{"id":81775,"date":"2016-10-24T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=81775"},"modified":"2016-10-23T17:46:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T16:46:00","slug":"10-learnings-from-10-years-of-brain-pickings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/10\/10-learnings-from-10-years-of-brain-pickings\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Learnings from 10 Years of Brain Pickings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fluid Reflections on Keeping a Solid Center<\/em>\"treebrain-arvore-cabeca\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I remember my first awareness of mortality as a child in Bulgaria. I was nine and my father was relaying an anecdote from his youth. I asked him when it had taken place. With unconcerned casualness, he replied: \u201cAbout a decade ago.\u201d<\/em> I was astonished that people could segment their lives into blocks this big \u2014 my own life hadn\u2019t yet lasted a decade. In realizing that \u201ca decade ago\u201d I hadn\u2019t existed \u2014 the self I now so vividly experienced daily was then a nonentity \u2014 I also realized that in several more of those ten-year blocks, my dad, and eventually I, will cease to exist.<\/p>\n

\"With<\/a>

With dad, year 0<\/p><\/div>\n

After one such time-block, I left Bulgaria for America, lured by the liberal arts education promise of being taught how to live. As the reality fell short of that promise, I began keeping my own record of what I was reading and learning outside the classroom in mapping this academically unaddressed terra incognita of being.<\/p>\n

All the while, I was working numerous jobs to pay my way through school. What I was learning at night and on weekends, at the library and on the internet \u2014 from Plato to pop art \u2014 felt too uncontainably interesting to keep to myself, so I decided to begin sharing these private adventures with my colleagues at one of my jobs. On October 23, 2006, Brain Pickings<\/em> was born as a plain-text email to seven friends. Halfway through my senior year of college, juggling my various jobs and academic course load, I took a night class to learn coding and turned the short weekly email into a sparse website, which I updated manually every Friday, then, eventually, every weekday.<\/p>\n

The site grew as I grew \u2014 an unfolding record of my intellectual, creative, and spiritual development. At the time, I had no idea that this small labor of love and learning would animate me with a sense of purpose and become both my life and my living, nor that its seven original readers would swell into several million. I had no idea that this eccentric personal record, which I began keeping in the city where Benjamin Franklin founded the first subscription library in America, would one day be included in the Library of Congress archive of \u201cmaterials of historical importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, somehow, a decade has elapsed.<\/p>\n

Because I believe that our becoming, like the synthesis of meaning itself, is an ongoing and dynamic process, I\u2019ve been reluctant to stultify it and flatten its ongoing expansiveness in static opinions and fixed personal tenets of living. But I do find myself continually discovering, then returning to, certain core values. While they may be refined and enriched in the act of living, their elemental substance remains a center of gravity for what I experience as myself.<\/p>\n

I first set down some of these core beliefs, written largely as notes to myself that may or may not be useful to others, when Brain Pickings<\/em> turned seven<\/a> (which kindred spirits later adapted into a beautiful poster<\/a> inspired by the aesthetic of vintage children\u2019s books and a cinematic short film<\/a>). I expanded upon them to mark year nine<\/a>. Today, as I round the first decade of Brain Pickings<\/em>, I feel half-compelled, half-obliged to add a tenth learning, a sort of crowning credo drawn from a constellation of life-earned beliefs I distilled in a commencement address<\/a> I delivered in the spring of 2016.<\/p>\n

Here are all ten, in the order that they were written.<\/p>\n

From year seven:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.<\/strong> Cultivate that capacity for \u201cnegative capability.\u201d<\/a> We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our \u201copinions\u201d based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It\u2019s enormously disorienting to simply say, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d But it\u2019s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right \u2014 even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.<\/li>\n
  2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone.<\/strong> As Paul Graham observed<\/a>, \u201cprestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you\u2019d like to like.\u201d Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don\u2019t make it thrilling to get up in the morning and gratifying to go to sleep at night \u2014 and, in fact, they can often distract and detract from the things that do offer those deeper rewards.<\/li>\n
  3. Be generous.<\/strong> Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It\u2019s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life\u2019s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.<\/li>\n
  4. Build pockets of stillness into your life.<\/strong> Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming<\/a>, even to boredom<\/a>. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing<\/a>, the entire flow of the creative process<\/a> is broken.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Most important, sleep<\/strong>. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac<\/a>, sleep also affects our every waking moment<\/a>, dictates our social rhythm<\/a>, and even mediates our negative moods<\/a>. Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou<\/a> famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you<\/em> are, don\u2019t believe them.<\/strong> You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.<\/li>\n
    2. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.<\/strong> Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living \u2014 for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it<\/a>, \u201chow we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.\u201d<\/li>\n
    3. \u201cExpect anything worthwhile to take a long time.\u201d<\/strong> This is borrowed<\/a> from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman<\/a>, for it\u2019s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that \u2014 a myth \u2014 as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning<\/a>. As I\u2019ve reflected elsewhere<\/a>, the flower doesn\u2019t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we\u2019re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming<\/em>. But that\u2019s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one\u2019s character and destiny.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      From year nine:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Seek out what magnifies your spirit.<\/strong> Patti Smith, in discussing William Blake and her creative influences<\/a>, talks about writers and artists who magnified her spirit \u2014 it\u2019s a beautiful phrase and a beautiful notion. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them, and visit them often. Use them not only as a remedy once spiritual malaise has already infected your vitality but as a vaccine administered while you are healthy to protect your radiance.<\/li>\n
      2. Don\u2019t be afraid to be an idealist.<\/strong> There is much to be said for our responsibility as creators and consumers of that constant dynamic interaction we call culture \u2014 which side of the fault line between catering and creating are we to stand on? The commercial enterprise is conditioning us to believe that the road to success is paved with catering to existing demands \u2014 give the people cat GIFs, the narrative goes, because cat GIFs are what the people want. But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted<\/a> half a century ago that the role of the writer is \u201cto lift people up, not lower them down\u201d \u2014 a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society. Supply creates its own demand. Only by consistently supplying it can we hope to increase the demand for the substantive over the superficial \u2014 in our individual lives and in the collective dream called culture.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        And as I round the decade:<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Don\u2019t just resist cynicism \u2014 fight it actively.<\/strong> Fight it in yourself, for this ungainly beast lays dormant in each of us, and counter it in those you love and engage with, by modeling its opposite. Cynicism often masquerades as nobler faculties and dispositions, but is categorically inferior. Unlike that great Rilkean life-expanding doubt<\/a>, it is a contracting force. Unlike critical thinking, that pillar of reason<\/a> and necessary counterpart to hope<\/a>, it is inherently uncreative, unconstructive, and spiritually corrosive. Life, like the universe itself, tolerates no stasis \u2014 in the absence of growth, decay usurps the order. Like all forms of destruction, cynicism is infinitely easier and lazier than construction. There is nothing more difficult yet more gratifying in our society than living with sincerity and acting from a place of largehearted, constructive, rational faith in the human spirit<\/a>, continually bending toward growth and betterment. This remains the most potent antidote to cynicism. Today, especially, it is an act of courage and resistance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Since such a time machine of reflection would get nowhere without the substance that fueled it, here are ten of the things I most loved reading and writing about in this first decade of Brain Pickings<\/em>:<\/p>\n

          \"oliversacks2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Love, Lunacy, and a Life Fully Lived: Oliver Sacks, the Science of Seeing, and the Art of Being Seen<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

             <\/p>\n

            \"virginiawoolf\"<\/a><\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Virginia Woolf on the Relationship Between Loneliness and Creativity<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

               <\/p>\n

              \"ursulakleguin3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                \n
              1. Telling Is Listening: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Magic of Real Human Conversation<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                 <\/p>\n

                \"jamesbaldwin1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. James Baldwin on Freedom and How We Imprison Ourselves<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                   <\/p>\n

                  \"cryheartbutneverbreak00\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                    \n
                  1. Cry, Heart, But Never Break: A Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Loss and Life<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                     <\/p>\n

                    \"susansontag\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                      \n
                    1. Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Moral Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                       <\/p>\n

                      \"timemachine\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                        \n
                      1. James Gleick on How Our Cultural Fascination with Time Travel Illuminates Memory, the Nature of Time, and the Central Mystery of Human Consciousness<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                         <\/p>\n

                        \"hermannhesse\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                          \n
                        1. The Magic of the Book: Hermann Hesse on Why We Read and Always Will<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                           <\/p>\n

                          \"pattismith6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                            \n
                          1. Patti Smith on Time, Transformation, and How the Radiance of Love Redeems the Rupture of Loss<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                             <\/p>\n

                            \"self1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                              \n
                            1. What Makes a Person: The Seven Layers of Identity in Literature and Life<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                              _______________________________________<\/p>\n

                              Brain Pickings<\/em> is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for <\/em>Wired<\/em> UK and <\/em>The Atlantic<\/em>, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

                              Go to Original \u2013 brainpickings.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                              Fluid Reflections on Keeping a Solid Center – I left Bulgaria for America lured by the liberal arts education promise of being taught how to live. As the reality fell short of that promise, I began keeping my own record of what I was reading and learning outside the classroom in mapping this academically unaddressed terra incognita of being. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}