Gratitude but to whom

[Dekalb_Blues]

I've been holding off posting but here's an idea, take it for what it's worth: why does there have to be an object of gratitude at all?  Can one not simply feel the emotion of gratitude purely without attributing it to someone or something else?  Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I find the feeling of pure gratitude to be so wonderful.  Are we limiting the concept of gratitude to the word and grammatical limitations? The experience itself requires no such constraints (maybe it doesn't require a subject, either, and one can simply feel gratitude without needing to attribute it to any sort of exchange at all).