{"id":12059,"date":"2025-12-09T19:49:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/a-tender-illustrated-meditation-on-what-saves-us-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T19:49:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:49:53","slug":"a-tender-illustrated-meditation-on-what-saves-us-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/a-tender-illustrated-meditation-on-what-saves-us-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tender Illustrated Meditation on What Saves Us \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

\n\n

By Maria Popova<\/h3>\n
\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being,\u201d James Baldwin wrote in one of his finest essays<\/a>. \u201cI am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time.\u201d <\/p>\n

It happens so rarely because we so often choose the wrong person to be our savior, so often try to save someone not wanting to be saved. But the saviors, the true saviors, do live among us \u2014 they are what John Berger called \u201cthe avenging heroes,\u201d<\/a> what Leonard Cohen called \u201cthe balancing monsters of love.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tender and exuberant at the same time, The Lighthouse Keeper<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>) by Mexican writer Eugenio Fern\u00e1ndez V\u00e1zquez and artist Mariana Villanueva Segovia tells the story of one such savior who looks over the stormy ocean from his lonely tower, shining his lonely light into the shoreless sea of night, always there to help those who have lost their way, those not waving but drowning, always embracing \u201ceveryone he finds floating lost and alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Page after vibrant page, we see the lighthouse keeper throw lifelines for the body and the soul. (I think of Patti Smith, who in her moving recent memoir<\/a> recounts once trying to move into a defunct lighthouse; I think of how she became a lighthouse keeper anyway \u2014 it is the artists who keep us from losing our way in the dark, who save us over and over from drowning.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pulsating beneath that immensity of kindness is the uneasy question of what saves the savior: How does one who gives so much to so many replenish that vital energy in order to go on giving? <\/p>\n

\u201cRelationship is the fundamental truth of this world,\u201d wrote<\/a> the Indian poet and philosopher Tagore (whom Segovia\u2019s lighthouse keeper greatly resembles in likeness). So it is that a relationship is revealed to be what sustains the savior\u2019s spirit: The Moon \u201ccasts her spell from above\u201d to nourish him, but who also needs his tenderness in turn, with that life-magnifying reciprocity that marks every deep and durable relationship; the Moon, who vanishes but always returns, ever-changing and eternal, like every great love. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you too could use a lighthouse in these dark times, here is one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Profit<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Popova \u201cI have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being,\u201d James Baldwin wrote in one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}