Susan Cain preferisce curiosare negli angoli meno esaminati dell'America can-do. Nel 2012 ha pubblicato "Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking", che è diventato un fenomeno e ha reso congenitamente meno loquaci tra noi alla moda e persino cool. Il nuovo libro del laureato della Harvard Law School nel 1993, "Bittersweet:How Sorrow and Longing Can Make Us Whole", è diventato un New York Times Best seller. The Gazette ha parlato con Cain di come abbracciare l'intensità della vita può portare alla creatività e alla connessione. L'intervista è stata modificata per chiarezza e lunghezza.

GAZZETTA:cosa significa avere uno stato d'animo "agrodolce"?

CAIN:Ha a che fare con la consapevolezza che la vita è un mix di gioia e dolore, luce e oscurità, e che tutto e tutti quelli che ami sono impermanenti. Ho sperimentato per la prima volta questo stato mentale quando ascoltavo musica triste. Per tutta la vita ho avuto questa misteriosa reazione alla musica triste; mi avrebbe fatto sentire un senso di connessione con le persone che avevano conosciuto il dolore che il musicista stava cercando di esprimere. All'inizio pensavo fossi solo io, ma quando ho iniziato la mia ricerca, mi sono reso conto che molti musicologi lo stavano studiando perché per molto tempo molte persone hanno avuto questa reazione non solo alla musica, ma ad altri aspetti dell'esperienza umana . C'è una tradizione profonda in tutto il mondo e attraverso i secoli di persone che sperimentano questo stato mentale superiore che deriva dalla consapevolezza della fragilità e dell'impermanenza.

GAZZETTA:Tu crei un collegamento tra questo stato d'animo e la religione. Puoi parlarne un po'?

CAIN:Ascoltiamo musica triste per lo stesso motivo per cui andiamo in chiesa o in sinagoga o in moschea. Desideriamo il Giardino dell'Eden, desideriamo la Mecca, desideriamo Sion perché veniamo in questo mondo con la sensazione che c'è un mondo più perfetto e bello a cui apparteniamo, dove non siamo più. Lo sentiamo intensamente, ma non siamo davvero incoraggiati ad articolarlo. Eppure le nostre religioni lo fanno per noi. Anche l'arte lo fa. In "Il mago di Oz", Dorothy desidera un posto "da qualche parte oltre l'arcobaleno" e Harry Potter desidera rivedere i suoi genitori. Questo è un elemento fondamentale di ogni esperienza umana. Questo è ciò che sta esprimendo la musica, ed è per questo che la ascoltiamo, ed è per questo che ci sentiamo così connessi l'uno all'altro quando lo facciamo perché questo è il nostro stato d'essere più primario. Ma poiché tutti dobbiamo guadagnarci da vivere, crescere i nostri figli e vivere le nostre vite, non siamo così in contatto con quegli stati più profondi. L'arte e la musica hanno un modo per riportarci indietro.

GAZETTE:Molte persone troverebbero che avere una visione positiva della vita va bene. Cosa c'è di sbagliato in questo?

CAIN:Ci sono due cose che non vanno. Il numero uno è che semplicemente non dice la verità su nessuna esperienza umana perché non c'è essere umano che non sperimenti sia la gioia che il dolore, e la luce e l'oscurità. Questa è solo una parte della vita umana. Dirci a vicenda che non dovremmo dire la verità delle nostre esperienze è intrinsecamente invalidante. But the deeper reason is that there is something about the melancholic side of our experience that is intimately connected to creativity and to transcendence. We shouldn't want to be robbing ourselves of this experience.

In the book, I developed a bittersweet quiz, with psychologists Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Dr. David Yaden, that people can take to measure how likely they are to experience bittersweet states of being. Dr. Kaufman and Dr. Yaden ran some preliminary studies and found that people who score high on the quiz, meaning that they tend to experience bittersweet states of mind, are also more inclined to states that predispose them to creativity, awe, wonder, spirituality, and transcendence. These are some of the most sublime aspects of being human, and they happen to be connected to our appreciation of how fragile life can be, and the impermanence of life.

GAZETTE:Why does sadness get a bad rap in American culture?

CAIN:The U.S. culture since the 19th century has been organized around the idea of winners and losers. This way of thinking originated in the economic sphere, where we started asking, "If somebody succeeded or failed in business, was that a question of good luck or bad luck?" Or "Was it something inside the person that made them have that outcome?" Increasingly, the answer that people arrived at was that it was driven by something within the person, and we started having this dichotomy of seeing each other as winners and losers. The more you have that kind of dichotomy, the more you want to behave in a way that indicates that you're a winner and not a loser. Anything that would be associated with loss, like sorrow, longing, sadness, or melancholia, would be seen as being part of the loser side of the ledger.

Being a winner was associated with being successful and cheerful. Even back in the 19th century, the psychologist William James commented on how it was becoming unfashionable for people to complain about the weather because it was seen as being too negative. During the Great Depression, a common view was to see those who lost everything as losers. In my research, I found a news article with the headline:"Loser Committed Suicide in the Streets." That is astonishing if you think about it, but the use of the word loser has only increased over time.

I would also say that religion has played a role. The U.S. was originally a Calvinist country, and in the Calvinist religion, you were predestined for heaven or hell. There was nothing you could do about it, but you could show that you were one of the people who was going to heaven. The way to do it was by working hard, and then that thinking got transferred later in the 19th century into:"Are you a winner or a loser?"

GAZETTE:Why should people embrace the bittersweet aspects of life? What's in for them?

CAIN:The first thing I would say is to look at the data, which is quite overwhelming. Psychologist Laura Carstensen at Stanford University did some fascinating studies where she showed that people who are attuned to what she calls life's fragility—the fact that our days are numbered—also tend to find a sense of meaning in their lives and have a greater sense of gratitude; they are more focused on their deeper relationships, and they're less likely to feel angry and irritable.

There's also the work by David Yaden, who found that people who are in transitional states of life, including divorce and approaching the end of their lives, also tend to reach those states of mind that Laura Carstensen was talking about. We saw it collectively in the United States after 9/11, when many people turned in the direction of meaning. We saw a huge increase in applications for Teach For America and to take jobs as firefighters, nurses, or teachers. We're seeing that now in the wake of the pandemic, with more applications to medical and nursing schools and people wanting more meaning from their work and personal lives.

GAZETTE:You wrote about the power of introverts in "Quiet." This book is about the strength of embracing a bittersweet outlook on life. Why are you drawn to these underrated aspects of humanity?

CAIN:I think that both these aspects of humanity are connected. I also think there's something about writing books that gives us the permission to discuss things that aren't as easy to talk about in everyday life. To me, the whole point of writing books is to look at the unexamined, the unspeakable, and the unarticulated. I'm just most interested in talking about that which can't be said when we're just chatting at the grocery store.

GAZETTE:What do you hope people will take away from this book?

CAIN:I would like people to be less afraid of experiencing melancholy, sorrow, and longing, and to embrace the powers that bittersweetness has to offer:the powers of creativity, connection, and transcendence. It has been very interesting for me to see the response from readers of "Bittersweet," which is a very different book from "Quiet." But the letters I'm getting from readers of "Bittersweet" are very similar to the ones that I got from those who read "Quiet" in that what people say over and over is, "I feel understood," "I had never been able to give voice to it," "I feel validated." A lot of people write me saying that after reading the book they're realizing that they have suppressed the melancholic side of their nature all their lives, and they're also realizing how valuable that side of their nature is. There has been this curious echo with "Quiet," which I didn't set out to do, but it ended up happening.