Welcome to The Wonder Reader, a weekly guide to new and classic Atlantic stories that will fascinate and delight you. Take a break from the news with us every Saturday morning. See previous editions here. Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here. |
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“I am a battery that needs to be often recharged,” Randolph S. Bourne wrote in The Atlantic in 1912. His language of “recharging” foretold modern-day conversations about what is now called “self-care.” But rather than the gym or a bubble bath, Bourne was talking about communal activities: “I require the excitement of friendship; I must have the constant stimulation of friends,” he writes. “I do not spark automatically, but must have other minds to rub up against, and strike from them by friction the spark that wilt kindle my thoughts.” None of us spark automatically. We each need a different set of circumstances to encourage inspiration, but the flow of fresh ideas takes work. Today’s newsletter explores where inspiration comes from, and where to find it when you’re running out of places to look. |
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On Inspiration | | Men at a Table (oil on canvas) (Michael Parkin Gallery / Joan Warburton / Bridgeman Images) | | | |
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| “I really live only when I am with my friends.” | |
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| | (Illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic) | | | |
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| Breakthroughs are the product of persistence, not magic. | |
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| | (Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Sources: Anthony Harvey / Getty.) | | | |
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| Can the legendary record producer’s book really make you into an artist? | |
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