Gratitude and Anti-Gratitude

I've been doing some more thinking today, and I think I've figured out a little more about the effect doubt/disbelief has on gratitude.

A few years back, I got my Amateur Radio Operator license.  One of the things that I learned about and have experienced in communicating over the air waves is the effect of interference and noise on the radio signal.  Noise is just something you have to learn how to deal with - there are many different types of sources from many different locations, and some days no matter how you may try to avoid it you just have to live with it.
Sometimes you can locate the source of the noise, sometimes you can find a location that isn't as effected by the noise, and when all else fails, crank the transmit power knob up to 11 and just wipe it out with excessive wattage.

I think doubt and disbelief are like noise and interference. They can block out and scramble the messages of the "still small voice", and are the opposite of the peace and stillness that we are seeking.  Like radio noise, there are some things that we can do to minimize the effect of the extraneous signals.  I think the most popular and most overused method is to overpower the noise with a stronger signal.


But, when we use this method, our signal strength is no longer measured in terms of milliwatts  or distance, but how well it blanks out the noise.  One could even go so far as to surpass the duty cycle and maximum power the equipment is rated for, just to no longer hear the background static.

I think this can be the same effect of doubt and disbelief on gratitude.  There are many experiences and activities that are strong and powerful enough to temporarily drown out the noise of anti-faith.  There are many magic moments that feel like the whole universe is humming, and there is no sight of anything that isn't pure harmony.  Strong laughter, infatuation, standing applause, perfect sounds, the thrill of victory, etc. We can be very grateful for these strong occurrences, and to a point can try to seek out and try to fill our lives with them.

But that about what Elder Maxwell calls the "seeming flat periods" of our lives where we don't come in contact with these things?  What about those seasons of our lives where our duties and circumstances do not lend themselves for seeking  after the next "rapture moment"?

And, like a drug, we can build up a tolerance to these strong forces, and require more and more of them to have the same effect.  And here's the best part - when we get to the point where it becomes harder and harder to maintain the volume necessary to upstage it, then we start to feel more anxiety, doubt, and disbelief, and the noise gets stronger, and we have to find greater and greater anti-noise makers, and we eventually end up in a heap of perfectionism and ulsers.

Even then, they can reach an intensity that is so strong that we can no longer even hear the still small voice.  Elder Richard G. Scott has told us that we can let our emotions and our sensations become so strong that hearing the Holy Ghost during them is like trying to enjoy the delicate flavor of a grape while eating a jalapeno pepper.

If think we can become so stilled and so dependent on finding those strong influences, that we fail to find gratitude in the cornucopia of small blessings that we receive that do not have a very strong "signal".  How can you be grateful for something that isn't strong enough to blank our the noise?  How can we increase in gratitude when we are, in effect, saying, "Dear Father, please send me blessings and opportunities to serve and magnify my talents, but only if they big enough to offset the noise that my own doubt produces"?
So - rather than keeping trying to find the next big "spiritual high", what's the best long-term solution?  Simple.  Get rid of the noise.  Get rid of the fear.  Get rid of the doubt.  Get rid of the discouragement.  Get rid of the source rather than trying to always be louder than it.  We need to let go, and learn to really trust in the Lord, and put our faith in the enabling power of the Atonement to sustain us day-to-day, and not in the self-medicating arm of the flesh.

One day the laughter will end, and if we haven't parted ways with the demons we cling to, then it will be just us and them - together forever.