An active orchestrator of life acknowledges missteps, but is nimble in pivoting in the direction of improvement.

There are strategies available to us to avoid unnecessary willpower expenditure.

What is your strategy to find comfort in times when the pressure of life becomes too overbearing?

This kind of search in the dark, with its tense desire, lasting for years, full of foreboding, with it's exhausting change form aspiration to frustration and it's final breakthrough to lucidity, all of this you only know properly if you experienced it.

"We don't have time, okay? Don't be stupid," I snapped, frustrated.

His (Samuel Coleridge) dark senses were constantly in play, the frustration of them bringing illness. Weather and organic nature combined in a synaesthetic multi-media event, and this was the ground of all perception before it was divded up in daily living: the Primary Imagination giving way to the Secondary. Poetry was forever seeking a conscious return to this state, which existed all the time, whether he knew it or not.

I've been strongly influenced, in technique as well as subject matter, by some of the early 20th-century book illustrators - Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in particular, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts-&-Crafts movement they engendered. I'm continually inspired by Rembrandt, Breughel (I've wondered whether his brilliant "Tower of Babel" had inspired Tolkien's description of Minas Tyrith), Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Turner; it's not necessarily that they influence my work in any particular direction, more that their example raises my spirits, re-affirms my belief in the power of images to move and delight us, and shows me how much further I have to go, how much is possible. Having visited Venice and Florence for the first time, I am besotted with the Italian Renaissance artists - Botticelli, Bellini, da Vinci and others. Their work is calm, controlled, and yet each face and landscape contains such passion. In Botticelli's paintings, every pebble and every leaf is rendered with a religious devotion; there is reverence inherent in paying such close attention to every stone, turning painting itself into a form of worship, an act of prayer.

A teacher will be frustrated if she is only motivated to teach what she has learned. Yet, if she is motivated because of the students, then she will learn from them how to teach.

The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and Inspirational but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.

"What really got me thinking about illustrating children's books was I discovered Hugh Thompson's illustrations for

Do not empower your negative thoughts by giving them "legs" so they can run around your mind, creating worries,frustrations, and anxiety in your life.

I like to work in watercolor, with as little under-drawing as I can get away with. I like the unpredictability of a medium which is affected as much by humidity, gravity, the way that heavier particles in the wash settle into the undulations of the paper surface, as by whatever I wish to do with it. In other mediums you have more control, you are responsible for every mark on the page - but with watercolor you are in a dialogue with the paint, it responds to you and you respond to it in turn. Printmaking is also like this, it has an unpredictable element. This encourages an intuitive response, a spontaneity which allows magic to happen on the page. When I begin an illustration, I usually work up from small sketches - which indicate in a simple way something of the atmosphere or dynamics of an illustration; then I do drawings on a larger scale supported by studies from models - usually friends - if figures play a large part in the picture. When I've reached a stage where the drawing looks good enough I'll transfer it to watercolor paper, but I like to leave as much unresolved as possible before starting to put on washes. This allows for an interaction with the medium itself, a dialogue between me and the paint. Otherwise it is too much like painting by number, or a one-sided conversation.

Reason, Observation and Experience - the Holy Trinity of Science - have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.

"Strategy for a Marathon

"I was not prepared: sunset, end of summer. Demonstrations

It was the earliest demonstration of a phenomenon popularized by-and now named for-James Surowiecki's bestseller The Wisdom of Crowds. Aggregating the judgment of many consistently beats the accuracy of the average member of the group, and is often as startlingly accurate as Galton's weight-guessers.

The worst form of discrimination is when others are accepted for the same things others are not accepted. This proves that everything is a strategy for interests based either on relationships or financial favor and profit.

Wisdom and wealth are not necessarily twins. Solomon was blessed with wisdom, he was also blessed with riches. His wealth did not result from his wisdom. Jesus was so wise that it was said of him, "never has another man spoken like this". Yet he was materially poor. He had to borrow money to illustrate Caesar's things. Next time you mock a poor man to convert his wise ideas to cash, think twice.

But as such mere illustrations are almost universally taken for solutions (and perhaps they are the only possible humans solutions), therefore it may help to the temporary quiet of some inquiring mind; and so not be wholly without use.

can one dispute that the wiser a person is, the more effective and content and meaning-rich they will be? I would say not. It is more difficult to define and research wisdom than it is to theorize about it. As an illustration, take two identical race cars and put two very different drivers behind the wheels; the success each driver will enjoy more often than not, is directly related to their skill level ? their proficiency. One can likewise think of a wise person as proficient at living life.

Every decision will build a bridge or a barrier. Therefore, what stands in front of you at this moment illustrates the decisions that you made on your way to this moment.

Humans never invented anything that goes as deep as scientific investigation into understanding why the world is the way it is, nor have we found any other way of seeking knowledge that gets it so consistently right. Doing science is also difficult and frustrating, and in many ways goes against the grain of our spontaneous ways of thinking.

[Y]ou are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.

"Latter-day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdi-vided, made sophisticated. Within good, there's fashionable good and unfash-ionable good, and ditto for bad. Within fashionable good, there's formal and then there's casual; there's hip, there's cool, there's trendy, there's snobbish. Mix 'n' match. Like pulling on a Missoni sweater over Trussardi slacks and Pollini shoes, you can now enjoy hybrid styles of morality. It's the way of the world-philosophy starting to look more and more like business administration.