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Long before modern science confirmed the neurophysiology of it, nursing founding mother Florence Nightingale, born on this day in 1820, wrote beautifully about the healing power of nature and art themarginalian.org/2022/05/22/flo…

How to be human – Kahlil Gibran's recipe for our spiritual perfection as a species themarginalian.org/2025/11/29/kah…

Street library divinations – searching for the meaning of life in discarded books and found objects themarginalian.org/2025/12/07/lit…

What it's like to be an owl – the strange and wondrous science of seeing with sound themarginalian.org/2023/12/24/owl…

From the inimitable Zadie Smith, a wonderful corrective for the punitive dogma of "cultural appropriation" themarginalian.org/2026/05/10/zad…

"There is no love of life without despair of life." Albert Camus, writing between two World Wars, on the relationship between despair and happiness themarginalian.org/2015/11/30/alb…

"At the end of my suffering there was a door." Walk through that door with this poem by Nobel laureate Louise Glück: themarginalian.org/2024/04/29/lou…

On Richard Feynman's birthday, his timeless monologue on knowledge and mystery, animated themarginalian.org/2013/01/01/ode…

Henry Miller on the secret to growth, in art and in life themarginalian.org/2022/08/23/hen…

Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman, born on this day in 1918, married the love of his life, knowing she was dying. The extraordinary love letter he wrote to her after she died—a beautiful and terrifying reminder of what a precarious miracle love is: themarginalian.org/2017/10/17/ric…

On Richard Feynman's birthday, his "atoms with consciousness" prose poem – one of the most beautiful things I've ever read – read and with music by Yo-Yo Ma themarginalian.org/2022/04/22/ric…

Orcas and the price of consciousness – lessons in love and loss from Earth's most successful and creative predator themarginalian.org/2025/08/21/orc…

The trailblazing psychologist Carl Rogers believed, and proved with his long practice, that “the basic nature of the human being, when functioning freely, is constructive and trustworthy.” His abiding insight into the 3 elements that make this possible: themarginalian.org/2025/10/05/car…

"Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life." Bertrand Russell on how to grow old and what makes a fulfilling life themarginalian.org/2026/05/10/how…

Arundhati Roy on the deepest measure of success themarginalian.org/2026/05/04/aru…

Octavia Buller's advice on writing themarginalian.org/2023/09/20/oct…

Zadie Smith on the courage to be more than yourself themarginalian.org/2026/05/10/zad…

How to live a miraculous life themarginalian.org/2026/05/09/bri…

“Love the earth and sun and the animals… re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul…” Whitman's timeless advice on living a vibrant and rewarding life: themarginalian.org/2026/05/09/wal…

Turning loss and loneliness into wonder – how the Victorian visionary Marianne North revolutionized art and science with her botanical paintings themarginalian.org/2023/01/23/mar…