Is bitter sweetness only something that quite privileged people can enjoy? What if there is no sweetness to be had in your life at all? Yes, this is something that i, i thought about quite a bit, and i don't, i don't honestly know the answer. I think there probably is a place beyond which, you know, the tragedies, the dramas are just too much for any one person to bear. And find it helpful to have a way of looking at the world that makes sense, that makes space for both.
Susan Cain shot to fame in 2012 with her international bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, in which she urged society to cultivate space for the undervalued introverts among us. Now she's back with another book asking us to reassess how we think about self expression: Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. The book argues that by embracing the bittersweet at the heart of life – the sense that joy and sorrow are always paired – we can gain a heightened appreciation of the wonder and beauty of our own personal experience and throughout wider culture too. Our host for the discussion is writer, academic and broadcaster, Shahidha Bari.
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