The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006 as a kind of field notebook on my expedition through the wilderness of life, searching for signposts. We live in a decimal world that loves the round anniversaries, the numbers that polish the perfect rim of zero. But to me, 19 is a much more meaningful number than 20.

I was 19 when I left Bulgaria, at that point the poorest country in Europe and the most biodiverse per square kilometer. I left by myself, with $800 my family had cobbled together, to ...