The Marginalian1 hour agoHow to Say “YES” to LifeThe Marginalian - By Maria PopovaIt started with an urn for living gone wrong, the clay kiltering off center, resisting my every effort to force it back into shape. The harder I pushed to control it, the more it took on a life of its own, folding like flesh, bending like mind. I pushed and despaired, pushed and despaired, until, …
The Marginalian14 hours agoRichard Dawkins on the Luckiness of DeathThe Marginalian - By Maria PopovaWe are born into the certitude of our eventual death. Every once in a while, something — perhaps an encounter with a robin’s egg, perhaps a poem — staggers us with the awful, awe-filled wonder of aliveness, the sheer luck of it against the overwhelming cosmic odds of nonexistence. But alloyed with …
The Marginalian1 day agoJames Baldwin’s Advice on WritingThe Marginalian - By Maria PopovaIn 1989, Paris Review founding editor and trailblazing interviewer George Plimpton edited a wonderful collection titled The Writer’s Chapbook: A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the 20th Century’s Preeminent Writers (public library). Among them was novelist, poet, essayist, and …
The Marginalian1 day agoWhat Happens When We DieThe Marginalian - By Maria PopovaWhen my atheist engineer grandfather died, my atheist engineer grandmother leaned over the body in the hospice bed that had contained half a century of shared life and love, cradled the cranium in which his stubborn and sensitive mind had dwelt, and whispered into the halogen-lit ether: “Where did …
The Marginalian1 day agoDavid Bowie Answers the Famous Proust QuestionnaireThe Marginalian - By Maria PopovaIn the 1880s, long before he claimed his status as one of the greatest authors of all time, teenage Marcel Proust (July 10, 1871–November 18, 1922) filled out an English-language questionnaire given to him by his friend Antoinette, the daughter of France’s then-president, as part of her “confession …
The Marginalian1 day agoC.S. Lewis on How to Structure the Days of a Creative Life and Train the Receptive ImaginationThe Marginalian - By Maria PopovaThere are, in my experience, two fundaments of the creative life: putting yourself regularly in the path of wonder and getting out of your own way in order to receive what you encounter there. Wonder, like enchantment, is not something you can control or plan for or will — it is something that …
