Uploaded July 2024 | Updated September 2026, 13 hours ago
The world can feel heavy, intense, and overwhelming—media, politics, and news pulls us away from those harder-to-measure things that make life wondrous. Love, connection, trust, kindness, passions, memories. The invisible but much-more-important guideposts that emerge as we look back on our lives from the end of it. That’s where Maria Popova and 'The Marginalian' rescue us—to point our attention towards the turn of phrase in a poem, a forgotten piece of advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson on trusting ourselves, or to provide a close reading with some stunning artwork from a 100-year-old picture book that helps illuminates one of those impossible-to-articulate emotions that we all share and feel…
I loved this conversation with the much-requested Maria Popova on a wonderfully wide-ranging set of topics including, of course, her 3 most formative books…
Let’s turn the page to Chapter 138 now…
To learn more about Maria and read the full show notes, go here 👉🏽 3books.co/chapters/138
00:00 Making Meaning from Marginalia
04:20 Community Letter
06:50 From Bulgaria to Blogging
13:46 Petrifying Interviews
20:50 Learning is Appropriation
28:30 'Leaves of Grass' by Walt Whitman
30:23 Discounting Poetry
33:49 Whitman Divination
44:20 Was Whitman Queer?
49:05 Anonymity vs. Privacy
57:00 Commodification of Art
1:02:42 Funding Your Passions
1:07:40 'Love and Saint Augustine' by Hannah Adrendt
1:16:05 Learn from the Dead
1:21:07 The Gift of Stubborness
1:27:30 Are You Growing or Suffering?
1:31:56 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1:39:04 Dark Places in Children's Books
1:41:59 'The Log from the Sea of Cortez' by John Steinbeck
1:47:40 Hope as Diagnostic Trait
1:52:20 Loathsome Paperbacks
1:57:52 Maria's Favorite Bookstore
2:01:07 Never Lend Books
2:06:20 Does Video Ruin Intimacy?
2:15:00 End of the Podcast Club
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SUBSCRIBE: bit.ly/2HHWPYg
Hey there,
I'm Neil and I spend a ton of time thinking, writing, podcasting, and speaking about living intentionally. I'm the New York Times bestselling author of six books including The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation. I've been lucky to speak at places like TED, SXSW, and Google. And I host a huge passion project called the 3 Books podcast.
Want more 3 Books? Check out my top interviews with:
Brené Brown youtube.com/watch?v=X5l-Auv7h8Y
Quentin Tarantino youtube.com/watch?v=VVFdvfiPB-w
David Sedaris youtube.com/watch?v=wzz8tqnz1mI
Want to read more of my stuff?
https://www.neil.blog/archive/
Want to check out my podcast?
3books.co
Want to learn about my live events?
globalhappiness.org/speaking
Want my monthly book recos?
1000awesomethings.com/reading-club
Want my articles on intentional living?
https://www.neil.blog/newsletter/
I am also on the following drugs:
Facebook: facebook.com/NeilPasricha
Twitter: twitter.com/neilpasricha
Instagram: instagram.com/neilpasricha
Lastly, thanks so much for watching this vid.
👊,
Neil
neil@globalhappiness.org
The world can feel heavy, intense, and overwhelming—media, politics, and news pulls us away from those harder-to-measure things that make life wondrous. Love, connection, trust, kindness, passions, memories. The invisible but much-more-important guideposts that emerge as we look back on our lives from the end of it. That’s where Maria Popova and 'The Marginalian' rescue us—to point our attention towards the turn of phrase in a poem, a forgotten piece of advice from Ralph Waldo Emerson on trusting ourselves, or to provide a close reading with some stunning artwork from a 100-year-old picture book that helps illuminates one of those impossible-to-articulate emotions that we all share and feel…
I loved this conversation with the much-requested Maria Popova on a wonderfully wide-ranging set of topics including, of course, her 3 most formative books…
Let’s turn the page to Chapter 138 now…
To learn more about Maria and read the full show notes, go here 👉🏽 3books.co/chapters/138
00:00 Making Meaning from Marginalia
04:20 Community Letter
06:50 From Bulgaria to Blogging
13:46 Petrifying Interviews
20:50 Learning is Appropriation
28:30 'Leaves of Grass' by Walt Whitman
30:23 Discounting Poetry
33:49 Whitman Divination
44:20 Was Whitman Queer?
49:05 Anonymity vs. Privacy
57:00 Commodification of Art
1:02:42 Funding Your Passions
1:07:40 'Love and Saint Augustine' by Hannah Adrendt
1:16:05 Learn from the Dead
1:21:07 The Gift of Stubborness
1:27:30 Are You Growing or Suffering?
1:31:56 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1:39:04 Dark Places in Children's Books
1:41:59 'The Log from the Sea of Cortez' by John Steinbeck
1:47:40 Hope as Diagnostic Trait
1:52:20 Loathsome Paperbacks
1:57:52 Maria's Favorite Bookstore
2:01:07 Never Lend Books
2:06:20 Does Video Ruin Intimacy?
2:15:00 End of the Podcast Club
-
SUBSCRIBE: bit.ly/2HHWPYg
Hey there,
I'm Neil and I spend a ton of time thinking, writing, podcasting, and speaking about living intentionally. I'm the New York Times bestselling author of six books including The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation. I've been lucky to speak at places like TED, SXSW, and Google. And I host a huge passion project called the 3 Books podcast.
Want more 3 Books? Check out my top interviews with:
Brené Brown youtube.com/watch?v=X5l-Auv7h8Y
Quentin Tarantino youtube.com/watch?v=VVFdvfiPB-w
David Sedaris youtube.com/watch?v=wzz8tqnz1mI
Want to read more of my stuff?
https://www.neil.blog/archive/
Want to check out my podcast?
3books.co
Want to learn about my live events?
globalhappiness.org/speaking
Want my monthly book recos?
1000awesomethings.com/reading-club
Want my articles on intentional living?
https://www.neil.blog/newsletter/
I am also on the following drugs:
Facebook: facebook.com/NeilPasricha
Twitter: twitter.com/neilpasricha
Instagram: instagram.com/neilpasricha
Lastly, thanks so much for watching this vid.
👊,
Neil
neil@globalhappiness.org
