The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “Why We write about ourselves”

Barry Lopez on Storytelling and His Advice on the Three Steps to Becoming a Writer
Barry Lopez on Storytelling and His Advice on the Three Steps to Becoming a Writer

“It is through story that we embrace the great breadth of memory, that we can distinguish what is true, and that we may glimpse, at least occasionally, how to live without despair in the midst of the horror that dogs and unhinges us.”

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You Are a Wonder, You Are a Nobody, You Are an Ever-Drifting Ship: Melville on the Mystery of What Makes Us Who We Are
You Are a Wonder, You Are a Nobody, You Are an Ever-Drifting Ship: Melville on the Mystery of What Makes Us Who We Are

“There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause… We trace the round again; and are… Ifs eternally.”

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The Building Blocks of Peace: Pioneering X-Ray Crystallographer and Activist Kathleen Lonsdale’s Quiet Masterpiece on Moral Courage and Our Personal Power
The Building Blocks of Peace: Pioneering X-Ray Crystallographer and Activist Kathleen Lonsdale’s Quiet Masterpiece on Moral Courage and Our Personal Power

“Those people who see clearly the necessity of changed thinking must themselves undertake the discipline of thinking in new ways and must persuade others to do so.”

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Wilderness, Solitude, and Creativity: Artist and Philosopher Rockwell Kent’s Century-Old Meditations on Art and Life During Seven Months on a Small Alaskan Island
Wilderness, Solitude, and Creativity: Artist and Philosopher Rockwell Kent’s Century-Old Meditations on Art and Life During Seven Months on a Small Alaskan Island

“These are the times in life — when nothing happens — but in quietness the soul expands.”

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What Makes You You Makes the Universe: Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrödinger on Quantum Physics, Vedanta, and the Ongoing Mystery of What We Are
What Makes You You Makes the Universe: Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrödinger on Quantum Physics, Vedanta, and the Ongoing Mystery of What We Are

“This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole.”

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200 Years of Great Writers and Artists on the Creative and Spiritual Rewards of Gardening
200 Years of Great Writers and Artists on the Creative and Spiritual Rewards of Gardening

Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Sacks, Rebecca Solnit, Bronson Alcott, Michael Pollan, Jamaica Kincaid, and more.

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We Are Made of Music, We Are Made of Time: Violinist Natalie Hodges on the Poetic Science of Sound and Feeling
We Are Made of Music, We Are Made of Time: Violinist Natalie Hodges on the Poetic Science of Sound and Feeling

“Time renders most individual moments meaningless… but it is only through the passage of time that life acquires its meaning. And that meaning itself is constantly in flux.”

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The Fragile Species: A Forgotten Masterpiece of Perspective on How to Live with Ourselves and Each Other
The Fragile Species: A Forgotten Masterpiece of Perspective on How to Live with Ourselves and Each Other

“We need a better word than chance… To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass and the Late Quartets, deserves a better technical term for the record than randomness.”

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Orwell’s Roses: Rebecca Solnit on How Nature Sustains Us, Beauty as Fuel for Change, and the Value of the Meaningless Things That Give Our Lives Meaning
Orwell’s Roses: Rebecca Solnit on How Nature Sustains Us, Beauty as Fuel for Change, and the Value of the Meaningless Things That Give Our Lives Meaning

“What is it that makes it possible to do the work that is of highest value to others and one’s central purpose in life? It may appear — to others, sometimes even to oneself — trivial, irrelevant, indulgent, pointless, distracted, or any of those other pejoratives with which the quantifiable beats down the unquantifiable.”

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Mystery to Ourselves: Milan Kundera on Writing and the Key to Great Storytelling
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Mystery to Ourselves: Milan Kundera on Writing and the Key to Great Storytelling

A torch for traversing “the territory where no one possesses the truth… but where everyone has the right to be understood.”

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