From Vox.

It’s not always the most wonderful time of the year.

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Every December, we’re told to be merry and stay positive. But a lot of us don’t feel that way. And when we don’t, the pressure to be happy makes everything worse. Sadness feels like failure. Grief feels like a personal mistake. Depression becomes something to hide.

But what if dark moods aren’t problems to fix? What if they’re part of being human?

Today’s guest is philosopher Mariana Alessandri, author of Night Vision, a book about how to honor the emotions we usually try to outrun. It’s not a celebration of sadness, but Alessandri instead challenges the culture of toxic positivity and the idea that happiness is something we’re supposed to choose on command.

Sean and Mariana talk about why Americans are addicted to the light, why “cheering people up” often backfires, how Stoicism shaped our emotional habits, and what it looks like to sit with grief instead of shaming ourselves for feeling it.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)
Guest: Mariana Alessandri (@mariana.alessandri), associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and author of Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods.

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00:00 Intro
11:08 Anger toward your kids and self-blame
14:20 Why anger masks other feelings
15:56 Self-help books don’t help us
20:24 Why Stoicism is seductive
23:49 Disconnecting feeling from action
27:58 We need to approach grief differently
33:24 We don’t need to "keep it together"
36:34 Practice death in advance
43:59 Can we honor our depression and seek to transcend it?
47:20 Parenting children through dark moods

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