know we ought to — to extend the plant metaphor, they also provide the water and sunlight and air that enable us to thrive.
This pandemic has reminded me of a lesson that I relearn every time I’m sick: when things are normal, they tend to fade in the background, and it takes displacing that normalcy to help bring those now-missing things to the foreground. The experience of seeing a beautiful place gets less visceral when you walk past it every day; the taste of good food dulls as you eat it often; the warmth of the California sun seems less important after being in Claremont for a few days (I’m reminded of the Passenger lyric: “Only miss the sun when it starts to snow”). Keeping up relationships has never been easier in human history, in the sense that we can connect across the globe in near-magical ways. With Zoom and planes, our world has never been smaller. Gandhi, in Hind Swaraj, wrote: “Formerly, men travelled in wagons; now they fly through the air in trains at the rate of four hundred and more miles per day. This is considered the heart of civilisation. It has been stated that, as men progress, they shall be able to travel in airships and reach any part of the world in a few hours.” Connecting to others is easy. But that doesn’t replace the need to keep vesting energy in relationships that otherwise would decay through entropy.
I’m thankful, also, for the many teachers throughout my life who invested so much time and energy in me. I think I got about as good of an education as one could hope for; basically at every stage of my life starting in elementary school, I had at least one teacher who genuinely cared for my well-being and intellectual development. That kind of attention was unique, and I often think about how special those teachers all were (are). But I also feel like I’ve become more appreciative recently as I learn more about the psychology of a teacher. Some of my friends, after graduation, have become teachers or are doing social work, and hearing their experiences — about how difficult it is to care for their students, about how much they want to lift up all of their students and yet feel so viscerally constrained in time and resources and expertise — are deeply affecting and provide a kind of lived texture to some of the ideas I’ve been thinking about.
I wrote last week about Weber’s thoughts on the good politician. I’m becoming more convinced that the true Weberian politicians are what Michael Lipsky called the “street-level bureaucrats”: the teachers and police officers and social workers who interface between the state and the people, those bureaucrats who provide a face to governance. It’s these bureaucrats who see the complex reality of people’s lives — both the pain and suffering but also the resilience and potential, the tedium and exhaustion but also the curiosity and joy of everyday people. Teachers enter the workforce dedicated to serving their students, but they also know they often can’t address every student’s needs; they know, invariably, that they will fail at times. Lipsky argued that street-level bureaucrats, when confronted with their difficult realities, will develop cognitive defense mechanisms for simplifying and routinizing their work. Sometimes that means heuristics that say that certain people are more or less “deserving” of service; sometimes that means filtering out what people are saying because you believe you know better; sometimes that just means viewing teaching as a bureaucratic service to be provided, a set of minimum requirements to be checked off, rather than as a vocational calling to be fulfilled.
Weber described politics as the “strong, slow drilling through hard boards”; politics is about being a relentless advocate for your cause even when you know the odds are against you and when you know interventions often lead to unintended consequences and failures. Good teachers, I think, are the ones who can shoulder that burden — who can feel motivated, every day, to soldier on in doing their level-best to improve their students’ lives, even when it seems hopeless. I feel blessed to have had so many teachers who so clearly dedicated themselves to their craft — who so obviously saw teaching as not merely a bureaucratic process but as a calling and duty.
Lastly, I’m thankful for the opportunity to spend so much time just thinking and writing and reflecting and exploring. The process of writing this blog reminds me every week of how difficult writing is and how hard it is to distill my jumbled thoughts into hopefully coherent pieces. It takes a long time — time that I definitely didn’t have at Pomona or in high school.
But it’s not just time that’s necessary to do this kind of head-in-the-clouds writing. I certainly don’t think I could be doing this if I were working or had dependents to care for. The Marshall came to me in a really unique time in life, I think — one where I can have the luxury of simply exploring a new place and thinking, and where I don’t feel worried about my immediate future plans. It’s a really lucky opportunity, and I’m deeply grateful.
* * * * *
Rose: On Thanksgiving Day, some other Marshalls invited us to a potluck in a park. It was a really nice get together, and it made me feel like I’m starting to develop a community here. I didn’t eat at the potluck, though, because our flat made our own Thanksgiving feast. It was glorious, though we will be eating turkey for the foreseeable future.
Also, over the last week, I’ve gotten to take some really nice long walks — some with friends, and a few just by myself. Here are some pictures:
We’ve also had some baking shenanigans in the flat. We got new flour (bread flour!) and baked two beautiful loaves of bread (here’s one picture):
Last time, when I baked a loaf, we called it “Joe from Scranton.” So, of course, these two are named “Beau” and “Bigly Beautiful Burisma.” My flatmate and I are trying to figure out what to name the starter that he's cultivating. We figured it’s a fighter — it’s quite the a voracious eater — so here are the options: Hillary, Rocky, and Beowulf. I am personally in favor of Beowulf, but I'd love to hear what y’all think.
Bud: I just ordered a bunch of new books, some recommendations from friends and others just because I felt like I wanted to return to some of my big intellectual influences. I got two books that are compilations of papers from two towering figures for me: Louis Brandeis and Thurgood Marshall. I also got Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, which has come up a lot in my recent conversations, as well as a few other recommendations (another book on Thurgood Marshall, a book about Native American history during the westward expansion of the American state, and a book about the Chief Justice). I’m expecting to have plenty of time during the winter break since I’ll be staying in London, so I figured I might as well get cozy with a bunch of books!
Thorn: It’s suddenly felt much colder in London than it was before, which is unfortunate because it makes long walks (my main form of socializing) much less pleasant. On the other hand, this entire city is very quickly gearing up for Christmas, which is nice and cheery.
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