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13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Seek out what magnifies your spirit. Patti Smith, in discussing William Blake and her creative influences, talks about writers and artists who magnified her spirit — it’s a beautiful phrase and a beautiful notion.
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Supply creates its own demand. Only by consistently supplying it can we hope to increase the demand for the substantive over the superficial — in our individual lives and in the collective dream called culture.
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively. 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
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. 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... See more
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed , “prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy.
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. 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 absolute... See more
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed, “prestige 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’d like to like.” Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don... See more
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
- When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. 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 a
Maria Popova • 13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cult... See more