Maria Popova

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"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go." On necessary losses: themarginalian.org/2023/11/21/nec…

Nobel laureate Elias Canetti, born 120 years ago today, on death and what makes life worth living themarginalian.org/2025/06/19/eli…

Winnicott on the qualities of a healthy mind and a healthy relationship themarginalian.org/2024/08/19/win…

A Life of One's Own – uncommonly insightful century-old field guide to knowing what you really want and living with unselfconscious authenticity themarginalian.org/2017/10/11/a-l…

I was just reminded of this lovely little gem from more than a decade ago: How to Stay Sane themarginalian.org/2013/02/05/how…

"Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person." Superb read on the pain of loneliness and the joy of solitude themarginalian.org/2016/07/11/the…

So sad to hear that the great Buddhist scholar, ecological philosopher, and environmental activist Joanna Macy has returned her borrowed stardust to the universe at nearly 100. Her translations of Rilke will outlive us all, and continue to help us live: themarginalian.org/2014/12/10/joa…

In the last year of her 50s, after turning a lifelong battle with the darkness into transcendent literature, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones, waded into the river, and drowned. She left this stirring note, which the media cruelly warped: themarginalian.org/2014/03/28/vir…

George Saunders on the key to great storytelling themarginalian.org/2021/09/30/geo…

The great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on the art of deep listening and the 3 Buddhist steps to repairing broken relationships themarginalian.org/2021/10/10/thi…

Tired of letting algorithms divine what you care about, decide what you see, and distract you with ads? Try the Marginalian newsletter—an oasis of undistracted inspiration and illumination, free, ad-free, algorithm-free, fully human since 2006: themarginalian.org/newsletter

“The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself… to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.” The magnificent Iris Murdoch on unselfing: themarginalian.org/2019/10/21/iri…

What it's like to be an owl – the strange and wondrous science of seeing with sound themarginalian.org/2023/12/24/owl…

“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.” Superb read from a superb mind themarginalian.org/2022/01/08/iri…

How to love the world more – George Saunders on the courage of uncertainty themarginalian.org/2023/04/09/geo…

A Plasticity of Being – what a rare bird of prey reveals about the deepest meaning of intelligence themarginalian.org/2025/07/23/car…

Ursula K. Le Guin on suffering and getting to the other side of pain themarginalian.org/2018/11/29/urs…

"I thank you, light… for your visible invisibility, the way you make me look at the face of the world so that everything becomes an eye to everything else… so that I can have this one other way along with every other way, to know that I am here." A beam of radiance for…

Drawing a Tree – uncommon vintage Italian meditation on the existential poetics of diversity and resilience through the art and science of trees themarginalian.org/2021/11/05/dra…

Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger on how the parallels between quantum physics and Hindu philosophy illuminate the mystery of consciousness and what makes us who we are in an interconnected universe themarginalian.org/2021/11/03/erw…