Ungrateful beings.

The red line is a line of blood. That’s why it’s red. Cross it, and you’re done for—the blood of the fallen marks that line. But what’s the red thread? It’s that guiding idea in speeches or writing or nowadays movies or series, sometimes called the red line too. When someone rambles or writes in a muddle, we often say they’ve lost the red thread or red line.

It seems to me that this similarity is rather not a coincidence. It seems to me that the red thread within a story points us from a certain beginning to a certain end, whereas the story as such usually tells of something dying, being destroyed or something being created or born. In any case, the red thread of stories seems connected to blood, that is why it's red. Each creation is also a form of destruction, even birth itself is bloody; we all come into the world covered in blood. Deep down, I reckon we humans crave this red thread in stories, we want to hear of something being broken or built. Sometimes directly, sometimes more indirectly. In any case, as the Romans who constructed arenas were aware of, we seem as humans to be hungry to feel and taste blood - that’s the logic that drives us, and the red thread leads us there, it is the red path to blood.

Far-right types have always pushed the idea that one group is to blame for everything, a group we should dominate, sacrifice, or even wipe out completely. Their red thread leads straight to destruction, to the blood of those from whom the decision was made to be sacrificed. Religions and idealists have a similar hunger for blood, but their aim is a bit different. In any case, once we latch onto a red thread, we’re hooked on a goal and we want to see it happen. We’re not deaf to other ideas, but we start to crave this thirst and hunger that awoke in us, we need words to satisfy us.

Religious folks want more talk of faith, nationalists bang on about the nation, eco-warriors obsess over the environment, and the greedy chase more cash. And all those listening enjoy, as their souls fill up on what they are craving. Ones are feeding the souls of others and the others are having their souls fed. Are we grateful when someone feeds our souls? When they give us what we think we need, what quenches our hunger? No, we’re not really grateful - we just feel full. For a bit. Then the hunger kicks back in. We start expecting to be fed again, demanding it even. And that urge to lash out at those who don’t deliver, who let us down, who don’t satisfy our souls or follow a clear red thread when talking - it grows. The hunger inside us demands to be fed, over and over. If it’s not, it bursts out, turning into destruction that devours the ones who failed - the “bad” ones, those who weren’t enough. We destroy them and their destruction satisfies us for a moment, those who have been destroyed become a kind of substitute meal for our souls until someone new comes along to feed us. The thing is, our souls are structured like that - we need that other person, that counterpart, as much as that counterpart needs us. The feeder needs those that can be fed and those who are hungry need food. These others don’t have to be above or below us, but they need to be outside of us, feeding our soul. And we’ve got to feed theirs too by clapping, by yelling, by working, by providing in essence a confirmation that they are right, worthy etc.

This is a somewhat sinister perspective on communiction, but it is a valuable one, for it allows us to ask the question whether real gratitude plays a role in this feeding frenzies? Are those being fed and those offering food really grateful to one another? Or are they just using, instrumentalising each other?

It may all sound grim, but us humans, we’re not exactly butterflies. If you look closely, we’re more like monsters - monsters with hearts, as I’ve said before. And monsters, by their very nature, aren’t grateful. We don’t like admitting we’re monstrous. Many of us are brought up to be good, polite, decent, grateful, loving… So we push the dark parts of our nature, the bits that make us monsters, out of our souls and into the world. We dream up creatures like the giants and cyclopes of old, or modern-day goblins, orcs, trolls, and vampires in films and telly. We create gods, we create devils—anything we don’t want to admit we are, gets spun into these creations, and they take on a life of their own. Why? Because others see their own dark depths in these creations and find a red thread, a new kind of soul food. So instead of being real trolls, we create fantasy trolls and the souls of those who want to be trolls get satisfied, as well of those who are too afraid of it, because they see the trolls who were created and take them into their own souls, feed on them. However, eventually, all of that ceases to be enough. We start to want the real thing. We get angrier, more violent, more destructive. Conflicts flare up, hatred spreads, wars break out. We kill each other, wipe each other out. We become the monsters that we are.

And then what? Wisdom creeps back in, holding up a mirror. It shames us, makes us responsible, shows us who we really are and have been all the time. Monsters. But we’ve got hearts too - we can love, we want to love, we want to escape this hunger or at least satisfy it without hurting anyone. In one film, vampires were shown to drink animal blood or blood from humans who gave it willingly - they continued to be vampires but stopped killing. Some of us try to control ourselves in similar ways, but can we do that collectively, as a species? The big question is not whether we can, but whether we actually want to?

Of course we can also be angels with a shadow, instead of monsters with a heart, but the reality is the same and to me, all points towards us having much more of a dark side within us, than a bright one. However the bright of course shines and hence seems to take up more space - similar to the universe, where it has been caclucated that only 5% amount to stars, planets, fogs etc. whereas the remaining 95% are dark matter and dark energy.

Is it an imposition to live on this earth? We’re thrown into a history, that we didn’t start, one that’s often violent but also full of creation and progress. We’re born into fragile, mortal bodies that can be aggressive, violent, and deadly to other creatures. Yet our bodies can also be beautiful, gentle, thrilling. We have to kill to live; our food comes from other living things. Without death, our bodies can’t survive. So why do we think that things are different when it comes to our souls? Our souls need death to live too. But they’re also fed by life- by the world’s beauty, by humour, love, and all the things that make life worth living. The monsters we project from our darkness don’t have a life worth living. They hide, they hate, they kill, they destroy. When they step into the light, the movies we make show then turning into stone and dying. There are of course many movies trying to find good in the monsters. That’s our imagination at work. We don’t want to be monsters. But we are.

So again, I ask, what does gratitude have to do with all this? Why does it exist? How did we come up with it, and can we even be grateful? We know we want to be - we have rituals, conventions, and in many parts of society, we put on a show of decency, thanking people without much thought or feeling. Why do we bother? Where does this idea of gratitude come from? Lovers came up with it because they’ve felt that when it’s real, it’s the best thing for the soul. Nothing nourishes the soul like true love, nothing like true gratitude. These things have civilised us, pulled us out of bloodlust, and we can all give love and gratitude. But when we don’t get it back, our souls ache, and the hunger for destruction, for blood, wakes up. Can a shift in perspective help? We know we didn’t give birth to ourselves or create this world. Can we find a way to be grateful for those facts?

I once wrote: “Gratitude is an attitude that bows to life and the world.” Sounds nice, doesn’t it? There’s a truth in it that feels good. We want to see others bow to life and to the world with awe and gratitude; we want to be that kind of noble person ourselves. But can we? That’s what nags at me - not whether we want to, but whether we can. The quick “cheers” at the supermarket till, the routine prayer before dinner, the vicious rhetoric many engage in, and the craving for scapegoats, for blood - it all suggests we can’t. If we put this together with our incapacity to really want control, we may come to the conclusion that we are monsters who really want to be good, but can't and who in all seriousness could control themselves, but don't really want to.

Gratitude shouldn’t have enemies. Bowing to life and the world means not picking and choosing what we’re thankful for, like sifting through and keeping only the good bits. True gratitude leaves nothing out - not even the things or people that hurt us. It remembers and is grateful for life and the world as a whole, while staying cautious, knowing pain and even more pain might come. Real gratitude is tied to memory. Without remembering, you can’t be grateful- you need to recall what you’re grateful for. Grateful for the world’s existence, which we didn’t create; for nature and humanity giving us life, since we didn’t birth ourselves; for our societies, parents, and those who loved and taught us, since we didn’t raise ourselves. Yes, many seem to want to be grateful for all of this and more, but we are forgetful and destructive, so that will to be grateful is of a fleeting nature and even though we want to be grateful, it seems we can't be.

In a French documentary about Greek myths, which I watched in German, someone said: “Gratitude is not a strength of the powerful.” That hits hard. Those in charge, whether it’s in politics, business, or even a family, easily forget who they owe or need and don’t even want to remember. Power gets in the way of gratitude. It just does. You don’t need a big argument to feel that this is true. But why? A powerful person can say “thanks” over and over to seem polite, but real gratitude doesn’t exist in them, does it? Why does power block gratitude? Think about it - whether it’s power in a family, a friendship, a club, a company, or politics, it is the same setup: some people rise above others, making choices others have to accept or face consequences. Being able to control and punish while staying untouchable - that for many is power. Why do people want that, and why can't the power-hungry be grateful?

Take Zeus in Greek mythology. He didn’t feel gratitude for any of his many lovers, mortal or divine. He seduced them, got them pregnant, made offspring… It was all about him. They were just tools. He didn’t need to remember those he conquered - he just moved on to the next conquest. People obsessed with power don’t live for memories; they live for conquests and more power. If they do remember, they cherry-pick the good stuff, avoiding anything that might slow down their next win. Memories are only useful if they serve future victories. And since people can lie, those searching for power of twist memories.

It sounds brutal, and it is. Most people through history have been barbarians. Not all were cruel, not all focused on exploiting others, but there were peace-loving peoples who farmed, raised animals, and saw the world’s beauty beyond power’s lens. But they also probably had their internal power struggles. It seems hard to me to find any clue for some people who realised that since humans already dominate the planet, one doesn't really have to bother to dominate each other. If there would been such peoples, we could say that they had and lived gratitude. But even if there were such people, they probably were mostly individuals, rarely larger groups, and even larger groups existed, it seems that they didn’t last. The barbarians conquered them. Power took over again. Why?

I was born in Serbia, a country that went through six wars in the 20th century and through hell more than once. There might’ve been peace-loving people in the Balkans once, but we know little about them. Slavic, Germanic, Mongol and Turkish barbarians conquered, exploited, and rewrote their history. By the 20th century, we had the Balkan Wars, World Wars, destruction, and during the Second World War also death camps. In Jasenovac, a massive concentration camp run by the Independent State of Croatia, Serbs, Jews, and Roma were targeted and killed just for belonging to a certain identity group. Decisions were made to erase them completely from the face of the earth. For barbarians who made these decisions, exploiting and oppressing wasn’t enough anymore - they wanted total annihilation, like the Nazis’ plan for the Jews: “Erase every trace, so that in the future, it will look like they have never even existed.” Where does that come from? How can humans crave such complete destruction? Not every German, Serb, Russian, or Jew is a barbarian, but when barbarians take charge of a people, very many - almost all others - start acting barbaric as well. And they seem to relish it.

After World War II, Jasenovac was deliberately destroyed to erase the memory, so the atrocities of Croatian barbarians wouldn’t derail a shared communist future for Serbs and Croats. Today, a lone concrete flower stands in Jasenovac, a monument against forgetting that’s itself at risk of being forgotten. History isn’t just being written - it’s also being erased. How barbaric and ungrateful is that?

Some say what’s erased screams louder. But does it? Humanity’s memory is full of gaps. Some believe it’s our job to fill them with truth, stories, and responsibility. Hannah Arendt said: “Memory is the foundation of politics, because it’s the condition for responsibility.” But that feels more like a hope than reality, given the billions of barbarians who only want power.
Alexander Pope wrote: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” How sad is a person who expects nothing? Being a barbarian might seem better when contrasted in this way - at least they’re alive, hoping, fighting. It can’t be our goal, to live without will or expectations. A worthy goal might seem to be to rid ourselves of barbarism, to be noble, decent, grateful. To do that, we should stop chasing power, because power blocks gratitude, instead of wanting power to make sure the barbarians don't create havoc again. Voltaire quipped we don’t need paradise if we can tend our own garden. Power blocks gratitude, so to be grateful, we must abandon the pursuit of power. But how? And why? Maybe we’ll get it if we understand why humans - why barbarians - crave power.

Nikolaj Velimirović, a Serbian Orthodox bishop, said: “Ingratitude is the death of the soul.” Harsh, but it rings true, even to a barbarian’s mind. Even barbarians don’t want to be ungrateful. But do barbarians want to be powerless? Powerlessness is the opposite of power and the greatest fear of every barbarian. Even the possibility of powerlessness makes barbarians paranoid and obsessed, fuelling their hunger for power. So, what’s power? It’s not just feeling secure - it’s feeling superior, in control, deciding what happens or doesn’t and of course being able to cause harm to others without fear of consequence, as already Plato has put forward in his Gorgias Dialogue through the voice of Kalikles. Montesquieu said, there is no power without freedom and no freedom without power, because if you don't have the power to do something, then what worth has all the freedom in the world have for you? Similarly what is all the power in the world worth to you, if you don't have the freedom to use it? But power is also the ability to create, to invent, to change, in many instances towards something good. So many crave it not in order to feel secure or to harm, but simply to be able to bring something new to life. Power by itself cannot be bad or good, like weapons by themselves aren't bad or good. And yet it seems to corrupt people, or maybe it only seems to corrupt them, because there is also a saying "if you really want to see who someone is, give them power" - maybe it doesn't corrupt, but instead only boldens people enough to take off their masks. But maybe it also corrupts, in the sense that it makes the hunger for blood, for the red thread in stories, for the food for the soul grow. After all, we know that whoever gets a taste for power seldomly just abstains from it. Usually the hunger power grows. But why?

Also, where does this hunger come from, and how can we overcome it to find gratitude? Power blocks gratitude, maybe because gratitude is a hunger too, but one that feeds the soul in a different way. Gratitude doesn’t fear powerlessness but only fears ingratitude. Ingratitude is however easier to bear than powerlessness - it doesn’t drive you mad, but maybe only annoys you for a moment, because you forgot to be grateful, to say thanks, so you go ahead and fix that. That’s it. You feel grateful again. But with power and powerlessness, things aren't as easy. One needs to destroy those or in some way control those, who one feels have taken power from them or who are more powerful then themselves. A sense of control can also come from service, which is what many engage in, when confronted with people more powerful then themselves - they start serving them, sometimes just to bid for time, until they can strike, sometimes however, because they feel that is the easiest way. But all of that doesn't answer, where this craving comes from?

Also how can barbarians shift from craving power to craving gratitude? Or is the hunger for power maybe in the way and blocks gratitude, because these hungers are actually one and the same? If those were not two hungers, but one, than that one hunger would probably be something like a need to feel we exist, we belong. The grateful feel validated by being part of the world and they are thankful for it. The power-hungry feel validated by wielding power. Nietzsche was so sick of everything humans did, that he dreamt up the Übermensch, a super human, so as to escape being human. But we cannot escape being human, we cannot escape being monsters, we can't even escape being barbarians - at least not always, not in every single instance. So where does this will, this need, this hunger for power come from?

I’m starting to think power-hunger is a soul sickness, a kind of spiritual cancer.
Power-hungry people seem ill to me - scared, under pressure. They think power will free them, help them grow, maybe even in biological depths. But power just drags them deeper into a bottomless pit, far from gratitude. Jesus said: “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s kingdom.” Does “rich man” mean the powerful? Or just someone who already has so much in a material sense, that he needs not another kingdom than his own? Or does it mean, that those who thirst for power and obtain it have actually sick souls? Did something happen during their upbringing, do they have trauma (wounds on their souls), do they battle with complexes of not belonging, of being worthless, are they plagued by their disappointments? If they see themselves as powerful, they will not be able to enter a Kingdom of God, because entering it, would mean agreeing that someone else is more powerful then they are. It could be said that power-hungry barbarians have a massive inferiority complex, driving them to prove they’re not worthless through power. The grateful, noble person doesn’t want power but takes on responsibility in groups. The powerful want to dodge responsibility - for responsibility is just limiting them, as memory is limiting them. Those hungry for power just want to rule or serve those who rule, so as to feel connected to power being wielded through service.

I believe this brings us to the question where this hunger comes from and why it is the same as the hunger for gratitude - it comes from the need to belong. Think of the darkness: 27 million dead Russians and Soviets in World War II, 13 million of those were civilians; 6 million Jews in the Shoah; millions more across the war, altogether over 70 million dead. Cities razed: Stalingrad, Kyiv, Minsk, Kharkiv, Smolensk, Rostov, Novgorod, Vitebsk, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac. Death camps across Europe and the Balkans - Jasenovac, Sajmište, Banjica. This is just one war, there have been thousands of wars among us humans, I have barely even scratched the surface with these examples. How many of those wars do we remember? How many do we even want to remember?

Gratitude ties us to the world and gives us a sense of belonging. It’s about embracing something bigger than us, humbly marvelling that anything exists at all - and that we get to experience it. Laughter, warm summer days, buzzing bees, fluttering butterflies, the ability invent and create and enjoy all that has been invented and created, games, sports, art, music, philosophy, love… We need a peace of mind to engage in these activities, and peace needs bold, honest, grateful people in charge, doesn’t it? Or is it actually, that we just need to let go of the will to control and instead focus on what is below that, our need to belong.

Simone Weil said: “The soul’s roots are in the past. Only through memory can justice arise.” Emmanuel Levinas said: “The face of the other stops me from killing them.” Gratitude starts when we see God’s face, or at least human dignity, in another’s face - even one marked by pain. But can we see the devil, the destroyer, the power-hungry being in others and not fear them or not have the sudden surge in us to want to kill them? We just need to ask: What else does the power-hungry barbarian bring to the table besides their hunger for power? Sometimes, those who seem barbaric to us seek power to heal, to find meaning, to create, to make the world a better place. Other times, they’re too far gone, hooked on malicious habits and want it to be cruel without having to fear consequences. These traits, once they fortify in people, unfortunately don’t fade easily - getting used to cruelty means using power to feed malice. So many slaves existed because power-hungry people decided it is allowed to enslave others. So many slaves have existed that someone once said we’re all descended from slaves. Cruel habits need their own discourse.

Back to the red thread. We’re forgetful, often cruel, monsters with hearts. Born ungrateful - destructive, blind, selfish, narcissistic. We can become barbarians or grow into gratitude and nobility. Our hearts grow when we remember. We are what we remember. Those used to cruelty remember cruelty; those used to good remember good. Conquerors who remember nothing live for future conquests. But like a tree needs roots, a person needs memories to be healthy. Memories of gratitude are what makes a person noble, for that person has a deep rooted sense of belonging that one one can uproot or destroy. The stronger that sense of belonging is, the healthier is one's soul and the less need for power one has.

That’s the end of this red thread. Since we’re born ungrateful, wounded, and power-hungry across generations, cultures and languages, we can’t simply beat that hunger for power - for it is knitted into our understanding of ourselves and our socities. However, we can can learn to feed this hunger with gratitude- gratitude for this reality as it is, for our lives, for what we have and what we can give and of course, those who want to, can also be grateful to God. That way, we avoid getting hooked simply on power and on cruelty. When we act cruelly and get away with it - when we in other words wield power without consequence — we slowly start to get used to it. Power very often turns into cruelty and the cruel and the powerful can’t be grateful. But we can become grateful by letting power go and recognizing in the need for power, if it is not used for construtive action, a sickness of the soul. Feeding the sould with gratitude instead means to become noble and lose the need to belong to groups in which sick and unfair power dynamics exist.

It’s a tough, long road, but it’s worth more than any other. It’s the only way out of the hell of power for ungrateful creatures like us. Power-hunger is a soul disease. Some psychotherapists will never admit this, because they are often sick themselves, seeing psychotherapy as a power game that offers them a sense of feeling superior. That sense of feeling superior beats the need for belonging in many and through power turns into a need to feel superior, but over time that becomes a solitary prison, because the need to belong is stronger - it is grounded in our biology, no man or woman is an island. A sick soul sometimes uses power over others to heal itself, to escape trauma, to test ideas and do much more in the shadows, before they feel the courage to step out into the light and connect once more. Jesus of Nazareth showed the way out to many of us, who are narcissistic apes and power-hungry barbarians, offering his flesh and blood as food for our souls, to satifsy our hunger for blood and destruction. He did this not long before he was crucified.

This man, or Son of God, saw us as monsters and loved us anyway, fully. I believe this is one of the reasons, because of which he has been heralded as the saviour of the human species, the Messiah, the Christ.

What about the regular, everyday human monster? Where does this red line end? We’re born ungrateful, but we can learn not to be. We can become grateful, even noble beings. But do we want to? As a species that has created large socities and cultures, in which a hunger for power and habits of cruelty and even of evil have been knitted into, most of the 8 billion individuals that we count today will probably remain, what all of our offspring becomes by birth - ungrateful beings.