Bittersweet

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BITTERSWEET

This week, I am digging deep into the very essence of what animates me and also the reason why I write this newsletter every week. 

For whatever reason, I have always been drawn more to what unites people than what separates them. I believe, with all my soul, that what we have in common as humans is far greater than what makes us different. Sadly, we live in a world where our attention for difference is being rewarded, trolled, and amplified every second of the day. And this has led us to a divisive and unproductive public discourse. 

I come back again and again to the binary nature of our being. We are always asked to pick between two distinct choices or options. It serves, perhaps, the same purpose as the immediacy of our media. The one-liners of pithy commentaries, the effectiveness of attacks, the click-bait headlines, and quotes taken out of context, all contribute to the goal of placing someone else in a negative light. But it doesn't depict the essence of our reality, since that is always more complex, nuanced, and multi-layered than something that could be characterized by A or B.

It's like we live our entire lives inside a multiple-choice game with only two possible answers and we always HAVE to pick one of them. I don't know about you, but I struggle even picking one of five answers in a typical multiple-choice questionnaire since I never really feel any choice fully captures the answer to a complex question. 

I keep looking for inspiration and ideas that can help me think more deeply about the rich nuances of life. And this week is a good week in that regard. Susan Cain released her new book, Bittersweet. Below, I have posted some links to Susan's work, her books, and talks. But for now, let me just tell you why this is a helpful example of how we can reexamine, reevaluate, and reframe our relationship to the beauty and richness of something holistically rather than atomistically. 

You see, I believe part of the root cause of our binary inclination is our Newtonian, Tayloristic, and mechanistic worldview. We have been programmed to see the world in separate parts more often than as a holistic system. Obviously, and that is perhaps a point in and of itself, this was effective and efficient as far as production is concerned. This led to industrialization, globalization, free trade, and an enormous amount of progress that undeniably has been good for the world in more ways than it has been bad. At least, that is my deep conviction. 

However, much thanks to all this progress, most of our institutions in society are now going through a period of "course correction" in this sense. We are all trying to adjust to a post-industrial world where understanding the interconnected nature of lives and the ways all of our moving parts relate and inform each other is at least as important as knowing the parts themselves. I'll give three examples. 

First, in business or capitalism. As you know, I have had a front-row seat to the gradual and necessary expansion of the definition and interests of the stakeholders of corporations. We are seeing daily examples of how companies are making adjustments to their position, their purpose, and making broad acknowledgments that profit is not only about efficiency and scale, but also about purpose, meaning, and mission. I find that hopeful and encouraging. 

Second, in education. We atomized subjects and the mastery of knowledge so far that education was more about preparing for a test than preparing for a life. We are now witnessing education pivoting towards interdisciplinary thinking and less rote learning, and more project-based and collaboration-focused curriculum. With broader technologies, education will hopefully continue to be more available, accessible, and hopefully soon, less expensive. 

Third, healthcare. We have, thanks to specialization and technology, made huge progress against most of the diseases (not all) that used to kill people, and we now have a situation where our lifestyles are the most significant single contributor towards mortality in most of the world. But yet, only 3% of our health care expenditures (which are astronomical) go towards avoiding some of the 97% of costs (and most of the suffering) that could be prevented. That has to change. Soon! I would argue, that other than our political and democratic institutions, healthcare has the most work to do in order to realize the massive opportunities that exist to improve health outcomes at much lower costs. 

I can go on. But you get the picture. We have started to piece back together our fragmented world. We live in a time of disequilibrium. Our current systems were designed for a time that has long gone by. And the frustrations and tensions that affect us all in this transition are a result of the uncomfortable journey from what we know to what we don't. 

So, coming back to Susan's new book and why it is so profound. 

First, I must say what a gift Susan's work is to all of us. She picks topics central to the human condition and spends years researching that topic. And so far has found ways to reposition our relationship with attitudes to ourselves and others that brings new meaning, richness, and texture to our lived experience. Her first book was about the power of introverts "in a world that can't stop talking". It elevated and upgraded the quality and value of quiet, of reflection, of pausing, and it all reminded us that it is the silence between musical notes that actually makes music beautiful. 

Her new book, which came out this past week, is about how sorrow and longing make us whole. How it is the unresolved quality of music in minor or the melancholic undertones in the arts that draws us in and "shows us how to respond to pain". She says: 

"What I’ve learned is that this bittersweet tradition, it’s been with us for centuries. And what it teaches us is that we are creatures who are born to transform pain into beauty."

I found her relationship to music particularly powerful. I am personally drawn more to minor than major. I love sad songs, I guess. Not because they are sad, but precisely because they are so nakedly truthful and hopeful at the same time. I mean, singing in sadness is both happy and sad at the same time. Isn't it? And I am not alone. In her research, she discovered that people play their happy songs on their playlists 175 times on average but they play their sad songs 800 times. I found that both interesting and encouraging. There is clearly something "attractive" about the unresolved and longing aspects of this kind of music. 

As we transition to the new world, we would all be better off if we embraced the bitter fully – as neither a permanent or impossible condition, but rather the inevitable companion to being alive. It is this deep longing we all have for what is beyond our reach that is our spiritual fuel in life. Without it, we stop moving, trying, progressing, and growing. The C.S. Lewis quote in Susan's book says it all: "the inconsolable longing for we know not what." 

We have this deep tendency and habit to pick one or the other. I am either bitter or I am sweet. By picking ends of spectrums, we make the world less rich and less beautiful and ultimately ourselves less true. In music, in tastes, in attitudes, we would be better off using the rich available smörgåsbord of choices that indeed are at our disposal. If we just looked beyond the binary choices we are served. 

Here are a few resources if you want to dig in deeper:

• Here is Susan's Website with her books and work.

• Here is a terrific interview about Bittersweet with Tim Ferriss.

• Susan's TED talk about Introverts from 2012 which has been viewed by 30 million people and this more recent one about melancholy and the beauty of longing.

• Here is Susan's playlist of sad songs that inspire her.

• I also found (unsurprisingly) that David Brook’s latest columndid a great job laying out what type of transition our world is currently going through and why it is quite challenging.

I recognize that the world is going through a very rough stretch and that we all struggle with finding any silver lining, meaning, or perhaps even hope in the current conflict. But at least we are not alone in our longing for peace. All people before us shared similar fears and concerns. When I listened to Susan's playlist (linked above), I could feel generational expressions of longing for a better tomorrow while they lived through an often troubled today. 

Here is to longing, belonging, and peace!