“Life will break you,” Louise Erdrich wrote in her passionate insistence that “you are here to risk your heart.” It can happen with a shattering, or with a thousand small fissures, but the great paradox — the great salvation — is that every time it happens, you live to see you are unbreakable. And so, a poem. CORRECTIVE FOR A BROKEN HEARTby Maria PopovaWhy all the threadbare drama,the stale catastrophismof calling it broken?It still beats, doesn’t it,still trembles at the sightof fog flowing through the forestlike a slow dance song.It was only dislocated,lost its locusfor a while,popped out of the socketof good sense.There is no oneto pick up the pieces because there are no pieces.Only the firm, fastidioushand of timeto slide it back into place.And after allwho can faultthe wayward compasswhen the magnetic north poleis in constant motiondrifting by fifty kilometers a yearand reversing itself altogetherevery few centurieswhile each twenty-six thousand yearsa different north starcomes to shine its guiding lightabove all the confusion.We are hereto lose our way.donating = lovingFor seventeen years, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian (which bore the outgrown name Brain Pickings for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation. Your support makes all the difference.newsletterThe Marginalian has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s most inspiring reading. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.