Gavril Nikolaev

I'm a freelance writer with 6 years of experience in SEO blogging and article publishing. I currently run two websites: MindfulSpot.com and OurReadingLife.com. While you're here, get the latest updates by subscribing to my newsletter.

Nick Cave on Losing a Loved One

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I love Nick Cave not for his music but for his writing. While loyal fans go to his concerts to listen to his songs, I go to his blog to read his sentences — beautiful and tender yet powerful and uncompromising sentences. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s called The Red Hand Files. It … Read more

Leo Tolstoy on Revenge

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Best served cold, revenge is the favorite dish of the ego. Its main ingredients include anger, blame, and nonforgiveness — all forms of mental cholesterol that clogs our perception of what is right and wrong. So what can we do about it? The author of War and Peace and one of the greatest international writers … Read more

Marcus Aurelius on Choosing Compassion Over Competition and Why Cooperation Is a Common Thread That Binds All of Us as Human Beings

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“We survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warmheartedness,” The Dalai Lama wrote in his reflection on cultivating inner values. Yet almost always this is not what drives our actions when we interact with other people, especially those that question our competence, beliefs, and even sanity. I will be the first … Read more

Billy Collins Reads His Poem ‘After the Funeral’

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“Look straight ahead / What’s there?” said Zen monk Bassui Tokusho moments before passing away. “If you see it as it is / you will never err.” This tender Japanese death poem would leave many of us utterly befuddled and awe-struck by its logic-shattering beauty and asking one simple question, “And then what?” Well, after … Read more