Though often unsatisfying, losing is as much a part of our lives as its more coveted counterparts: winning, gaining and improving. As we age, we lose our youth; as we gain experience, we lose our naivete. In many ways, life is an accumulation of these losses. Alongside these existential losses are more dreary failures: Loved ones pass, job offers fall through, relationships falter. One way of processing setbacks is to treat them as a springboard to a brighter future. But in his 2021 book Losers, Josh Cohen argues against this search for silver linings and toward a new outlook on losing. As a psychoanalyst, Cohen sits with his clients as they come to terms with their losses and failures. It’s a necessary intervention: Only through This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Four Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 50 Close Knit Close Knit: Meet the weavers keeping traditional Egyptian tapestrymaking alive. Arts & Culture Issue 50 The Old Gays Inside a Californian TikTok “content house” of a very different stripe. Arts & Culture Issue 50 New Roots The Palestinian art and agriculture collective sowing seeds of community. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Angela Trimbur An all-out tour de force. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Peace & Quiet In the UK, a centuries-old Quaker meeting house encourages quiet reflection. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Free Wheelers On the road with London’s Velociposse Cycling Club.
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