2015 Winter

Hello,

Diverse friends have encouraged me to start sharing my creative streak. I’ve decided to go ahead. If I have something worth sharing, at most once a month, I will send you some creativity and insights born through yours truly.

Feedback is a gift: please hit reply if so compelled. I value your attention highly, so thank you.

Enjoy!

Miguel Mayher

Aphorism:

“We live under the illusion that we are guaranteed to grow old.”

Art:

Live drawings. Pastel over paper. 29.7 x 42.0cm.
Live drawings. Pastel over paper. 29.7 x 42.0cm.

Essay:

Air, Rocks & Diamonds.

As a human being you were born with a hidden compulsion. A transparent inclination, like your constant breathing. Most people spend their whole lives without noticing it. I call it the compulsion to fill voids.

When we encounter stretches of silence in conversation, a lightweight suitcase, or an empty plate in a buffet… something inside us wants to fill it up. We like to fill the house with furniture, the software with features, the paper with words from top to bottom. Intuitively, we think full is better half-full, and much better than half-empty.

Why should we bother bringing this to conscious attention? Because of it´s ugly consequence: the implicit trade-off of exceptional for mediocre. When you become aware and take control of this compulsion, your daily life fundamentally changes.

It is my hope to bring this phenomenon into plain light so that you may reconsider its service to you. What follows would be seen as radical by most people. Of course most people don’t live this way, but the extraordinary is uncommon by definition.

Imagine your life as a cave consisting of rocks, air, and diamonds. (Continue reading)

Sketch 2014-06-23 20_01_18
(Air, Rocks & Diamonds. Digital painting, pixels over ipad.)

Thanks to James Roedding, Ben West, Javier G. de Diego, Paloma Tomas and Jorge Avila for reading drafts of this.

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