>>33856374 (OP)
Consider a dog. One might point to them as one of the most pure types of affection and appreciation. They're happy to see you, run up to you when you come into the room, and lick your face. Does that mean they're always going to cuddle you and never get up? Not be upset if your withhold food? Not be distractable? Always listen to you?
Appreciation isn't grasping. If you're always taking lingering glances, longer hugs, and feel something ooey gooey about a person it doesn't mean your appreciationmaxxing.
Next consider the ignoble SM64 speedrunner. Nobody puts as many hours into the video game as the person spamming 16 star runs in Super Mario 64. They get mad at the shitty fucking game because they know about the % chance to hit an invisible wall in a seam. But they keep playing the game and striving for a better time. Nobody appreciates the game as much as the speedrunner. You might not be feeling the transient emotional joy as someone playing it for the first time.
Appreciation might be striving for more. It would mean some form of non-attachment to the state of things. If you study the state of things for long enough you'll recognize its transient nature and thereby realize it's the only sane way to engage with it.
Did you appreciate your life more when you were playing 4 player video games on a console laughing with your friends, eating pizza, and getting shitty sleep at a sleepover or when, in the wake of it, you tried to remember how rare and precious it is to have moments going forward?
Maybe feeling the moment and letting go is enough. Maybe you don't appreciate your body by himming and hawing about the state of it but instead feeling the lift and striving for bigger muscles. Maybe you appreciate by not choosing alcohol in pursuit of a state you think is neat and instead choose one that will make you feel better longer. Or maybe you appreciate the night by getting drunk and laughing with people like you did at the sleep overs. Who knows?
