the.com/bittersweetness
the emotion that knows joy and grief are roommates, not enemies.
means The quality of an experience that mixes pleasure and pain at once, so that happiness arrives tinged with sorrow and vice versa.
from A compound as old and literal as it sounds: the Old English bitter (sharp, biting to the tongue) wedded to swete (pleasant-tasting). The pairing began on the palate — foods and drinks that were both bitter and sweet — before English speakers began tasting the same contradiction in their feelings. The abstract '-ness' simply turns the flavor into a state of being. Worth noting: the ancient Greeks beat us to the metaphor, calling love glukupikron, 'sweet-bitter,' in a poem of Sappho's.
- taste origin
- named for flavors that hit sweet, then turn
- brain trick
- the same tear ducts cry for both
- the word
- compound emotion English borrowed from literal tongues
- why it lingers
- the brain remembers mixed feelings more vividly than pure ones
madame butterfly opera — puccini's 1904 opera where love and betrayal end in tragedy and suicide
return of king ending — frodo destroys the ring but cannot stay in middle-earth, leaving for the grey havens
casablanca final scene — rick and ilsa part ways in 1942 film as he says 'we'll always have paris'