Dancing with the Devil Audiobook Libro.fm

We tend to think about bad feelingsfeelings like anger envy spite and contemptas the weeds in lifes garden You may not be able to get rid of them completely but youre supposed to battle them as best you can The best garden is one with no weeds The best life is one with no bad feelings But this isnt quite right according to philosopher Krista K Thomason Bad feelings are the worms not the weeds Theyre just below the surface and we like to pretend they arent there but they serve an important purpose

Thomason draws on insights from the history of philosophy to show what weve gotten wrong about bad feelings and to show listeners how we can live better with them There is nothing wrong with negative emotions per se Negative emotions are expressions of selflovenot egoism or selfishness but the felt attachment to ourselves and to our lives We feel negative emotions because our lives matter to us After explaining this Thomason helps us look at individual bad feelings anger envy and jealousy spite and Schadenfreude and contempt As she demonstrates in this tour of negative emotions these feelings are valuable parts of our attachment to our lives We dont have to battle negative emotions or channel them into something productive Bad feelings arent obstacles to a good life they are part of what makes life meaningful