The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “this is water”

Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe

How to bear the gravity of being.

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Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality
Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality

“We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water.”

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How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty
How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty

“In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious).”

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Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering

The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.

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The Creative Accident: Visionary Ceramicist Edith Heath on Serendipity, the Antidote to Obsolescence, and the Five Pillars of Timelessness
The Creative Accident: Visionary Ceramicist Edith Heath on Serendipity, the Antidote to Obsolescence, and the Five Pillars of Timelessness

On aligning the things we make with basic human values for an enduring world.

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Stunning Century-Old Illustrations of Tibetan Fairy Tales from the Artist Who Created Bambi
Stunning Century-Old Illustrations of Tibetan Fairy Tales from the Artist Who Created Bambi

Soulful art from stories that speak “to the childhood of all times and all races.”

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How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old
How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old

“Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world… Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being.”

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2,000 Years of Kindness
2,000 Years of Kindness

From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.

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How to Survive Hopelessness
How to Survive Hopelessness

“You can expect good and bad luck, but good or bad judgment is your prerogative.”

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The Remarkable Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Living Fossil Brought Humanity Together in the Middle of a World War
The Remarkable Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Living Fossil Brought Humanity Together in the Middle of a World War

How an ancient survivor of the unsurvivable became a triumph of the human spirit in a divided world.

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