Explained Books: The regenerative potential of sorrow

What if, she asked, in pathologising introversion in a world full of sociable, confident people, we were denying acknowledgment to the creativity and contemplation of those who felt deeply but could not or would not vocalise it with the same fervour? Cain traced the change in societal attitudes to introverts to the Industrial Revolution of the early 20th century when agricultural societies transformed into industrial economies, giving rise to what she termed as the “extrovert ideal”.

“The new economy called for a new kind of man — a salesman, a social operator, someone with a ready smile, a masterful handshake, and the ability to get along with colleagues while simultaneously outshining them,” she wrote of the American culture of hustle that could hold true in any other part of the world as well. How to win friends and influence people, she explained, was really about putting forward a carefully manicured version of oneself and cultivating sociability as a tool for self-aggrandisement.

Part self-help, part philosophy, part research and analysis, Quiet put forward a compelling argument that won Cain many admirers and catapulted the book to bestseller lists as a contemporary classic. Her new book, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, picks up from where she left off in Quiet. It focuses on the depth of the “melancholic direction” and why a culture’s neglect of its regenerative potential can be inhibiting.

“The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death — bitter and sweet — are forever paired,” she writes. Coming on the heels of Covid-19’s unprecedented devastation, Bittersweet espouses the compassion instinct to forge connections, even if the pandemic remains on the periphery of her narrative.

Cain makes important connections between toxic positivity and 21st century’s own special hell — the private struggle with anxiety and feelings of insecurity. She knits together her own struggles with those of other people, examines music (Leonard Cohen is her patron saint) and philosophy, and follows “a centuries-old trail laid by artists, writers, contemplatives, and wisdom traditions from all over the world…contemporary psychologists, scientists, and even management researchers” to forge a response to pain. It involves, in the end, an acknowledgment of its presence in our lives and turning it into art, innovation, and, ultimately, into healing.

But Bittersweet’s test lies elsewhere. Quiet, despite its criticism of approaching things in binaries that overlooked those on the margins, rang true because of the originality of its argument. In Bittersweet, the binary — sanguine and happy — poses a problem as it fails to include a larger milieu, struggling with a world slowly spinning out of its axis, despite its awareness of the need for mindfulness, despite its longing for beauty, art and empathy.

(Explained Books appears every Saturday. It summarises the core argument of an important work of non-fiction.)