The joy of knowing it's all gonna burn 🌋
Volcanoes, drunk romans, and your next post.
In 2013, I made 300 clay plates for a movie.
No fancy tools, no spinning wheel—just my bare hands pressing, pinching, and molding. I made those plates knowing they’d be destroyed.
And I loved it.
Making things for the internet stirs a cocktail of emotions: giddy excitement mixed with paralyzing doubt.
"Will my friends like it?" "Will my boss see it?" "Is this THE ONE to catapult me into the internet stardom I so clearly deserve?"
The Japanese have a term that help me ignore this: Mono no aware.
It refers to "the beauty in things that will not last and the gentle sadness at their passing."
Picture cherry blossom season, a snowflake, or my preemptively doomed clay plates, made to be smashed across some drunk Roman soldier's face in a fight scene.
There's beauty in creating with awareness of life cycles.
Whether it's blockbuster set design, the song of the summer, or the next text you'll fire into the screaming void of the internet—
Zoom out the timeline far enough, and everything becomes Mono no aware—my clay plates, Kiefer Sutherland, the entire city of Pompeii. All of it.
It's a soothing feeling.
Whenever I catch myself staring blankly at the "publish button" I think of a volcano engulfing my work, and off it goes.
See you on the next one! 🫶
Matias.
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