Bittersweetness And The Utility Of Sorrow, Pain And Longing
It’s tempting to think that if you could get rid of sadness and pain, then the world would be a better place-that your life would be great. You might already have an intuition that this cannot be since the conditions of life remain the same. We live and we cease to exist between two points in time, and this holds true for the people we love.
In this sense, life is hard. Sorrow and longing are parts of our journey. If we’re lucky, it’ll also take space with joy and happiness. Bittersweetness is what the author calls this awareness of impermanence and being in touch with both joy and sorrow, and an acknowledgment of both light and dark. She calls this a hidden superpower, an untapped and underdeveloped capacity.
“Bittersweetness shows us how to respond to pain by acknowledging it, and attempting to turn it into art, the way musicians do, or healing, or innovation, or anything else that nourishes the soul. […] This idea-of transforming pain into creativity, transcendence, and love-is the heart of this book.“
This is a mystery. Why do we feel drawn to sad music? Where does longing come from? Why do we sometimes seek out things that make us sad? As in books, movies, poems, songs, museums, events, cultural celebrations and more. The author relates that these are all dimensions of our bittersweet tendencies. But still, why? Why not just forget, and live happily ever after?
The rest of the book attempts to answer this: what’s the use of sorrow, how to cope with loss, how to live in a world obsessed with positivity, how to live knowing that you and everyone you love will die, how do you deal with inherited grief.
What’s the use of sadness and sorrow?
Sadness and sorrow are pathways to love and connection-to art and creativity. It brings people together. To quote the author: “Fear keeps you safe. Anger protects you from getting taken advantage of. Sadness triggers compassion.“
How to cope with loss?
The way others have done so is through helping others heal, loving-kindness meditation, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, making art, and realizing that sometimes love returns in a different form.
Tyranny of Positivity
A popular idea sold from the past decades has been that: you must think positive; you must stamp down negativity. Much of this book explores this subject. Sadness, mortality, grief. Not the usual topics you’d hear in a culture where positivity is held on a pedestal. The truth is life is not always positive. Both wallowing and denying negative things is unhealthy.
How do you deal with inherited grief?
Generational pain is real. Children who grew up from parents who experienced intense trauma, as in survivors of world wars, carry a part of it. The author suggests that it is important to learn their story, and to also remember that their story is not your story.
How to live knowing that you and everyone you love will die?
People respond to mortality in many ways. Fear, Resignation, Acceptance, Recklessness. Religions and philosophies have their say. But this is where it goes to a stalemate. The author suggests that “You don’t have to accept impermanence. […] It’s enough to be aware of it, and to feel its sting. […] This is the ultimate paradox: we transcend grief only when we realize that we’re connected with all the other humans who can’t transcend grief”
I.e., Feel it, Live with it, Carry it forward.
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