The Best of Brain Pickings 2015

The paradoxical psychology of why we fall in love, what maturity really means, how our emotions affect our immune system, the transformative power of solitude, and a year’s worth more.

read article

The Best Children’s Books of 2015

From power-hungry sheep to power-hungry tigers, by way of ghosts, E.E. Cummings, and the unseen Dr. Seuss.

read article

The Art of Self-Culture and the Crucial Difference Between Being Educated and Being Cultured: John Cowper Powys’s Forgotten Wisdom from 1929

“The art of self-culture begins with a deeper awareness … of the marvel of our being alive at all; alive in a world as startling and mysterious, as lovely and horrible, as the one we live in.”

read article

The Poetics of Smell as a Mode of Knowledge

“The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking itself.”

read article

Uncertainty and Our Search for Meaning: Legendary Psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom on How We Glean Our Sense of Purpose

“The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely. Meaning ensues from meaningful activity: the more we deliberately pursue it, the less likely are we to find it.”

read article