I haven’t read Quiet but when I heard about the idea behind Bittersweet, I was immediately intrigued. The subtitle of this book is “how sorrow and longing make us whole” and that is not really an idea that I hear about a lot. Most people, even if they are striving for contentment instead of happiness, try to avoid being sad or sorrowful.

But as Cain shows, the bittersweet feelings have a purpose. The first part of the book looks at the purpose of sadness, why we long for things like “the perfect love” and how to cope with losing a love, and how creativity is associated with sorrow. Cain writes that

“studies have found that sad moods tend to sharpen our attention: They make us more focused and detail oriented; they improve our memories, correct our cognitive biases.”

Of course, this is only if the sad feelings don’t lead to depression, which definitely destroys creativity.

I won’t talk too much on the chapters of love because Cain references Alain de Botton’s idea, which ar basically what he covers in his book The Course of Love.

Part Two of Bittersweet looks at the “tyranny of positivity”. This section is perhaps the most American-centric, as it looks at how the cult of positivity has become embedded in America. But given America’s soft power and its ability to export its culture via movies, books, etc, it’s worth reading these chapters to see if something resonates.

The third and final part of the book covers mortality and grief. My takeaway from this chapter is that the awareness of the impermanence of life shapes our decision making. And this isn’t limited to older folks – young people facing their mortality made their decisions in a way similar to the elderly. This isn’t very related to the discussion of how facing our mortality affects us, but I really liked this haiku by Issa that Cain shares:

“It is true

That this world of dew

Is a world of dew.

But even so…”

The translation breaks the haiku format but it is still a haunting poem.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I really liked this book. I think that it’s very true that we have embraced a cult of toxic positivity, to the extent that we do not allow ourselves space to acknowledge our negative emotions. And as Cain shows, the ‘darker’ emotions have positive effects on us – on our creativity and our mental health in general. I think it’s worth reading Bittersweet to reframe how we see things and hopefully, how we deal with negative experiences the next time they appear in our lives.