I’m on a 12 hour flight between Tokyo and London, mysterious Norway lights below me. Uninterrupted time for reflection, for taking stock of the year, for simplifying. Your input will influence which creative projects I ditch or cultivate next year. Here’s to our end of year being full of reflection and gratitude, Miguel Mayher — CREATIVITY: ArtMaking How challenging […]
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Miguel
Freedom Through Control
Having a predefined baseline of security allows your mind to walk through the unknown. CREATIVITY IN THE DESERT The sandstorm started to quiet down. Still sitting cross legged, I opened my eyes and looked straight ahead: my goggles were as dusty as my lips. I got up and started walking slowly towards camp. Or where I […]
Continue Reading2017 Spring
Hi, I’m on the bullet train from Okayama to Tokyo. However, the last few days I’ve been slowly cycling through southern Japan’s Art Islands: Benesse Art Site Naoshima holds traditional japanese villages, revived through modern art museums, fully integrated with Nature. Founder Fukutake’s vision: “I want to revitalise each region with the good use of contemporary art, and […]
Continue Reading2016 Fall
Hi, I was crossing the Atlantic last Friday and marveled at Greenland’s landscape: You may wonder: where is the “green” in Greenland? Apparently Erik the Red named it so 1000 years ago to lure potential settlers. Today, it is still the least populated country in the planet. So I told myself: don’t be like Erik. I’ve been thinking […]
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Hi, I have been failing since 2008 to establish a reliable morning and evening meditation practice. That is, until the first 3 months of this year. As a consequence, though so far 2016 has been “normal” externally, my perception of daily reality has changed: [ Your Experience of Reality = (External Circumstances) X (Internal Perception) ] You may enjoy reading below about […]
Continue ReadingImproving daily life without changing your circumstances
[ Experience of Reality = (External Circumstances) X (Internal Perception) ] If that equation holds roughly true, what contribution to your experience of daily life would you allocate to external circumstances vs internal perception: 50/50? 80/20? 20/80? Keeping that split in mind, what percentage of your daily hours are you allocating to improving each? The answer is […]
Continue Reading2015 Fall
[Note: I send this only ~4 times per year] Hi, I started these updates in 2015 in an attempt to solve a problem of our days for myself: How can you stay in touch with hundreds of friends and thousands of acquaintances around the world in a meaningful way? Hand-written notes don’t scale. Prolonged silence dissolves relationships. You could argue scale and bonding […]
Continue ReadingInsight (Vipassana) Meditation: Beyond Pain & Pleasure
Up at 4am. Two meals per day. No talking, no reading, no writing. Hour after hour, one concern: to observe reality as it is, within the framework of your body. Through a ramification of events I found myself in the outskirts of Bodh Gaya, the village where Siddartha Gautama became enlightened 2500 years ago, […]
Continue Reading2015 Spring
Hi, I’m writing from a small hotel in the countryside of Bodh Gaya, North India. Tomorrow I will start a 10 day silent retreat consisting of 100 hours of meditation. Some call it the marathon of the mind. If insights come from “seeing inside”, that is where I will be, so I hope to share new ones with […]
Continue ReadingAllowance for doubt
I saw one key pattern among almost all my graduate school teachers: a healthy allowance for doubt in all their statements. Intellectual humility strikes me now as a paramount quality of clear thinking. This is so far removed from the stereotypical overconfident bright person peddled in all media. Thoughts are nothing personal. They are just […]
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