Dancing with the Devil Audiobook By Krista K. Thomason cover art

Dancing with the Devil

Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good

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Dancing with the Devil

By: Krista K. Thomason
Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
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About this listen

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.

Thomason draws on insights from the history of philosophy to show what we've 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 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 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 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.

©2024 Oxford University Press (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Emotions Ethics & Morality Psychology
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Dear Listener,

What did I learn while writing Dancing with the Devil?
"I’ve spent most of my life having my feelings corrected. If I’m angry, people tell me to calm down. If I feel envy, they tell me to appreciate what I have. If I complain, I’m supposed to look on the bright side. I’ve had it with relentless positivity; it’s time to give negative emotions their due. Everyone tells you that your bad feelings are trouble—they are toxins, cancers, or monsters, and if you don’t do something about them, they’ll destroy you from the inside. Are negative emotions really as bad as they seem? What if, instead of preventing us from living the good life, our bad feelings actually make life good?" – Krista K. Thomason, writer of Dancing with the Devil

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Great and impactful read!

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!

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Decent

A little simple at times. Other times not bad at all. If you love cliches you’ll love this book.

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