When we talk about margins, it is most often about that space on a book page that doesn’t contain any text. I want to tell you a story about how that definition might literally describe margin people like me and possibly you. Of course, that demands a personal story.

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When I was in college in the 1960s, it was a constant struggle to make enough money to get a diploma. I was working 40 hours a week during the school year and sometimes 80 hours a week in the summer for five years to earn that piece of paper.

When it came time each semester to buy books for all my classes, my only viable option was used books. I guess I need to explain to all you Gen Zs and beyond, in the old days, paper books were the only choice. The digital versions didn’t exist until about 40 years later. Getting back to the story, most often these books were priced by how virgin the book was. If it was filled with scribblings on the margins, it was a lower price than others that weren’t. I thought that was kind of a downer to have to buy someone else’s scribbled-up books, but I quickly discovered that was misguided. I learned to browse through all the used books to find the ones with margin scribbling as those scribbles added insight into the subject being discussed.

I don’t think I ever told anyone this secret, but I suspect that most who knew me were aware that I didn’t have much, if any, disposable income. I generally had three pairs of pants and about the same number of shirts in my wardrobe.

People who live on the margins of life are never satisfied with being told what to think. They question everything, think for themselves, and never stop learning or scribbling, or like me, doodling on their margins of life.

Or maybe we just abhor empty spaces.