You will make all kinds of mistakes...

but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.

[laughingsquid]

A Google Maps-Style Mockup of Middle-Earth From ‘Lord of the Rings’ With Walking Directions to Mordor

[johannadb]

Love maps.

[explore-blog]

Illustrations of English royalty by Cassandra Austen for teenage Jane Austen’s parodic history of England, subtitled “By a partial, prejudiced & ignorant Historian” – young Austen’s proto-rebellion against reducing culture to a listicle of facts. More here.

[johannadb]

[laughingsquid]

Artist Turns Her Two-Year-Old Daughter’s Drawings Into Paintings in Collaborative Project

[johannadb]

" Purpose of life is not to be happy but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all."

[explore-blog]

The fine folks of Holstee have turned my 7 life-learnings from 7 years of Brain Pickings into a gorgeous letterpress poster inspired by mid-century children’s book illustration. Get it here. Read the original article here. 

[johannadb]

“Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.”

[explore-blog]

Do you know what people want more than anything? They want to be missed. They want to be missed the day they don’t show up. They want to be missed when they’re gone.

In another excellent episode of NPR’s TED Radio Hour, Seth Godin dispenses some of his signature wisdom in discussing what makes a great leader. (David Foster Wallace had similar ideas.)

Pair with Godin on vulnerability, creative courage, and how to dance with the fear.

(via explore-blog)

[explore-blog]

It all comes down to having passion for something through thick and thin. And believe me, there’s a lot of thick, but what you learn is that the bad times—those are the adventure.

Callie Schweitzer recounts David O. Russell's advice on what it takes to be a journalist - a fine addition to our ongoing archive of great advice, applying with equal poignancy to being a creator of any kind.  (via explore-blog)

[explore-blog]

When your work is entirely online, the social isolation can even intensify further. One reason I cherish my time in Ptown every summer is that it forces me to have much more physical and personal interaction. Walking down Commercial Street is impossible without bumping into friends, new and old, all the time. And they tend to be on vacation so are more prone to stopping and chatting. It re-humanizes me after so much typing alone onto a screen. The rest of the year, I engage with far more people virtually than I do physically. And that can rob life of its essence. If you’re not careful you begin to live online.

In light of research on what the web has replaced, Andrew Sullivan reflects on the slippery slope of working and living online, emphasizing the effort it takes to keep ourselves from slipping — something among my own greatest learnings in seven years of living online. 

Lest we forget, as Annie Dillard so beautifully and memorably put it, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

(via explore-blog)

[rifflepoetry]

for if you don’t know seamus heaney…

[explore-blog]

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure. But the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. Failure means a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself to be anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believe I truly belonged. Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I built my life.

Happy birthday, J. K. Rowling! Celebrate with her fantastic Harvard commencement address on the value of failure – a fine addition to our ongoing archive of invaluable life advice. (via explore-blog)

[mebuell-blog-deactivated2019041]

Lesser known editing and proofreading marks

This is not mine, but it is too brilliant not to share. 

[johannadb]

Nice! :)

[everythings-better-with-bac-blog]

This Moroccan-style dish is so easy to put together and it’s packed with flavour. Just the right balance of sweet and spicy. Check out the recipe after the pics…

Chicken thighs with lentils and apricots

Ingredients (serves 4)

4 chicken thighs 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tbsp ground...

[johannadb]

Must try!

[johannadb]

[johannadb]

Give me that cookie!!!

[johannadb]

Sweet Potato and Spinach quesadillas I made last night and will be having for lunch today! :)

Recipe: http://www.health.com/health/recipe/0,,50400000120341,00.html

[thegoudalife]

It’s infrequent that I wax poetic about meat. Save for Mr. GL’s dad’s BBQ Teriyaki t-bones and every so often, a good braised piece of meat, I eat a mostly vegetarian diet. It’s not by choice, but more out of convenience, I find. Today, however, I come here with one thing on my mind....