Against Happiness In Praise Of Melancholy Eric G Wilson by Eric G. Wilson 9781429944212, 1429944218, B0099WHL0W instant download after payment.

In Against Happiness, the scholar Eric G. Wilson argues that melancholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that it is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation - and that it is the force underlying original insights 

“Mr Wilson's case for the dark night of the soul brings a much-needed corrective to today's mania for cheerfulness. One would almost say that, in its eloquent contrarianism and earnest search for meaning, Against Happiness lifts the spirits.”  -  Colin McGinn, The Wall Street Journal

Americans are addicted to happiness. When we're not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life. More than any other generation, Americans of today believe in the transformative power of positive thinking. But who says we're "supposed" to be happy? Where does it say that in the Bible, or in the Constitution?

“An impassioned, compelling, dare I say poetic, argument on behalf of those who ‘labour in the fields of sadness'... a loose and compelling argument for fully embracing one's existence, for it is a miracle itself - a call to live hard and full, to participate in the great rondure of life and to be aware of the fact that no one perspective on the world is ever finally true.”  -  Minneapolis Star Tribune

So enough Prozac-ing of our brains. Let's embrace our depressive sides as the wellspring of creativity. What most people take for contentment, Eric G. Wilson argues, is living death, and what the majority takes for depression is a vital force. In Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Wilson suggests it would be better to relish the blues that make humans people.