The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning

Written by Paul Bloom

Narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins

From the author of Against Empathy comes a different kind of happiness book, one that shows us how suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and meaning in our lives.

Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from?

Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals; it can display how tough we are or, conversely, can function as a cry for help. Feelings of fear and sadness are part of the pleasure of immersing ourselves in play and fantasy and can provide certain moral satisfactions. And effort, struggle, and difficulty can, in the right contexts, lead to the joys of mastery and flow.

But suffering plays a deeper role as well. We are not natural hedonists—a good life involves more than pleasure. People seek lives of meaning and significance; we aspire to rich relationships and satisfying pursuits, and this requires some amount of struggle, anxiety, and loss. Brilliantly argued, witty, and humane, Paul Bloom shows how a life without chosen suffering would be empty—and worse than that, boring.  

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9780062910592

Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. His research explores the psychology of morality, identity, and pleasure. Bloom is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including, most recently, the million-dollar Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. He has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science, and for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic Monthly. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Against Empathy, Just Babies, How Pleasure Works, Descartes’ Baby, and, most recently, The Sweet Spot.

Reviews for The Sweet Spot

[Mturner · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Too many of the author’s views felt one-dimensional to me. I understand it would be difficult to write this kind of book while taking into consideration the complexity of the human experience- all of our different backgrounds and personality types, and how what trauma we may have been through has shaped us.

[Joona Nuutinen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Makes a good point of choosing certain, productive pain in your life.

[steve02476 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An engaging writer addresses happiness and misery and our relationships with these things. Nothing’s terribly deep or profound, but he points out a lot of things to think about when questioning other people’s deep profundities. All with a lot of humor and humanity. I’ve really enjoyed several of his books. Recommended.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Sweet Spot from Paul Bloom is an enlightening read that draws as many points from the reader's own mind as from any theory. I'll explain momentarily, but what Bloom excels at is explaining his ideas through analogy and anecdotes such that we gain quite a bit of knowledge without realizing it.I'll start by admitting I like Bloom's work. I am not always in complete agreement but I can count on him to make me think about and reconsider many of my own ideas. In addition to several of his books I also took a couple of his online MOOCs, and his books are a lot like listening to his lectures. Before you think that is a negative, let me explain. His lectures are almost conversational in tone, so the book is also almost conversational in tone.As humans we have an amazing ability to state unequivocally that we believe two things that are not only incompatible but contradictory. An area where we do this quite a bit is when we discuss the purpose of life or, another way, how we live our lives. Are we pleasure seeking animals, plain and simple? Are we selfish and only think of our own best interests? And so on. Bloom doesn't so much counter all of the ways we think about this as make us think about all of them with more nuance and less certitude. Like so many things, how we define a term makes a big difference. Pain or suffering defined using a broad spectrum allows for more variation in how we will answer the question about whether suffering (sometimes and certain types) is good and even desirable.This book entertains while it educates, and many of Bloom's points seem to be drawn from our own experiences. His examples of ways of thinking or acting will resonate with us and from these he illustrates the value, and necessity, of suffering. In particular when it serves to give our lives some meaning.My convoluted commentary does not do the book justice, but hopefully it shows how Bloom engages his readers to consider old ideas with a bit more nuance. Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.