Dancing with the Devil: Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good

by Krista K. Thomason

Just as a garden needs worms, we need bad feelings....

We tend to think about bad feelings--feelings like anger, envy, spite, and contempt--as the weeds in life's garden. You may not be able to get rid of them completely, but you're 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 isn't quite right, according to philosopher Krista K. Thomason. Bad feelings are the worms, not the weeds. They're just below the surface, and we like to pretend they aren't there, but they serve an important purpose. Worms are just as much a part of the garden as the flowers, and their presence means your garden is thriving. Gardens aren't better off without their worms, and neither are we. The trick is learning how to enjoy our gardens, worms and all.

Thomason draws on insights from the history of philosophy to show what we've gotten wrong about bad feelings and to show readers how we can live better with them. There is nothing wrong with negative emotions per se. Their bad reputation is undeserved. Negative emotions are expressions of self-love--not 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 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 don't have to battle negative emotions or "channel" them into something productive. Bad feelings aren't obstacles to a good life; they are part of what makes life meaningful.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology

215 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2023

Reviews

[Lydia Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely Fantastic! Insights on how to contextualize, understand and embrace a range of emotions with the guidance of an accomplished philosopher with few contemporaries. Thank you! Highly recommend.

[Chris Boutté · Rating 5 out of 5]

2nd read:
I love re-reading my favorite books, but it’s extremely rare that I read a book twice in one year. Not to take away from this book at all, but this year has been pretty bad for new non-fiction. This book was released in January of 2024, and I’ve thought about it regularly. At the end of the year, as I was bored with all of the new releases, I decided that I was going to give this book another read because it’s so damn good.

Krista is a philosopher, and this book is all about how many of the bad feelings we experience like anger, envy, jealousy, and so many others are actually useful in different situations. She brings in ideas from various philosophers throughout history while also giving her own thoughts and opinions.

I’m a pretty happy guy who lives a great life these days, but I still experience a ton of negative emotions because I’m human (and still have some lingering anger issues lol). This book is a great reminder that not only are these emotions normal and OK, but they can also be useful and teach us valuable lessons. If I’m being completely honest, I can see myself reading this book again in 2025 when I need a reminder.

1st read:
I was so excited when I learned that Krista K. Thomason had a new book out. She’s an extremely thoughtful philosopher who discusses topics that I don’t see from anyone else. As far as this book goes, it quickly became one of my new all-time favorite books.

I’ve been sober for 12 years and got sober through 12-step meeting. In addition to that, I’ve been practicing mindfulness, going to therapy, and reading self-help books of all sorts. At a certain point, you can feel like a “failure” for still experiencing negative emotions, but Krista brings a whole new perspective on the topic.

At the start of the book, she relates negative emotions to worms in soil. They may seem bad, but they may be doing some good. After laying a foundation, each chapter in the second half of this book discusses different emotions such as anger, envy, jealousy, spite, and contempt. Krista gives the perspective of many philosophers while also giving her thoughts as well as personal experiences.

This is the first book I’ve read in a while that gives permission to experience some of these negative emotions that are part of the human experience. Krista does explain how these emotions can cause additional suffering in our lives, but she also offers advice for how to tame them. But best of all, she discusses how we can just let some of these emotions be and explains why it’s fine if we experience some of these negative emotions now and then and sometimes their a call to action to make a change.

This is a book that I know I’ll revisit again and again. I could have easily finished this book in a day, but I decided to take little breaks from it to give it time to really soak in as I thought on each of the chapters. If I’m being totally honest, I’ll probably read it again this year. Fantastic read.

[Olya · Rating 5 out of 5]

отримала тону задоволення від цього тексту.
свіжий, як на мене, погляд на негативні емоції. про подвійні стандарти - хороші емоції плекаємо, погані емоції намагаємось пояснити і виправдати. дійсно, помічаю, що люди часто шукають способу позбутись від злості, заздрощів або ревнощів, так ніби ці емоції роблять їх поганцями, чи людьми, які 'втратили контроль' або недостатньо 'себе пропрацювали'.

емоції - це емоції. чим більше ми хочемо їх контролювати, тим сильніше ми втрачаємо контроль. це частина нашого людського досвіду.

відчувати негативні емоції - це по справжньому себе любити, і розуміти, власну крихкість.

[Daltoe Nason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomason delivers a message in this book that is weary to digest, but I find to be incredibly important in personal emotional education : It’s good to feel. She brings reframing and forgiveness to those nasty emotions we are taught to hate and reject. I could see some of these ideas misinterpreted pretty easily (I know I did), but by the end you come to understand the importance of feeling the full range of emotions to enrich your human experience.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-reasoned counterpoint to emotional repression

When discussing emotions in certain circles (Buddhism, contemporary Stoicism, perhaps virtue ethics in general), a key tradeoff is often ignored. While no one would intentionally seek to experience bad feelings, training the mind to suppress them surely comes at a cost, right? If I no longer experience anxiety, frustration, anger, grief, or jealousy, maybe it's because I’ve trained my mind to care less about the things that are worth being emotional about in the first place. Emotional dullness is the price to pay for total tranquility.

That, in a highly simplified nutshell, is the crux of the argument of this book. Bad feelings, according to philosopher Krista K. Thomason, are like the worms in a garden; sure, they’re unpleasant, and life would be seemingly better without them. But if you kill them all, you kill your garden in the process, because the health of your garden depends on them.

“Killing the worms in your emotional garden” is exactly, for example, what many Buddhists try to accomplish. But Thomason argues that, if you actually achieve the high ideals of Buddhism, you’ll end up meditating your feelings away until you become so apathetic that you no longer have any desire to do anything else beyond sitting in complete stillness in a monastery.

But is this really a good life? Is shielding yourself from pain by suppressing emotions worth the emotional drabness that can result? Or is it preferable to take the ups-and-downs of life as they are—even if it means embracing bad feelings—allowing us to experience the chaotic, emotional tapestry of life to its full extent?

Thomason believes the latter, but of course you can take this line of thinking too far, as well. For example, in what some may consider a simplistic reading of Stoicism, Thomason fails to consider the real value of psychological tactics that can help you to reinterpret or re-channel negative emotions into something constructive, all without creating the type of apathy she seems to think is inevitable. Far from viewing comfort or tranquility as the ultimate aim of life, Stoicism actually encourages you to seek out adversity as a way to train up your resilience and character.

One simple example is the Stoic imperative to reframe adversity as a challenge, game, or test; through reframing, bad feelings are turned into motivation to achieve some goal and thus create positive feelings, rather than succumbing to the helplessness of destructive negative emotions. And surely something like learning to compare yourself to those below you on the socioeconomic ladder rather than to those above you, or learning to cultivate feelings of gratitude, is far better than being constantly envious of those who have more than you.

In fact, those who Thomason wants to condemn as “controlled emotions saints” or “cultivated emotions saints” probably have a lot of valuable things to teach us, and she may be exaggerating her case to get the point across. There is a lot of space to explore between the total suppression of emotions and just allowing them to surface unimpeded, as she seems to be suggesting we do.

At the same time, there is something to be said for just accepting your feelings—and using them as sources of information regarding what you deem valuable—without necessarily acting on them in destructive ways. And if you feel like emotional repression or the “pro-positivity zeitgeist” is not for you—or, for that matter, is not psychologically realistic in the first place—then this book may be exactly what you need.

[Brendan Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written book on popular philosophy that makes a serious argument about the value of negative emotions (anger, contempt, envy, etc.) in a good human life. Thomason draws on lots of philosophical (Nietzsche, De Bois, Montaigne) and not-so-philosophical sources (Richard Scary books, Red Sox fans, etc.) that should make the book engaging even for those who who've sworn off reading philosophy (though I don't know why you would do that!). A few notes:

1. The book's main thesis is a good human life involves negative emotions, and that these emotions aren't by themselves "bad". Instead, they help show us (valuable!) things about ourselves and what sorts of things we value in our life. Thomason argues that both ordinary people and academics are far too prone to see negative emotions as "problems" in search of a solution. For example, the common view is that "anger" must NECESSARILY correspond to something being wrong--it's either a problem with the other person (maybe you should retaliate!) or with you (maybe you should get a therapist, or become a Buddhist, or a Stoic, or...). Thomason argues that, in many cases, we should simply take the negative emotion for "what it is" and think about what it might indicate about our values.
2. Thomason's main targets are philosophical views that either seek to eliminate negative emotions together (such as many popular versions of Stoicism, Buddhism, or "mindfulness" based practice) or views that seek to "tame" or "train" the emotions (here, the targets are positive psychology and Aristotelian or Confucian virtue ethics). All told, these views probably account for the way most people view their emotions, most of time! However, Thomason argues--convincingly, I think--that these views (especially in their self-help incarnations) miss out on the value of negative emotions. They demand that we be "emotional saints," which is both unrealistic and unhealthy.
3. I'm less convinced that her criticisms work against more sophisticated versions of the views she mentions. In particular, I think that Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics can probably deal better with negative emotions better than the book suggests (however, I realize her audience here isn't academics!). As opposed to a Nietzschean view, I also think these views do a better job (at least some of the time) in capturing things like the values of moral saints (Buddha, Jesus, MLK, etc.) in people's conceptions of what a meaningful life amounts to (and what role emotion plays in it). However, I don't think this should dissuade people from reading the book. (As a professional philosopher, it's my job to disagree with something...). It's very good, and it definitely made me change my views on some things (and think harder about how I might defend others).

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

الشك الذي ينتابنا بشأن المشاعر السيئة يرجع في الغالب إلى ما أسميه المعايير المزدوجة للعواطف. تعمل المعايير المزدوجة للعواطف عندما يعزو الناس أشياءً إلى المشاعر السلبية، لا يمكن أن يعزونها أبدًا إلى المشاعر الإيجابية. إليك مثال واحد فقط: يقول الناس أن المشاعر السلبية تشبه المخدرات، وسوف تدمن عليها إذا شعرت بها كثيرًا. لا أحد يحذرك من إدمان الفرح أو الامتنان. إذا كانت المشاعر السلبية لها خاصية الإدمان، فلماذا لا تمتلكها المشاعر الإيجابية أيضًا؟ بالطبع، قد يجادل بعض أنصار علم النفس الإيجابي بأنه من الممكن أن تصبح مدمنًا على المشاعر الإيجابية، لكنهم سيخبرونك أن هذا أمر جيد. الإدمان ليس هو المشكلة. كل ما عليك فعله هو إدمان المادة المناسبة. هل صحيح أن المشاعر الجيدة لا تسبب المتاعب أبدًا؟ يمكن أن يصبح الحب هوسًا وتملكًا ومُستهلِكًا.

قد تميل إلى القول إن الحب ليس هو المذنب الحقيقي هنا، وأن المشكلة هي في الشخص الذي يحب بهذه الطريقة. ولكن إذا كان هذا صحيحًا، فيمكننا أن نقول نفس الشيء عن الحسد، إلا إذا كنت بالطبع تفكر بمعايير عاطفية مزدوجة. يمكنك الاعتراض على أن الحب بهوس ليس حبًا حقيقيًا، لكن لم لا؟ لماذا لا يمكن أن تصبح المشاعر الإيجابية مشوهة وملتوية؟ إن فكرة أن الحب بهوس ليس حبًا حقيقيًا هي مثال لما يسميه آرون بن زئيف وروهاما جوسينسكي "الأيديولوجية الرومانسية". وأحد أهم أفكار هذه الأيديولوجية هو "نقاء الحب"، فكرة أن الحب بريء دائمًا. فكرة أن الحب لا يمكن أن يسوء أبدًا هي فكرة أسطورية. هناك الكثير من الأمثلة لأشخاص مهووسين، وحمقى، ومدمرين بحبهم. وعلى الرغم من كل هذه الأمثلة، لا أحد يضع الحب في قائمة المشاعر السلبية أو الشريرة، مما يوفر لنا مثالًا آخر على المعايير العاطفية المزدوجة.
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Krista K. Thomason
Dancing With The Devil
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit right from the start that general-public philosophy books are my jam and have been since I read Alain de Botton's ''The Consolations of Philosophy'' in highschool. I feel like if more people were aware of all of the different ways humans before us have approached questions of living good, fulfiling lives, we'd have a headstart in figuring out how we want to live our own. Professor Thomason's book is the Platonic ideal of the genre. Offering a wide array of well-cited examples that you can later dig into, the book is a guided tour through millenia-long debates about how to live with negative emotions. Where most people take for granted that we must do our utmost never to feel the ''ugliest'' of human emotions (think envy, schadenfreude, contempt), Thomason takes a step back, pulls apart the emotion from harmful actions taken in the name of the emotion, and asks what the emotion is telling us (often, that we care about something). You know a non-fiction book is good when you wish it were longer. Professor Thomason is also very funny. (My spouse and I laughed out loud together at multiple points.) Even the endnotes are worth reading carefully! I loved seeing for example, that she cites an older paper but no longer agrees with the position she argued in it. I went into the book having been strongly convinced I needed to exert a lot of control on my negative emotions and I come out with a new perspective on and appreciation for them.

[Özgür Takmaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bad feelings are expressions of self love which signal attachment to yourself and your life. Let them do that, even if feeling them scares you.
Purposes and activities require and create web of objects, spaces, attitudes and interests that is worthy of respect.
Desires are strengthened by frustrations.
Self confidence isn't like reaching a summit where you can stand back and enjoy the view. it's like owning a house. it requires maintenance. Sometimes everything works fine and you don't have much to do. other times you finish installing new roof only to discover a leak in the radiator.
Thoreau thinks real meaning lies in the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid, quick read. Encouraged reflection in a way I found enjoyable, and I appreciated the engagement with non-cishet/white male thinkers. Writing style was straightforward and discussion examples felt repetitive at times, but that did help keep the pace up. Found the bits on stoicism particularly relevant and complimentary to my reading of Cyberlibertarianism by David Golumbia.

[Erin Elizabeth]

Did not finish.

Read half. It isn't for me.

[SK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would even say her arguments verge on the wild; the perspectives she brings forward are some of the craziest takes I've seen on the topic. I don't know if there's anything similar to what this book is. It's truly a one of a kind; I don't think you will ever hear or read someone saying anything remotely close to what this book is trying to say. Maybe in some parts, if you read very carefully and analytically, I wouldn't be surprised to find inconsistencies and faulty logic. Or maybe her perspectives are actually a cliched one in disguise. But nevertheless every time she opens an argument I wanted to find out where she is taking us, and this made it very hard to put down the book.