The Gray Area with Sean Illing
It’s not always the most wonderful time of the year.
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 calls bullshit on 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.
We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.
And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.
Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. This holiday season, your membership goes further: when you join Vox as an annual Member, we’ll gift a free membership to a reader who can’t afford it. By joining today, you’ll get 30% off for an annual membership, and we’ll match your membership. And if you can’t afford it, visit that same link to apply for a free membership through our gift program.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It’s okay to not be okay
It’s not always the most wonderful time of the year. 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…
Forgiveness is optional
You have to forgive people who wrong you…right? The world is filled with injustice and wrongdoing, and to live in the world — to not be consumed by anger — forgiveness is necessary. At least…
Across the Gooniverse
Sean’s guest today is Daniel Kolitz, author of a remarkable Harper’s story on “gooning.” They talk about this emerging subculture and how it reflects back on the larger world, from the economics of attention to…
What counts as progress?
We’ve never had more wealth, more data, or more ways to be entertained. So why doesn’t it feel like progress? Sean’s guest today is Brad DeLong, an economic historian at UC Berkeley and author of…
You’re not awkward — the world is.
We all know what awkwardness feels like. It’s that jolt of discomfort when the social script breaks down, and no one knows what to do next. But what if awkwardness isn’t a flaw to fix…
Truth in an age of doublethink
We use “Orwellian” to describe everything from campus dust-ups to authoritarian crackdowns. But what did George Orwell actually stand for, what did he get wrong, and what can we learn from him about our age…
The case against free will
We all think of ourselves as authors of our lives. The difference between our happy ending and someone else’s tragic one are the choices we each make. But what if none of that’s true? Sean’s…
What the climate story gets wrong
The story we tell about climate change is mostly a story about loss. But look to the data, and that story starts to fall apart. Emissions are peaking in key sectors. Clean energy is scaling…
The Great Enshittening
Open a browser and you can feel it instantly: everything online just feels… worse. Search results that look like ads. Social feeds that you don’t control. Streaming platforms that are packed with ads. Services that…
America chose violence. Now what?
Is America at a tipping point? Sean Illing talks with Barbara Walter, one of the world’s leading experts on violent extremism and domestic terror. She’s the author of How Civil Wars Start, about how democracies…