Newsletter Subject

Midweek pick-me-up: How to keep love from breaking — wisdom on presence and respect from philosopher Martin Buber

From

brainpickings.org

Email Address

newsletter@brainpickings.org

Sent On

Wed, Aug 10, 2022 09:04 PM

Email Preheader Text

NOTE: This newsletter might be cut short by your email program. . If a friend forwarded it to you

NOTE: This newsletter might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](.  If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( — it's free.  Need to modify your subscription? You can [change your email address]( or [unsubscribe](. [The Marginalian]( [Welcome] Hello {NAME}! This is the midweek edition of [The Marginalian]( ([formerly]( Brain Pickings) by Maria Popova — one piece resurfaced from the fifteen-year archive as timeless uplift for heart, mind, and spirit. If you missed last week's archival resurrection — May Sarton on the cure for despair and why solitude is the seedbed of self-discovery — you can catch up [right here](. And if my labor of love enriches your life in any way, please consider supporting it with a [donation]( — it remains free and ad-free and alive thanks to reader patronage. If you already donate: I appreciate you more than you know. [FROM THE ARCHIVE | Philosopher Martin Buber on Love and What It Means to Live in the Present]( “Love is the quality of attention we pay to things,” poet J.D. McClatchy [wrote]( seven decades after the brilliant and underappreciated philosopher Simone Weil observed that [“attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”]( The type of attention that makes for generous and unselfish love is what the Austrian-born Israeli Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (February 8, 1878–June 13, 1965) examined in [I and Thou]( ([public library]( — the 1923 existentialist masterpiece in which Buber laid out his [visionary relation modality that makes us real to one another](. Martin Buber Echoing Tolstoy’s insistence that [“love is a present activity only [and] the man who does not manifest love in the present has not love,”]( Buber extends his distinction between the objectifying It and the subjectifying Thou into the most intimate domain of relation, and writes: The present, and by that is meant not the point which indicates from time to time in our thought merely the conclusion of “finished” time, the mere appearance of a termination which is fixed and held, but the real, filled present, exists only in so far as actual presentness, meeting, and relation exist. The present arises only in virtue of the fact that the Thou becomes present. […] True beings are lived in the present, the life of objects is in the past. Love, Buber argues, is something larger than affect — not a static feeling, but a dynamic state of being lived in the present. In a counterpoint to [the Proustian model of love]( he writes: Feelings accompany the metaphysical and metapsychical fact of love, but they do not constitute it… Feelings are “entertained”: love comes to pass. Feelings dwell in man; but man dwells in his love. Art by Jean-Pierre Weill from [The Well of Being]( In consonance with psychologist turned pioneering sculptor Anne Truitt’s definition of love as [“the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery,”]( Buber writes: Love does not cling to the I in such a way as to have the Thou only for its “content,” its object; but love is between I and Thou. The man who does not know this, with his very being know this, does not know love; even though he ascribes to it the feelings he lives through, experiences, enjoys, and expresses… Love is responsibility of an I for a Thou. In this lies the likeness — impossible in any feeling whatsoever — of all who love, from the smallest to the greatest and from the blessedly protected man, whose life is rounded in that of a loved being, to him who is all his life nailed to the cross of the world, and who ventures to bring himself to the dreadful point — to love all men. Half a century after naturalist John Muir observed that [“when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,”]( Buber adds: We live our lives inscrutably included within the streaming mutual life of the universe. [I and Thou]( which explores what it means to expand the boundaries of the self and grant others the dignity and sanctity of Thou, is a superb read in its entirety. Complement this particular portion with Adrienne Rich on [how honorable relationships refine our truths]( Erich Fromm on [what is keeping us from mastering the art of loving]( and a lovely [illustrated meditation on the many meanings and manifestations of love](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving Every month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian ([formerly Brain Pickings]( going. For fifteen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now]( [Give Now]( Partial to Bitcoin? You can beam some bit-love my way: 197usDS6AsL9wDKxtGM6xaWjmR5ejgqem7 Need to cancel an existing donation? (It's okay — life changes course. I treasure your kindness and appreciate your support for as long as it lasted.) You can do so [on this page](. KINDRED READINGS: [The More Loving One: The Science of Entropy and the Art of Alternative Endings]( * * * [Philosopher Martin Buber on What Trees Teach Us about Being More Human and Mastering the Difficult Art of Seeing Others as They Truly Are]( * * * [The Third Thing: Poet Donald Hall on the Secret to Lasting Love]( * * * [The Art of Choosing Love Over Not-Love: Rumi’s Antidote to Our Human Tragedy]( * * * A LONGTIME LABOR OF LOVE: [The Universe in Verse: A Poetic Animated Celebration of Science and the Wonder of Reality]( * * * A SMALL, DELIGHTFUL SIDE PROJECT: [Uncommon Presents from the Past: Gifts for the Science-Lover and Nature-Ecstatic in Your Life, Benefitting the Nature Conservancy]( [---]( You're receiving this email because you subscribed on TheMarginalian.org (formerly BrainPickings.org). This weekly newsletter comes out each Wednesday and offers a hand-picked piece worth revisiting from my 15-year archive. The Marginalian MAIL NOT DELIVERED 47 Bergen Street, 3rd FloorBrooklyn, NY 11201 [Add us to your address book]( [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](

Marketing emails from brainpickings.org

View More
Sent On

25/09/2024

Sent On

01/09/2024

Sent On

21/08/2024

Sent On

18/08/2024

Sent On

14/08/2024

Sent On

11/08/2024

Email Content Statistics

Subscribe Now

Subject Line Length

Data shows that subject lines with 6 to 10 words generated 21 percent higher open rate.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Number of Words

The more words in the content, the more time the user will need to spend reading. Get straight to the point with catchy short phrases and interesting photos and graphics.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Number of Images

More images or large images might cause the email to load slower. Aim for a balance of words and images.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Time to Read

Longer reading time requires more attention and patience from users. Aim for short phrases and catchy keywords.

Subscribe Now

Average in this category

Subscribe Now

Predicted open rate

Subscribe Now

Spam Score

Spam score is determined by a large number of checks performed on the content of the email. For the best delivery results, it is advised to lower your spam score as much as possible.

Subscribe Now

Flesch reading score

Flesch reading score measures how complex a text is. The lower the score, the more difficult the text is to read. The Flesch readability score uses the average length of your sentences (measured by the number of words) and the average number of syllables per word in an equation to calculate the reading ease. Text with a very high Flesch reading ease score (about 100) is straightforward and easy to read, with short sentences and no words of more than two syllables. Usually, a reading ease score of 60-70 is considered acceptable/normal for web copy.

Subscribe Now

Technologies

What powers this email? Every email we receive is parsed to determine the sending ESP and any additional email technologies used.

Subscribe Now

Email Size (not include images)

Font Used

No. Font Name
Subscribe Now

Copyright © 2019–2025 SimilarMail.