The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “philosophy”

Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential Longing
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential Longing

“To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life.”

read article

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.”

read article

The Art of Lying Fallow: Psychoanalyst Masud Khan on the Existential Salve for the Age of Cultish Productivity and Compulsive Distraction
The Art of Lying Fallow: Psychoanalyst Masud Khan on the Existential Salve for the Age of Cultish Productivity and Compulsive Distraction

On inviting the state of being that “allows for that larval inner experience which distinguishes true psychic creativity from obsessional productiveness.”

read article

Jealousy and Its Antidote: Pioneering Psychiatrist Leslie Farber on the Tangled Psychology of Our Most Destructive Emotion
Jealousy and Its Antidote: Pioneering Psychiatrist Leslie Farber on the Tangled Psychology of Our Most Destructive Emotion

“Every jealous person knows jealousy to be a brutally degrading experience and resists with all his might revealing the extent of his degradation.”

read article

From Youth to Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming Yourself
From Youth to Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming Yourself

A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of “the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great.”

read article

Let Your Heart Be Broken
Let Your Heart Be Broken

“The miracle is that we rise again out of suffering… The miracle is that we create ourselves anew.”

read article

The Afterlives of the Soul: Sister Nivedita on Love and Death
The Afterlives of the Soul: Sister Nivedita on Love and Death

“To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady through the mists before her.”

read article

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).”

read article

The Broadest Portal to Joy
The Broadest Portal to Joy

“Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in the midst of rhizomatic care that extends in every direction, spatially, temporally, spiritually.”

read article

The Remedy for Creative Block and Existential Stuckness
The Remedy for Creative Block and Existential Stuckness

“Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender… Only unconditional surrender leads to real emptiness, and from that place of emptiness I can be prolific and free.”

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)