After delving into the inner reaches of her tortured psyche in such pieces as “My First Blog Post” and “Halloween,” Danielle Steel moved to a far more disturbing subject last week: that of “Gratitude.” On the day after the most important election of our time, Steel awakened to reveal the primal machinations of the soul that drive Man’s very existence. “I want to put in a word here for something that I think is enormously important: gratitude,” she wrote. “It makes an incredible difference in one’s life — especially when you feel the least grateful!”

From there, the dark tale unraveled with violent urgency. Steel recounts a recent time when she “was feeling down” and purchased an “inspirational book.” But the book held only more details of the unspeakable tragedy that afflicts all Humankind. “Instead of telling me how to solve my own problems, it told me to put my own worries on the shelf, and help someone else,” she wrote. “Are you kidding? Did the author have any idea of the miseries I was dealing with?”

Can any man truly understand another?