Maria Popova on Turning Matter Into Meaning
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How do we find meaning amid uncertainty?
We are matter, trembling with the longing for meaning. And whether we know it or not, we're constantly making it. With every little choice, everything we do is an attempt at meaning.
When I first met Maria Popova, neither of us knew who the other was, but we knew that we wanted to be friends. In getting to know her over the past six months or so, I have discovered one of the most brilliant minds on planet Earth. You may have encountered her words through the margin alien, formerly known as brain pickings, which reflects a 20-year quest and a search for meaning. Maria and I have built a friendship on our shared love of science and poetry, the through line of which is wonder.
We use science to find the truth, and we use poetry to give the truth meaning. Neither can really, we can't really be fully alive without these two wings of life.
I'm Willa Defabaugh, and this is The Nature Of, where we look to the nature of our world for wisdom and ideas that change the way we live. And this week's conversation with Maria Popova is full of them. We dig into her new book, Traversal, and how to stay curious amid uncertainty.
What role does wonder play in overcoming selfing?
Maria, welcome to The Nature Of. What a joy. I have to say, because I got to see you talk last night, I was thinking about a word that feels very central to our friendship and to your life and to my life, which is wonder. And you described it as being an antidote to selfing.
Yes.
As a place to start, can you share a little bit about what that means?
Well, I think most of our human problems are problems of selfing, this narrative spiral that burrows inward and inward and inward to the incremental exclusion of all that is not us. And to me, wonder, which is, first of all, it requires the suspension of certainty, of not knowing, and therefore the suspension of the self, because the self is a cathedral of certainties, in a way, narrative certainties. Wonder is the way out. And for me, it saves me. It saves me every day. I mean, I am prone, like all of us, to rumination and all the, you know, maladies of selfing. And nothing takes me out more than looking outward, looking at what I don't fully understand, but kind of apprehend with more than the mind.
Yeah.
So being in a space of wonder, of searching for wonder, is a way out of this mind loop where we're trying to arrive at certainty, where we're trying to arrive at certainty of the self, certainty of the world.
How does Maria Popova define selfing and its impact on suffering?
Although I will say searching for wonder might not really be the way. I think when you search, you already have a search image. You already know what you're looking for. It's more about being receptive and open to wonder and letting it ambush you when you least expect it. The difference between search and discovery, I guess, which is where the internet has failed us.
How do you practice staying open to wonder without searching for it in your life?
You put yourself in the path of it. You put yourself in the path of surprise and possibility. And mostly, as you know very well, in nature, because nature is always surprising, always full of wonder. And it is impersonal and deeply intimate at the same time, which I think are two qualities that are necessary for experiencing wonder.
I want to go back to what you were sharing around selfing being the root of so much of our, dare I say, suffering and getting outside of ourselves as an antidote to that. I think that that's so powerful for today because I think everything that we are being trained to interface daily, I mean, I think about social media, I think about the internet, it's who are you? What are you expressing to the world? What is yourself? And all of that pushing inward is exhausting. And also when you say I am this, you're also saying I am not everything else.
Exactly. Identities are always exclusionary.
What is the significance of Maria's book, Traversal?
And, you know, to me, identities and opinions are the least interesting parts of people because they're the least true. They are mutable, but they are worn as a kind of armor or costume of personality that actually conceals what is most true. What do we call it?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How do we find meaning amid uncertainty?
0:05–1:39
2
What role does wonder play in overcoming selfing?
1:39–3:08
3
How does Maria Popova define selfing and its impact on suffering?
3:08–4:35
4
What is the significance of Maria's book, Traversal?
4:35–7:08
5
How does the eruption of Mount Tambora connect to creativity?
7:08–9:22
6
What historical figures influenced Maria's writing process?
9:22–11:30
7
How do science and poetry intersect in Maria's work?
11:30–17:09
8
What insights does Maria share about love and connection?
17:09–50:18
Speakers
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