All blogs / Essays / personal

Posts

6,740 from 30 Aug 2007 to 6 Nov 2026

Posting

about daily (217 in the last year)

Kind

personal blog

Feed

https://feeds.feedburner.com/brainpickings/rss

Latest

November 2026

1. 6 NovThe Relationship Between Comedy, Democracy, and AI
2. 6 NovMarianne Moore on the Three Elements of Persuasive Writing
3. 5 NovThe Generosity of Selfishness: C.S. Lewis on How to Be Interesting
4. 5 NovUmberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones
5. 4 NovThe Souls of Animals
6. 4 NovNo One You Love Is Ever Dead: Hemingway on Loss and the Meaning of Life
7. 3 NovThe Founding Father of Neuroscience on Solitude, the Search for Truth, and the Ideal Environment for Breakthroughs
8. 3 NovI Feel, Therefore I Am: Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio the Consciousness of the Body
9. 3 NovPolyvagal Theory and the Neurobiology of Connection: The Science of Rupture, Repair, and Reciprocity
10. 3 NovThe Art of Advancing with Age: Bertrand Russell on What Makes a Fulfilling Life
11. 2 NovLove in the Time of Dinosaurs
12. 2 NovTrial, Triumph, and the Art of the Possible: The Moving Story Behind Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” a Lifetime of Sorrow in the Making
13. 1 NovThe Art of Being Alone: May Sarton’s Stunning 1938 Ode to Solitude

October 2026

1. 31 OctMeteor of Joy: The Young People’s Chorus of New York City Sings Bird Divinations
2. 31 OctAlbert Camus on the Three Antidotes to the Absurdity of Life
3. 31 OctMusic and the Body: Richard Powers on the Power of Song
4. 30 OctHalloween’s Lost Heroes: Michael Pollan on Radical Gardening and the Insurgent Botanical Origin of the Broomstick in Flying-Witch Legends
5. 30 OctTruth, Fact, and the Patterning of Reality: Virginia Woolf on How We Come to Know the World
6. 30 OctWhen Your Parents Are Dying: Some of the Simplest, Most Difficult and Redemptive Life-Advice You’ll Ever Receive
7. 29 OctWhat Is Your Refugium?
8. 29 OctThe Most Important Thing to Remember About Your Mother
9. 28 OctWhat It Takes to Be Free
10. 27 OctSylvia Plath on Living with the Darkness and Making Art from the Barely Bearable Lightness of Being
11. 27 OctMarcus Aurelius on the Good Luck of Your Bad Luck
12. 26 OctWalt Whitman’s Advice on Living a Vibrant and Rewarding Life
13. 26 OctBob Dylan on the Unconscious Mind and the Ideal Conditions for Creative Work
14. 25 Oct20 Favorite Children’s Books from 20 Years of The Marginalian
15. 25 OctThe Dark Wood of the Golden Birds: Margaret Wise Brown’s Lost Masterpiece about Mortality and the Meaning of Life, Newly Illustrated
16. 25 Oct20 Favorite Books from 20 Years of The Marginalian
17. 24 OctThe Baloney Detection Kit: Carl Sagan’s Timeless Tenets of Critical Thinking
18. 24 OctDostoyevsky, Just After His Death Sentence Was Repealed, on the Meaning of Life
19. 23 OctHow to Be Transformed When Things Fall Apart
20. 23 OctThe Wildest Bet Is the Winning Bet
21. 22 OctUrsula K. Le Guin on the Meaning of Life
22. 22 OctNathaniel Hawthorne on How to Look and Really See
23. 22 OctIntroducing the Museum of Delight
24. 22 OctHow to Hold Your Heart with Golden Hands
25. 21 OctCorrective for a Broken Heart
26. 21 OctHow to Be Un-Dead: Notes on Waking Up from the Trance of Near-Living
27. 20 OctHow to Grow Old without Letting Life Become a Parody of Itself
28. 20 OctThe Constitution of the Inner Country: Leonard Cohen on Language and the Poetry of Presence
29. 20 OctHow to Stop Waiting and Start Living: A Jolt from Henry James
30. 19 OctLove After Life: Nobel-Winning Physicist Richard Feynman’s Extraordinary Letter to His Departed Wife
31. 19 OctWhen Relationships Change: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing the Intermittency and Mutability of Love
32. 18 OctNineteen Truths and One Beguiling Lie about Life from 20 Years of The Marginalian
33. 18 OctHow to Unself in Order to Be Who You Really Are
34. 18 OctCelebrating 20 Years of The Marginalian and the Search for Meaning: Free Livestream This Friday
35. 17 OctThe Map to the Route of Your Life
36. 17 OctBloom: A Touching Animated Short Film about Depression and What It Takes to Recover the Light of Being
37. 17 OctThe Single Most Effective Remedy for Despair: Advice from T.H. White’s Merlyn
38. 16 OctThe Day Dostoyevsky Discovered the Meaning of Life in a Dream
39. 16 OctThe Other Significant Others: Living and Loving Outside the Confines of Conventional Friendship and Compulsory Coupledom
40. 16 OctBruce Springsteen on Surviving Depression and His Strategy for Living Through the Visitations of the Darkness
41. 15 OctHow to Hold Your Helplessness: Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell’s Salve for the Anxiety of Overwhelm
42. 15 OctHow Not to Waste Your Life
43. 14 OctAn Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of Candid Connection
44. 14 OctNostradamusGPT: The Psychology of Prophecy and How to Break Free from the Prison of Predictive Technologies
45. 11 OctJames Baldwin on How Love (Finally) Finds You
46. 10 OctHow to Doubt Your Way into a Truer Life
47. 9 OctSleeping Beauties: David Byrne on Why Transformative Ideas Fall Dormant and How They Awaken to Change the World
48. 6 OctA Constellation of Amazements: An Illustrated Love Letter to the Joy of Collecting Things
49. 4 OctDostoyevsky on What Makes a Good Person
50. 3 OctThe Dandelion and the Meaning of Life: G.K. Chesterton on How to Live in Wonder
51. 3 OctOcean of Stars: A Painted Poem About How to Bear the Astonishment of Life
52. 1 OctHow to Say “YES” to Life

September 2026

1. 30 SepC.S. Lewis on How to Structure the Days of a Creative Life and Train the Receptive Imagination
2. 26 SepHow to Handle a Narcissistic and Abusive Parent: Kafka’s Remarkable Letter to Father
3. 26 SepHow to Speak Forest
4. 24 SepHow to Fall in Love Better: A Field Guide to Enlightened Enchantment
5. 23 SepHow to Be a Poet: Elizabeth Alexander on the Yin-Yang of Connection and Contradiction
6. 20 SepAre You Working: In Defense of the Invisible Labors of Creativitiy
7. 17 SepOn Losing a Parent
8. 16 SepHow to Promise and How to Keep Promises from Breaking
9. 15 SepJ.R.R. Tolkien on How to Fall in Love with Life
10. 13 SepThe Moving Story of the Dawn Redwood: How a Fossil Came Back to Life to Bring Humanity Together in the Middle of Our Deadliest War
11. 11 SepThe Unspeakable World: Alan Watts on How to Touch the Pulse of Life
12. 9 SepHow to Change Your Life
13. 8 SepHow to Break Free from the Tyranny of Certainty: The Japanese Concept of “Ma”
14. 6 SepThe True Purpose of Tarot
15. 5 SepHow to Reconcile Your Most Painful Mistakes: The Life-Shaping Difference Between Regret and Remorse
16. 4 SepThe Power of Being a Threshold Person: Liminality, Communitas, and the Anti-structures of Possibility
17. 2 SepWendell Berry on Hope, Despair, and the Measure of Effective Protest
18. 1 SepJoan Didion on Letting Go

August 2026

1. 30 AugMatter, Memory, and the Paradox of Perception: Henri Bergson on How to See Reality
2. 28 AugThe Tree and the River: A Wordless Love Letter to How Nature Always Wins
3. 27 AugThe Moving Letter James Baldwin Received from His Childhood Teacher at the Peak of His Fame and His Heartbreak
4. 25 AugThe Vocabulary of Vulnerability: 10 Wonderfully Untranslatable Words from Around the World for Complex and Difficult Emotions
5. 22 AugThe Loveliness of Letting Go: An Illustrated Ode to Life’s Lasts
6. 20 AugThe Resilience of Uncertainty: How to Hold the Universe in You
7. 18 AugHow to Be a Sea: Albert Camus on Learning to Die and Learning to Live
8. 15 AugActuality vs. Possibility and How to Hear the Signal of Your Life
9. 14 AugHow Love Comes to You
10. 10 AugThe Wisdom of Water: Alan Watts on the Ocean and the Meaning of Life
11. 7 AugHow to Hold What Harrows You
12. 2 AugThe Grasshopper and the “Lusory Attitude” Essential for Playing the Game of Life
13. 1 AugDeath and How to Be More Alive: Carl Jung on Immortality and the Rebirth of Middle Age

July 2026

1. 31 JulBlackie & Co.: A Blackbird’s Lesson in Friendship
2. 27 JulThe Bird in You, the World in You, and the Art of Trusting Time: Ceramics, Serpentine, and How to Get Over Heartbreak
3. 24 JulDr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and Ms. Boodle: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Advice on Writing to a Young Woman Aspiring to Be an Author
4. 19 JulFrom Mitochondria to Minds: The Illustrated Science of the Psychedelic Dream Called Life
5. 15 JulHow to Bear Your Sorrows: Nick Cave on Integrating the Darkness of Loss with the Bright Ongoingness of Life
6. 14 JulHow to Help Someone Change: The Samurai Guide to Giving Feedback
7. 10 JulThe Art of Dignity Beyond Pride: How to Move Through Heartbreak Like Frida Kahlo
8. 8 Jul20 Ways of Surfacing from the Blues: Sydney Smith’s 200-year-old Strategies for Raising Low Spirits in a Letter of Advice to a 13-year-old Girl
9. 4 JulThe Art of Losing and the Art of Beckoning Love Back: The Story Behind One of the Greatest Poems Ever Written
10. 1 JulThe Violinist Who Solved the Ancient Riddle of How the World Holds Together
11. 1 JulNow Yourself: The Elusive Science of What the Present Moment Is Made of and How It Makes You Who You Are

June 2026

1. 27 JunLegendary Artist Sheila Hicks, at 92, on the Secret to Creative Vitality
2. 27 JunTrue Love Will Find You in the End: Kurt Vonnegut on When to Stop Trying and When to Try Again
3. 24 JunDiatoms and the Meaning of Life
4. 21 JunLife Is a Story That Begins in the Middle: Bayo Akomolafe on the Rewilding Power of Obstacles
5. 20 JunThe Man Who Thought with His Heart: George Forster and the Birth of Sensitive Science
6. 17 JunThe Meaning of Maturity: Ursula K. Le Guin on What It Really Takes to Grow Up
7. 16 JunHow to Be More Alive: The Samurai Guide to Dying Every Day
8. 11 JunHow to See a Bird: Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s Exquisite Illustrated Field Guide to the Wonder of the Winged
9. 8 JunRobert Louis Stevenson on Falling in Love and Loving Beyond the Fall
10. 6 JunUrsula K. Le Guin on the Meaning of Life
11. 6 JunHow Nature Imagined the Figment of You
12. 4 JunVery Necessary Qualifications of a Great Storyteller
13. 3 JunEinstein and the Eagle: How Relativity Is Saving Earth’s Rarest Raptor
14. 1 JunThe Only Three Distinctions Between People

May 2026

1. 30 MayHow Phrenology Queered Language: Walt Whitman and the Evolving Lexicon of Love
2. 27 MayExistentialist Embroidery
3. 24 MaySwimming and the Meaning of Life
4. 22 MayHow Not to Be Imprisoned in the Past
5. 21 MayTruth, Fact, and the Patterning of Reality: Virginia Woolf on How We Come to Know the World
6. 19 Maybell hooks on the Power of Being in the Margins
7. 17 MayWhat It’s Like to Be a Panda
8. 14 MayIn Praise of the Useless: Bertrand Russell’s Salve for Hard Times
9. 13 MayThe Enemy Outside and the Enemy Within: Audre Lorde’s Antidote to Despair
10. 10 MayZadie Smith on the Courage to Be More Than Yourself
11. 9 MayMartian Gargoyles and Lunar Fish: Chilean Artist Alejandra Acosta’s Wondrous Embroidered Illustrations for This World’s First Book Theorizing Life on Other Worlds
12. 8 MayPoetry: I Too, Dislike It
13. 6 MayEmpire, Emoji, and the Ecology of Love: The Bittersweet Story of the Ancient Plant That Originated the Heart Symbol
14. 5 MayViktor Frankl on the Secret to Success
15. 5 MaySimone de Beauvoir on Marriage and the Freedom to Change
16. 1 MayThe Wildest Bet Is the Winning Bet

April 2026

1. 27 AprThe Black Robin and the Power of Tenacious Tenderness: How a Single Mother Brought an Entire Species Back from the Brink of Extinction
2. 26 AprThe Force and the Flower: Poet and Potter M.C. Richards on Creativity
3. 24 AprThe Bird That Is Your Life
4. 23 AprMarianne Moore on the Three Elements of Persuasive Writing
5. 21 AprA Place for Intimacy: bell hooks on Language and Desire
6. 18 AprWalt Whitman’s Field Guide to Being Yourself: The Trial and Triumph of Leaves of Grass
7. 17 AprRehabilitating the Active Imagination: Samantha Harvey on How to Be a Reader in the Age of Fractured Attention
8. 14 AprIs This Blue: Chilean Philosophers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela on Love and How We Know the World
9. 12 AprHow to Make the Impossible Possible: Cristina Campo on the Crucial Difference Between Hope and Trust
10. 9 AprBrian Eno’s Remedy for Burnout and Despair
11. 7 AprBetween the User and the Used
12. 6 AprSentinels of the Soul: Kahlil Gibran’s Moving Letter to a Soldier in a Senseless War
13. 4 AprWherever You Think There Is Nothing

Every year

2026 1912025 1542024 1512023 2012022 2372021 1572020 1652019 1962018 2292017 2562016 4892015 5472014 7012013 7432012 7602011 7542010 3962009 2632008 1292007 21