MARIA POPOVA:

STAYING PRESENT AND

GROUNDED IN THE AGE
OF INFORMATION
OVERLOAD
How do we answer the grand question of how to live
and more importantlyhow to live well? This is the
deeply philosophical (and yet eminently pragmatic)
inquiry that lies at the core of Maria Popovas
remarkable blog, Brain Pickings. Since she launched Brain
Pickings as a passion project back in 2006, its grown
impressively, becoming an intellectual touchstone for
inquiring minds that now draws several million readers a
month.
In the age of information overload, Popova is the
ultimate hunter-gatherer-curator, bringing her intensely
curious mind to bear on everything from Susan Sontags
journals to Maurice Sendaks vintage illustrations to
Albert Einsteins letters. Rich with in-depth quotations and
rarely seen imagery, Popovas articles suss out
overlooked wisdom on writing, Buddhism, daily routines,
falling in love, storytelling, motherhood, mental illness,
critical thinking, growing old, vulnerability, and a wild
array of other topics. In the process, she exposes readers
to books and concepts that they would likely never
otherwise come across.
Not surprisingly, Popovas work ethic is as relentless as
her curiosity. Yet, after eight years of providing a service
that lights up creative minds around the world, she is
feeling the strain. Over tea, we talked about her struggle
to dial back the pace of her workflow, and the tension
between getting things done and being present in your
own emotional reality.

The Information Age seems to have ushered in this

hectic, new pace of working thats driving us all a bit
crazy. And it feels unsustainable. How do you think
we ended up here?
I think that word should in our internal narratives is very
toxicthis notion of, what should I be doing? and its
always pegged to some sort of expectation, whether its
self-imposed or external or a combination of the two. Its
hard to balance those expectations of what you should
be doing with what you want to be doing. I feel very
fortunate in that to a large extent what I do is exactly

what I want to be doing for myself, and I still write for an

audience of one. I read things that stimulate me and
inspire me and help me figure out how to live and then I
write about them. The fact that there are other people
who enjoy it is nice, but its just a byproduct.
I think there is a high correlation between type A
personalities and people that do their own thing. But
we typically do that thing within a structure thats
borrowed from the world of working for the manthe
only difference is youre the man now. When youre your
own boss, the demands you place on yourself are
probably higher and more intense than any demands
anyone else would place on you if you were an
employee.
If we are so busy being successful that we dont have
time to be happy, then we need to seriously reconsider
our definition of success.
I think that word should in our internal narratives is very
toxic.
So whats your definition of success?
I think peoples compulsion to constantly refine their
definition of success and share it is an incredibly human
quality. Because at the root of whatever we call success is
really this affirmation that we long for that were okay.
When someone tells you that youre successful, essentially
theyre telling you that youre okay, everything is okay. I
think we all fundamentally need that affirmation, and we
grasp for that should to have something as tangible
evidence of that.
I feel like most successful people tend not to dwell on
the things that theyve achieved. Instead theyre
always looking forward. Theyre extremely focused on
whats next? Do you find this to be true?
Its like what Marie Curie wrote in a letter to her brother,
One never notices what has been done; one can only
see what remains to be done She was always asking,
whats next? [laughs] But as soon as were expecting
the next moment to give us what this one is missing, life
becomes this game of next, and whats the final
destination? Its death.
And Curie died because of her research into
radioactivity.
And the intensity with which she pursued that research.
There was so much self-denial in service of the work.
Do you think its a question of how much you balance
that drive to achieve with being present and enjoying
the moment?

You know, its funny because I frequently get emails from

young people starting out and asking, How do I make a
successful website or start my own thing? And, very
often, its tied to some measure of success thats
audience-based or reach-based. How do you build up
to seven million readers a month or two million Facebook
fans? But the work is not how to get that size of an
audience or those numbers. Thats just the byproduct of
what Lewis Hyde calls creative labor, which is really
our inner drive. The real work is how not to hang your
self-worth, your sense of success and merits, the fullness
of your heart, and the stability of your soul on those
numberson that constant positive reinforcement and
external validation. Thats the only real work, and the
irony is that the more successful you get, by either your
own standards or external standards, the harder it is to
decouple all of those inner values from your work. I think
we often confuse the doing for the being.
Popovas home office in Brooklyn, NY, where stacks of
books rule the roost.
So if youre trying to recalibrate, are you doing
anything to actively alter your output or work
schedule?
I normally write three articles a day, Monday through
Friday, and I have been doing this for a number of
years. But whats happened over the years is thateven
though the pace has remained the same, three articles
every weekdaythe length and depth of the pieces has
increased enormously. My personal investment in every
article has increased hugely but without adjusting for that
in the schedule, and thats been hard.
So, the past few months, Ive been trying to cut down to
two articles a day at least one day a week. A lot of
weeks I fail you know, its midnight and Im wrapping
up my second article and then suddenly I get this idea
and I think, Oh thats what Im gonna write! And it will
only take me a half hour to write it up because its all in
my head and the next thing you know its 3 a.m. So
Im trying not to do that, and to prioritize sleep more.
The real work is how not to hang your self-worth, your
sense of success and merits, the fullness of your heart,
and the stability of your soul on those numbers.
There are so many articles about the importance of
sleep these days, I find it a bit funny. I mean, do we
really need to be reminded that this basic function is
important?
Ive been thinking a lot about how we push ourselves
lately. When Brain Pickings turned seven last year, I
wrote about the seven things that I think are my most
important learnings so far, and one of them was about
precisely this notion of work ethic. Basically that we live

in a culture where how little sleep we get is like a badge

of honor that somehow shows our work ethic and
dedication. But what it really shows is just a profound
failure of self-respect. Because sleep affects every
waking moment of our livesour moods, our receptivity,
our pleasantness, and our ability to make associative
connections.

In an interview that you did with The Great

Discontent in 2012, you said that you thought that,
You needed to be in love with the reality of your own
life in order to produce beautiful, meaningful, and
intelligent things creatively. What did you mean by
that?
Basically, its this notion that if you are not grounded in
who you arewhich includes what you love, what makes
your heart sing, what makes you get up in the morning
and be excited, and what makes you go to bed at night
and be satisfied and fulfilledif you are not rooted in
the things that move you, then youre not really going to
be able to produce things that are meaningful. Youre just
simulating what it is like to be a person who feels those
things, right?
A friend of mine and I have an ongoing debate about
whether great creative work comes out of happiness or
sadness. She believes it generally comes out of misery
or depression. I dont think thats necessarily true.
What about you?
I think the only person who was right on this was Anais
Nin, who wrote in her diary in 1945 that it is emotional
excess that is the root of good writing and good creative
workand that could be in either direction, joyous or
miserable.
The New York Times has this column called The Lives They
Lived which they do at the end of every year,
remembering all the people that died that year and
what makes their lives worth contemplating, and they
asked me to do one. I had a hard time deciding between
two people but I ended up going with Ray Bradbury. I
chose him precisely because I think his work ethic was
such a beautiful and heartening antidote to that myth
that genius requires some sort of malady of the soul.
Bradbury was always talking about how he never did a
day of work in his life. He always wrote with love and
with joy and that was the only way to really be for him. I
think that sort of romantic idea of the despondent writer
somewhere secluded, drinking and cutting her veins or
whatever, is just horrible! And, I think a lot creators today
think that that is the way to have good ideas, but I think
just being in touch with your emotional reality is what it
takes to make meaningful work.