A book that so well portrays human emotions
I've never seen it before!

* Oprah Daly's Most Anticipated Books of 2022
* #1 New York Times bestseller immediately after publication
* A new book from the author of the international bestseller 『Quiet』!
* Highly recommended by Adam Grant and Daniel Pink
* Highly recommended by Professor Kyung-il Kim of Cognitive Psychology at Ajou University

"Are you happy?" If someone asked you this question, how would you answer? Some people would confidently say, "Yes, I am happy!" while others would say, "No."
Some might say, somewhat cynically, “I’m unhappy!”
Is that all? "Sometimes I'm happy, and sometimes I'm unhappy," "Sometimes happiness and unhappiness come at the same time," "Sometimes I feel happy, and sometimes I feel unhappy," "I don't know." The happiness and unhappiness experienced by countless people manifest in a variety of ways.
So, you must have already felt a strange emotion that happiness and unhappiness cannot be divided into dichotomies.
What is this feeling that is difficult to express in words, but that everyone has felt at least once, and what meaning does it have in life?

Susan Cain, author of the sensational book "Quiet" among introverts, has come out with a book about human emotions that are both joyful and painful, sweet and bitter, after 10 years.
She named it "Bittersweet," meaning "bittersweet," and through various research data and autobiographical stories, she proves the power of bittersweet emotions to ultimately play a role in our lives and move us forward.


A study by a neuroscientist found that the same brain regions are activated when we help someone in need, win a prize, or eat a delicious meal.
Also, as we all know, people with depression tend to see the world from other people's perspectives and feel compassion, and people with high empathy tend to enjoy sad music more than others.
In other words, we can see that joy and sadness are inseparable emotions, like two sides of a coin.
It means that there is a continuum of bittersweet emotions, not joy and sadness separately.
Author Susan Cain explores the meaning of these conflicting emotions, particularly sadness, pain, and anxiety, for us living in the present, in a scientific yet literary tone.

Two thousand years ago, Aristotle wondered why so many great poets, philosophers, artists, and politicians had melancholic personalities.2 Aristotle's question was based on the ancient theory of the four humors.
The human body is made up of four humors, each with a different temperament: melancholic (sad), sanguine (happy), choleric (aggressive), and phlegmatic (calm).
And it was believed that personality was determined by the specific gravity of these bodily fluids.
Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician, believed that the ideal person was one in which these four bodily fluids were in harmonious balance.3 However, most of us tend to lean in one direction or another.

In this book, I will focus on the melancholic side of this, and discuss what I call "bittersweetness."4 I will talk about the tendency to fall into feelings of longing, yearning, and sadness, the awareness of the impermanence of life, and the joy of being curious about and insightful about the beauty of the world.
--- p.23

The Doctor was worried that the executives would perceive Sadness as too gloomy and dark a character.
I was worried about how people would perceive the unattractive, squat, and gloomy image the animators had drawn.
It was worth pointing out why such a character was chosen as the lead role in the movie, and why anyone would sympathize with such a female character.

Then, I got an unexpected ally.
It was Dacher Keltner, a veteran psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Doctor asked Keltner to teach him and his colleagues about the science of emotions, and this led to a close bond between the two.
At the time, Keltner's daughter was going through the pains of puberty like the doctor's daughter, so the two shared their unusual concerns and developed a close friendship.
Keltner explained to the Doctor and his team the roles of the main emotions, explaining that Fear keeps us safe, and Anger protects us from being taken advantage of.
So what is Sadness's role?

Keltner explained that sadness stimulates compassion and strengthens relationships between people, and that it also makes people realize how precious Pixar's film crew, a group of creative people, are to them.
--- p.49

The lecture also reminded us that we don't have a missing half.
“It’s a bit of a dark story, but there is no partner who understands everything about us and who communicates well with us in all aspects, big and small.
You have to accept that fact.
Ultimately, all we can aim for is the ratio of compatibility.
Let us return to Plato and together we shall completely kill his ecstatic but insane and love-destructive innocence.
“There is no soul mate.”
--- p.82

So far I've talked about how I loved and lost my mother, but I'm not telling this story because it's special.
Your story of love and loss, its bittersweet twists and turns, is special.
I know, painfully, that that story may be far more traumatic than mine (though I hope it's less so).
And yet, I know why I decided to tell my story, whether you consider it a small loss compared to the suffering of the world, or a great loss because (as we have seen with Darwin and the Dalai Lama) a mother is a symbol of love.
That you too have experienced the loss of love, or will experience such loss in the future.
And it took me decades to even understand, let alone heal (most of) the things I just talked about.
Perhaps the lessons I learned from that exaggeration can be useful to you too.
--- p.164~165

In their final meeting, Kafka gives the girl a doll along with a letter.
Knowing full well that the doll was different from the one the girl had lost, she wrote in the letter:
“I changed a bit while traveling.”

The girl cherishes the gift for the rest of her life.
And then one day, decades later, he finds another letter stuffed into the crack of the doll that he had overlooked.
“Everything you love is destined to be lost someday.
But in the end, love comes back in a different form.”
--- p.187

Today's society distinguishes between winners and losers more clearly than ever before.
As journalist Neal Gabler wrote in Salon in 2017, “America has a deepening divide between those who are recognized as winners (and who declare themselves winners) and those who are perceived by the winners as losers.
The losers were relegated to cultural pariah status, becoming the American equivalent of India's untouchables.
(Omitted) To be respected, including self-respect, you must be a winner.”
--- p.209

It's no coincidence that the phrase "perfection without effort" originated at America's elite universities, where young winners strive to maintain their edge.
This also comes at a time when rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide on campus are rising.
This is because this phenomenon is more about winning than perfection.
It's a question of trying to be a winner, so to speak, trying to fly high and avoid the bitter side of life, and not being a loser.
Even though "effortless perfection" is a popular slogan in many of our colleges and universities, its origins lie in the very cultural pressures we've been subjected to since the dawn of the American republic.
Add to this the new reality of growing inequality and social conflict, and the pressure to feel like a winner in a society that produces relatively few winners is intensifying.
--- p.219

As has long been known among researchers, the power of a leader is perceived differently depending on the emotions he or she displays.
In general, leaders who react with anger in difficult situations are perceived as more powerful than those who react with sadness.
In fact, when we looked at the bittersweet types of cases, we found that while creative people were readily apparent, business leaders were few and far between.
My guess is that this isn't because there aren't many melancholic managers, but because they don't reveal themselves to others as such.
But business professors Juan Madera and D.
Brent SmithD.
A 2009 study by Brent Smith found that sadness sometimes leads to better outcomes for leaders than anger (such as stronger relationships with followers and increased perceptions of effectiveness).

--- p.226