Question

Hello,
It is quite common to say thank you to God. You often hear this at celebrations, after rescues, or in blessings of thanksgiving and enjoyment, where it is already an obligation; the idea is that without His help we would not have gotten anywhere, and so on. The question then arises: if the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene in the world, then what is there to say thank you for? After all, "it is my own power and the strength of my own hand."
So the usual answer is that saying thank you is for the very creation of the world—that He gave you the strength to succeed. But if so, I still think that is even harder.
After all, saying thank you is for a case where at first you had X, and then the giver gave you X+Y, so you say thank you for the difference. But before we were created there was nothing at all, so what exactly can one say thank you for?
Moreover, insofar as the Holy One, blessed be He, created us, it seems reasonable to me to say that from a "moral" standpoint He is obligated toward us, as long as we exist, to make us live not in suffering but in the best possible way—just as we would punish parents who abuse their children. If so, then not only is there no reason to say thank you for existence itself, there is also no reason to say thank you for our good condition, because that is His "duty" as a consequence of the act of creation. We have an obligation to fulfill His commandments, but why are we also required to say thank you?
Thanks,
The Ungrateful One