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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
reflective
slow-paced
reflective
fast-paced
You know you're reading a book by David Lynch when in one chapter you're reading about the benefits of transcendental meditation, and in the next you're reading about the author's appreciation of the texture of rotting animals.
Never change David.
Never change David.
I loved this. In true Lynch style the book is meandering, but read together has a clear mantra and meaning. Lots of good fodder about creative thought and practice. His explanations of TM, and his descriptions of how it feels for him are lovely. I can tell I will be returning to read this again soon.
I think I decided to listen to the audiobook (which Lynch himself reads) at exactly the right moment in my life. I've long had doubts about the knee-jerk "oh that's bullshit" response people like me (and including me) tend to have when others talk about the importance of meditation and the like in their lives. Especially if they're not themselves scholars of the Upanishads and other important texts, but are just following some money-grubbing guru selling their solutions to the Western world. Although I've tended to dismiss that kinda stuff, even while doing so I've tended to question myself about it.
Why? I know that I have this strong creative impulse, this powerful thing within me that causes me to see the world and reflect on it in ways very different to the ways other people approach the same things. But the creative impulse has rarely manifested for long. The artworks I create do not shine with the brightness and depth and intuitive gut-level importance that my ideas (known only to me) have. Between the having of the creative idea, and between the impulse and the actual writing of the poem and of the story or novel, there has always been some degree of a block, a frustrating level of inaccessibility to the original impulse and to the original idea. I risk sounding here like I'm buying wholesale into a misrepresentation-of-Romanticism-type vision of this creative figure spilling brilliance into one medium or another. I don't. I actually buy more into Northrop Frye's idea of the artist as someone engaged, perhaps more deeply than the average person, with art as a thing, with the works that already exist in the world. What's most essential about creation of an artwork is its context w/r/t other artworks. That last bit might be my own spin on Frye vs. Frye himself, but let's leave it at that.
But even then, when it comes down to the moment of writing, the impulse is frustrated. Not because it goes away but because it is awfully hard to write when those damned noises are distracting me, or that damned silence, or those damned things I have to do, those damned people texting me, those damned people not texting me, that damned beautiful woman I'm falling in love with, that damned beautiful woman who would be great for me but who I'm not falling in love with, &c. &c. blah blah blah. The bottom line is: it seems to me that it's awfully hard for people to do what they want to do and that this isn't just due to external factors. Because even when there's the time and space, many of us just can't accomplish what we want to.
But I see these happy people. I meet these successful people. Not merely people who are successful by societal standards (job at some corporation, money, benefits, beautiful apartment, wife, etc.), but who are successful by their own standards. Who have accomplished what they wanted to. Who don't spend most of their day fretting about the not-doing, but spend the day instead in the act of doing itself. These people don't merely write or create or do whatever they have a beautiful, positive impulse to do because of the impulse. They have also been able to fall into the work itself with a sincerity and depth that the rest of us, myself included, have not.
And I see that many of these happy people are not stupid. That they are not naive. That they are not blind to evil and darkness and sadness and the state of the world. That they are not merely lost in a world of pretty dreams and flowers and ignorant bliss. That they are noncynical but also nonnaive. That they are empathetic and caring and deeply serious, but also have a sense of humour.
And I see that many of these people meditate. That many of these people take seriously things that seem ridiculous to us, that these people credit their entire success and life to what the meditation has done for them.
This I cannot ignore. I am not a powerful person when it comes to controlling myself. This is because I spend so much time and energy desperately trying to make my life what I want it to be. It is because I am ambitious creatively and ambitious when it comes to showing people that I truly care for them but I am so stuck in a limited space of agency and capability that I am, well, incapable of actually doing these things.
Some people, my mother for instance, are strong. They struggle with the same things I struggle with, but have the power to, every single day, force themselves to care and force themselves to do what they feel necessary. Despite everything standing in their way, they are successful by their own standards.
Some others have found the answer and manage to avoid the stress and everyday angst that comes with my mother's approach. They say it's meditation. I don't buy that this is the only answer, but I'm pretty damn convinced that it's one answer. I see too many people who throw themselves into everyday life with an energy and blissful desire to create for themselves and for others something serious and important to ignore that this is one answer.
The point of all this is: so the fuck what if Lynch wrote a proselytizing book on TM? The book contains many interesting insights and comments on his films, which I count as among the most important and vitally beautiful artworks I've ever encountered. Lynch is an example of a guy who has never forgotten that there is evil in this world, but recognizes that neither wallowing in the evil nor hiply, shallowly standing outside it in a posture with no action and no seriousness works as an alternative to what needs to be done.
Lynch talks about the wonders meditation has done for him, and I entirely believe him. Why wouldn't I? He's David Lynch and he's made David Lynch films. The man found something that allowed that creative impulse within him to shine and allowed that distance between the idea and the art to become less vast and hopeless.
So, I mean, I might not be hanging out with the Yogi anytime soon, but I respect this book. Respecting this book seems to me the only nonnaively noncynical thing to do.
Why? I know that I have this strong creative impulse, this powerful thing within me that causes me to see the world and reflect on it in ways very different to the ways other people approach the same things. But the creative impulse has rarely manifested for long. The artworks I create do not shine with the brightness and depth and intuitive gut-level importance that my ideas (known only to me) have. Between the having of the creative idea, and between the impulse and the actual writing of the poem and of the story or novel, there has always been some degree of a block, a frustrating level of inaccessibility to the original impulse and to the original idea. I risk sounding here like I'm buying wholesale into a misrepresentation-of-Romanticism-type vision of this creative figure spilling brilliance into one medium or another. I don't. I actually buy more into Northrop Frye's idea of the artist as someone engaged, perhaps more deeply than the average person, with art as a thing, with the works that already exist in the world. What's most essential about creation of an artwork is its context w/r/t other artworks. That last bit might be my own spin on Frye vs. Frye himself, but let's leave it at that.
But even then, when it comes down to the moment of writing, the impulse is frustrated. Not because it goes away but because it is awfully hard to write when those damned noises are distracting me, or that damned silence, or those damned things I have to do, those damned people texting me, those damned people not texting me, that damned beautiful woman I'm falling in love with, that damned beautiful woman who would be great for me but who I'm not falling in love with, &c. &c. blah blah blah. The bottom line is: it seems to me that it's awfully hard for people to do what they want to do and that this isn't just due to external factors. Because even when there's the time and space, many of us just can't accomplish what we want to.
But I see these happy people. I meet these successful people. Not merely people who are successful by societal standards (job at some corporation, money, benefits, beautiful apartment, wife, etc.), but who are successful by their own standards. Who have accomplished what they wanted to. Who don't spend most of their day fretting about the not-doing, but spend the day instead in the act of doing itself. These people don't merely write or create or do whatever they have a beautiful, positive impulse to do because of the impulse. They have also been able to fall into the work itself with a sincerity and depth that the rest of us, myself included, have not.
And I see that many of these happy people are not stupid. That they are not naive. That they are not blind to evil and darkness and sadness and the state of the world. That they are not merely lost in a world of pretty dreams and flowers and ignorant bliss. That they are noncynical but also nonnaive. That they are empathetic and caring and deeply serious, but also have a sense of humour.
And I see that many of these people meditate. That many of these people take seriously things that seem ridiculous to us, that these people credit their entire success and life to what the meditation has done for them.
This I cannot ignore. I am not a powerful person when it comes to controlling myself. This is because I spend so much time and energy desperately trying to make my life what I want it to be. It is because I am ambitious creatively and ambitious when it comes to showing people that I truly care for them but I am so stuck in a limited space of agency and capability that I am, well, incapable of actually doing these things.
Some people, my mother for instance, are strong. They struggle with the same things I struggle with, but have the power to, every single day, force themselves to care and force themselves to do what they feel necessary. Despite everything standing in their way, they are successful by their own standards.
Some others have found the answer and manage to avoid the stress and everyday angst that comes with my mother's approach. They say it's meditation. I don't buy that this is the only answer, but I'm pretty damn convinced that it's one answer. I see too many people who throw themselves into everyday life with an energy and blissful desire to create for themselves and for others something serious and important to ignore that this is one answer.
The point of all this is: so the fuck what if Lynch wrote a proselytizing book on TM? The book contains many interesting insights and comments on his films, which I count as among the most important and vitally beautiful artworks I've ever encountered. Lynch is an example of a guy who has never forgotten that there is evil in this world, but recognizes that neither wallowing in the evil nor hiply, shallowly standing outside it in a posture with no action and no seriousness works as an alternative to what needs to be done.
Lynch talks about the wonders meditation has done for him, and I entirely believe him. Why wouldn't I? He's David Lynch and he's made David Lynch films. The man found something that allowed that creative impulse within him to shine and allowed that distance between the idea and the art to become less vast and hopeless.
So, I mean, I might not be hanging out with the Yogi anytime soon, but I respect this book. Respecting this book seems to me the only nonnaively noncynical thing to do.
