A Cult of Brighter Days reflection for Veteran’s Day (and government shutdowns everywhere)
Every November, the calendar hands us a peculiar juxtaposition: a day to honor service and sacrifice — and, some years, a government so temporarily “paused” that even the coffee filters are furloughed.
Here at the Cult of Brighter Days, we like to think of Veteran’s Day not as a parade of performative patriotism, but as an invitation to something deeper: gratitude with teeth. The kind that bites through red tape, laughs at bureaucratic absurdity, and still manages to say thank you — sincerely, if a little sardonically.
Because let’s be honest: it takes a special kind of heroism to serve your country and survive the DMV.
The Paradox of Service and Shutdown
Every time the lights flicker in a federal office, it’s not just the power grid that stutters — it’s the human rhythm behind the scenes.
The park rangers, postal workers, public health officers, and military staff who keep showing up even when the paycheck doesn’t.
Sociologists have called this “prosocial resilience” (Fredrickson, 2013) — the ability to maintain social commitment even when institutional support collapses.
We call it “the Saints of Systems Failure” — people who find a way to do the right thing in spite of everything going wrong.
It’s holy absurdity in action.
It’s service that refuses to be canceled by Congress.
The Song as Satire and Salve
Our parody of Dido’s “Thank You” — retitled “Thank You (for Your Service… and Your Patience)” — grew out of that tension.
It’s a love letter to everyone who keeps the lights on with coffee, humor, and an unshakable sense of irony.
It’s also a reminder that sometimes laughter is all we can invoice.
The melody stays gentle, the lyrics bite just enough, and underneath the jokes runs a pulse of genuine affection for those who keep showing up — not for glory, but for groceries, for neighbors, for hope.
We don’t mock the service; we mock the absurdity that underfunds it.
We honor the resilience — not the red tape.
A Cult of Gratitude (and Gallows Humor)
The Cult of Brighter Days’ First Tenet is “Be kind.”
And sometimes kindness looks like saying thank you in the middle of dysfunction.
Sometimes it’s forwarding a meme to your favorite overworked civil servant with a note that says, “You are the duct tape holding democracy together.”
Humor, as we’ve often preached (Baumeister et al., 2016), is a pro-social coping mechanism — one that transforms stress into solidarity.
So yes, sing along. Laugh through your teeth. Cry if you must.
Then go find someone who serves — and say, “thank you, not just for your service but for your patience.”
Because this year, that patience may be the highest form of patriotism we’ve got.
In Closing: Service as Sanity
If absurdity is a national language, then gratitude is the dialect of those who refuse to quit speaking human.
So to the veterans, the volunteers, the workers keeping the machinery humming while the gears grind —
thank you for your service, your humor, and your stubborn grace.
And from all of us at the Cult of Brighter Days:
may your shutdown be short, your coffee strong,
and your next paycheck miraculously on time.
