Welcome.

The Examined Life is a space for curious minds and emotional souls, an imagined community created, written, edited, and nurtured by me, Ellen Vrana.

All that we feel, others have felt. Like Rainer Maria Rilke, who ran into writer’s block when he lacked “the feeling of home.” Or Mary Oliver, whose fear of being interrupted made her long to enter eternity. Or novelist Haruki Murakami’s need to create a void within himself.

The Examined Life is a collection of wisdom and things we have in common. It's about feeling connected. It's about stepping into the continuum of thoughts and feelings created by others across time and space.

I've created an imagined community here on this Site and hope you will venture into it with open and curious minds.

I am from the American Midwest; I live in London with my two daughters, two Siamese cats, and one husband. I’ve worked in politics and management consulting and spent months in the wilderness but could never escape or arrive.

A sort of loneliness weighed in my bones. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with my first daughter a few years ago that I felt this overwhelming urge to nurture and care. To celebrate and hope. To expand, not contract.

I began to piece together concepts from my readings: thoughts on grief, death, memory, home, and even things like walls and corners. I am collecting the things we have in common and putting them in The Examined Life.

We have so much in common.

I welcome you into this space, a space to stand next to Walt Whitman, Oliver Sacks, Jorge Luis Borges, and Maya Angelou — not as the luminaries and leaders of days past, but as human beings who felt, experienced, and reflected on the same emotional currents that carry us now.

To examine life is to connect to our humanity and the humanity in others.

The Examined Life is created from the best parts of me. It pulses my heart, lifts my bones, and expands my mind in wonder and delight. It is my tribe.

I'm glad you're here. Enjoy!

Yours,
Ellen