The Marginalian
The Marginalian

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Wild Ideas: The Creative Problem-Solving Strategies of Different Animals, in Illustrated Dioramas
Wild Ideas: The Creative Problem-Solving Strategies of Different Animals, in Illustrated Dioramas

From procrastinating pigeons to counting bears to dung beetles that navigate by the stars.

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The Dalai Lama’s Daily Routine and Information Diet
The Dalai Lama’s Daily Routine and Information Diet

“To understand the Dalai Lama … perhaps it’s most useful to see him as a doctor of the soul.”

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Non-human Animals and the Human Imagination: Thinking with Other Beings, from Aesop to Darwin to YouTube
Non-human Animals and the Human Imagination: Thinking with Other Beings, from Aesop to Darwin to YouTube

How metaphors of nonhuman beings help us give shape to the human experience and make sense of our inner lives.

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Hurry Up and Wait: Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman’s Whimsical Children’s Book for Grownups about Presence in the Age of Productivity
Hurry Up and Wait: Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman’s Whimsical Children’s Book for Grownups about Presence in the Age of Productivity

“It feels so good to go someplace. Except when you want to stay right there where you are.”

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Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Animated: History’s Greatest Parable Exploring the Nature of Reality
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Animated: History’s Greatest Parable Exploring the Nature of Reality

“Life is like being chained up in a cave forced to watch shadows flitting across a stone wall.”

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24-Year-Old William Styron on Happiness, Presence, and the True Measure of Maturity, in a Letter to His Father
24-Year-Old William Styron on Happiness, Presence, and the True Measure of Maturity, in a Letter to His Father

“I’ll always hate the stupid and the bat-brained and the petty. But it doesn’t seem nearly so important anymore to hate, as try to understand.”

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James Baldwin and Margaret Mead on Reimagining Democracy for a Post-Consumerist Culture
James Baldwin and Margaret Mead on Reimagining Democracy for a Post-Consumerist Culture

“Democracy should not mean the leveling of everyone to the lowest common denominator. It should mean the possibility of everyone being able to raise himself to a certain level of excellence.”

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How Do You Know You Exist? A Mind-Bending Animated Homage to Descartes Exploring the Conundrum of Reality
How Do You Know You Exist? A Mind-Bending Animated Homage to Descartes Exploring the Conundrum of Reality

“When you’re awake, you know you’re awake. But when you aren’t, you don’t know you aren’t.”

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Ongoingness: Sarah Manguso on Time, Memory, Beginnings and Endings, and the True Measure of Aliveness
Ongoingness: Sarah Manguso on Time, Memory, Beginnings and Endings, and the True Measure of Aliveness

“Perhaps all anxiety might derive from a fixation on moments — an inability to accept life as ongoing.”

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In Defense of Boredom: 200 Years of Ideas on the Virtues of Not-Doing from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds
In Defense of Boredom: 200 Years of Ideas on the Virtues of Not-Doing from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds

Bertrand Russell, Søren Kierkegaard, Andrei Tarkovsky, Susan Sontag, Adam Phillips, Renata Adler, and more.

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