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Americans tend to be a crowd to put on a happy face, show optimism, and push forward past and through any difficulty with a smile, Susan Cain writes. But that prevents us from pausing and pondering on the difficulties, learning from them, and even pulling together with others.
The book’s description says this: “Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy when beholding beauty. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. A song in a minor key, an elegiac poem, or even a touching television commercial all can bring us to this sublime, even holy, state of mind—and, ultimately, to greater kinship with our fellow humans.”
She writes of many examples of how she and others have felt that longing feeling, when listening to a certain type of music or looking at something beautiful. That we can sit and “enjoy” or kind of simmer in the feeling of melancholy. She also explores examples of people who are ignoring what I would call the blessing of those opportunities, such as a group of people who are striving to live forever. They are missing out on the life lessons that come from appreciating impermanence. And, as the title says, they and many people are missing out on one way to become more whole.
As I was just starting to read this book, I was actually thinking about the really simple lesson taught in the Pixar movie “Inside Out.” (As it happens, she did talk to the director of that movie and we learn how he struggled with the plot and how the emotions-as-characters would evolve.) We can’t just have joy or happiness all the time: we must experience sadness as well, and sometimes we must pair the two.
I appreciated the points Cain makes in Bittersweet, and definitely agreed with what she wrote, but for some reason, it just didn’t stick with me for long. It’s a good book but I didn’t feel it was earth-shaking. Perhaps it seemed really obvious to me; it may be more revelatory for other readers.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 2 uses of strong language, a few instances of moderate profanity, a couple of uses of mild language, and one instance of the name of Deity in vain.
