Bitterness
I have become acquainted recently with herbal liqueurs. The majority of those I have sampled are amari. These drinks are based on secret recipes, many more than one hundred years old, requiring the maceration of botanicals of various types in an alcohol base. Those that interest me are typically served after dinner and are believed to aid in digestion.
Amaro, the singular form of amari, is Italian for bitter, reflecting a dominant characteristic of the flavor profile of these liqueurs. They also contain sugar in greater or lesser amounts to make them more palatable. Nevertheless, their bitterness remains evident. Although this might seem unappealing to some, amari have been growing in popularity in the U.S. in recent years. I am among those who enjoy them.
There are other beverages we routinely consume that are bitter; e.g., coffee, green tea, and beer. Other bitter foods are common to our diets, including dark chocolate, broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, arugula, ginger, and more.
Bitter is one of five basic tastes humans sense. The others are sweet, sour, salty, and umami. It is believed that humans evolved the ability to sense bitterness as a protection against consuming plants that would make them ill. It seems reasonable that recognizing some other tastes served a similar purpose. We would want to distinguish sea water from fresh, it would seem, to avoid the harm that would come from drinking the former.
We no doubt learned over time that some plants and liquids that tasted bitter, salty, and sour could be safely eaten and could be made more palatable by the addition of other ingredients. Some of these foods have been found to have health benefits.
Several of the five tastes have come to be associated with emotions. Our use of the word bitter to refer to particular sensations or reactions arose, perhaps, because of physical responses and facial expressions associated with experiencing disgust.
There is a qualitative difference, however, between a brief exposure to an unpleasant taste and the prolonged negative feeling of bitterness. Our instinct is to spit out a food that is excessively bitter. We lack a similar instinct to rid ourselves of the bitterness that poisons our spirits.
We are told that we must take the bitter with the sweet in life. It is true, as I have written recently, that all lives will have moments of joy and sorrow. Accepting the inevitability of circumstances that will leave us feeling aggrieved or resentful is not the same as allowing ourselves to carry the weight of bitterness with us long after the events giving rise to it have passed. We are in fact admonished to avoid wallowing in this form of self-pity.
Those of us who chose careers in local government administration might be forgiven if we experience feelings of bitterness from time to time. These are occupations that are practiced more and more in an environment characterized by incivility and lack of respect. There are ample examples of city managers who have been forced from their positions, sometime after long careers of exemplary service, for reasons more related to politics than to performance. That this is a fact of life in this and similar professions does not prevent some who experience it from becoming embittered.
The momentary relief that comes from plotting some form of retribution will fade quickly when the realization sets in that vengeance is an unlikely outcome and would likely be unsatisfying in any case. As with all such negative emotions, the only one harmed is the one who cannot let them go.
In a different context, the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki offered useful advice:
Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea.
Emotions, like thoughts, come unbidden. We can acknowledge feeling bitter. That is the easy part. It is more difficult to let that feeling go out the back door of our minds. Some will find themselves spending their energies on rumination instead, sitting down for tea with their bitterness. No good comes from this.
There are strategies one can pursue to overcome the tendency to ruminate. A quick search of the internet will offer some helpful tips for those who need this help. I will not list them here.
I will instead suggest that any of these strategies will be most useful if one also seeks to change one's general mindset when facing adversity. There are some circumstances we control and many we don't. In all of the latter, however, we can always choose our attitude. The decision not to dwell on the causes of our bitterness is one way to show it the back door.
I called a friend yesterday on my way home from a meeting. He has been struggling for the last several months with a variety of challenges and his extended care, treatment, and rehabilitation have prevented our getting together. It was good to hear his voice. He sounded like his old self and was in great spirits and we made plans to get together for dinner soon.
A trip and fall caused permanent damage to one knee. He will walk with a cane from now on. During his recovery from the injury, he was hospitalized several times with pneumonia. These recent injuries and illnesses have added to the daily suffering he experiences from diabetes, first diagnosed when he was much younger, and the twice weekly dialysis appointments that leave him exhausted.
In all the time I have known him, I have never once sensed bitterness in him because of his health concerns. He acknowledged during our call that he has had a lifetime to practice maintaining a positive attitude in the face of adversity and we laughed at the truth of this statement.
Letting bitterness leave quickly and silently through the back door is a habit that some of us need to develop to replace the habit of ruminating. As my friend's comment highlights, like all habits, it is one that requires practice in order for it to be a routine part of how we approach life.
In the meantime, I offer one other suggestion for those struggling with bitterness. Call a friend or colleague, someone who can offer both empathy and encouragement. Let them help you move beyond your resentment so you can look to the day when the only bitterness you have is in your amaro and your brussels sprouts, not in your spirit.