Showing appreciation while we have time

Happy New Year, everyone! Given how...challenging 2020 was (to put it mildly), I figured it might be good to try to begin 2021 on the Cocoon on a positive note: that is, in a way that starts out 2021 trying to do some good. One of the things that 2020 brought to the forefront of many of our minds, I expect, is just how tenuous life is. Of course, we always know that our lives or lives of our friends and loved ones could end at any time. But, for the most part, I take it that most of us normally try to avoid this reality, living our daily lives out, going to work, etc. Last year was different. Some of us got sick from COVID; others of us worried about or even lost loved ones to it. Hopefully, this year will be better. But all of this got me thinking about something: namely, how important it can be to let people know how much they mean to us while we still have the time to do so.

My sense is that, for those of us who have lost people (either last year or before COVID), not doing this can be one of the things we deeply regret. For example, last year was the first time a former professor and mentor of mine passed away. Although I did my best to express gratitude to them while they were here, I'm not sure that I ever made it clear just how much of a positive difference they made in my life and career. And indeed, every time I read death notices of philosophers (and comments sections where people express the difference those people made in their lives), I always think to myself: why don't we do this--openly express gratitude to those who mean so much to us--before they pass, that is, when they are still here to see how much they mean to us?

So, here is what I would like to try in the comments section below. I'd like to ask readers who are willing to do so to express gratitude to others in the profession who have made a positive difference in your life--whether it is a mentor, a friend in grad school, whomever! While I think readers should feel free to do so openly under their own name, I'm a bit inclined to suggest that it may be best to do so anonymously, and here's why. I read yesterday a selection by Kant (in his Lectures on Ethics) in which he argues against doing people profligate favors on the grounds that it places them under a kind of unasked-for obligation. Lurking here in the background also, I think, is another classically Kantian idea: that when we do nice things publicly (as opposed to anonymously), there's always a real concern about purity of motive--that is, of us doing so to look good rather than to do good. So, here's what I'll suggest: if there are any people in the profession who have made a positive difference in your life--who you would like to show gratitude to while they are still here--do it anonymously, simply to start off 2021 in a way that, if that person sees your comment, will make their start to 2021 feeling a bit happier and more appreciated than they might otherwise feel today. :)

I'll probably post an anonymous comment (or two) of gratitude myself, but only after others kick things off (in part so that it's not obvious which commenter I am!). I hope that at least some of you do take the opportunity to comment and share the thread. Why not begin 2021 trying to make someone's day (and start of the year) just a little bit brighter?

Comments

[anonanon]

Shout out to Mark Schroeder for being a mensch.

[Alsoanon]

Stephen Read is a genuinely excellent human and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

[grateful anon]

I would like to thank the contributors to and moderators of this blog. The advice is all very helpful, and the camaraderie even more helpful still.

[Roanoker]

Brent Adkins changed my life. Thank you for being an amazing mentor and top-notch teacher.

[Anonymous Grad Student]

There's vanishingly little chance he'll read this, but I'll always be grateful to Kilian Currey. While I was an undergraduate at my parents' home for the summer, I met Kilian at a Barnes and Noble perusing the philosophy section. We got to talking for hours about Kant and Aquinas and whatnot. He informed me that he'd been a philosophy professor in New York for so-many years before retiring. (He was 83 at this point.) We became friends, and to this day whenever we're both in town and there isn't a pandemic afoot we meet up at that Barnes and Noble and just talk philosophy.

I'm grateful for the mentorship, the friendship, and for a particular moment I vividly recall from that first day we met. I'd told him that while I loved philosophy, I probably would pursue something more financially reliable, perhaps law. As our conversation was ending we were walking out and he said, "Well [insert my name], it sounds like you don't really want to study law. It sounds like you want to study philosophy." That wasn't a revelation, of course. It was just obvious. But he said it as if to say that that fact mattered more than I was giving it credit for. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but it was a moment of affirmation that helped me feel more surefooted when I ultimately decided to pursue what I love.