Today is very cloudy by David Lynch

“Today is very cloudy. It’s been cooler, and it rained for a couple of hours in the night. So, is not really Southern California weather these days. But sometimes the sun comes out in the afternoon. And then it’s nice. It’s getting more tropical here in a strange way with global warming. More rain, more moisture.”

David Lynch

Imagine stepping into the enigmatic world of a creative genius whose mastery extends beyond the realms of cinema into the surreal landscapes of the everyday. We had the honour of sitting down with David Lynch, the visionary director, writer, and artist whose indelible mark on storytelling stands as a testament to his singular creative vision.

hube: First of all, we should ask how the weather in Los Angeles is, because we haven’t seen any updates from you for quite a while.

David Lynch: I quit doing the weather. But today is very cloudy. It’s been cooler, and it rained for a couple of hours in the night. So, it’s not really Southern California weather these days. But sometimes the sun comes out in the afternoon. And then it’s nice. It’s getting more tropical here in a strange way with global warming. More rain, more moisture. But please, go ahead and feel free to ask your questions.

h: Artistic and sensory experiences are not constrained by fixed boundaries and can evoke in us a wide range of emotional responses. Beauty can be unsettling, harmony can be unattractive, and chaos can leave us in awe. From your perspective, how are ethics and aesthetics connected in art?

DL: I don’t really think about those things. I have things that I like and things that I don’t like. I always say I like organic phenomena. I like to think about some rules of composition and fast and slow areas. Let’s take the eye of a duck: I always use a duck as an example of how things kind of go in nature. You can have a big part of a duck which is kind of fluffy, more boring, kind of, you know, a large area. And then, there is the eye of a duck, which is the most amazing jewel-like little thing. And where we would place that eye in a duck. All these things are kind of unwritten rules of composition. I think about stuff like this. It’s the idea, mainly. I love to catch ideas and realise those ideas that I fall in love with. And that’s it for me.

h: Envy, cruelty, and anger are dark elements of human nature inherited from our evolutionary past. You advocate for Transcendental Meditation, a practice that not only enhances our capacity to capture ideas and foster creativity but also, by turning our attention inward, heightens our awareness and deepens our understanding of our inner motivations, at times revealing what the subconscious may attempt to conceal. If meditation lifts the veil from our unconscious, how do we navigate the “dark” side it reveals?

DL: There’s so much to talk about! Every human being is different on the surface. But we’re all the same at this deepest level of the unified field. We’re all one at that level, but we have these differences on the surface. And we all are sort of infinitely deep. When you practise Transcendental Meditation, you’re accelerating evolution. They say you’re removed from the shore of the river. If you were a little leaf, bobbing alone on the very banks of the river, you might sometimes go backward; you might kind of just stay in, twirl around; you might go a little bit forward. But when you start Transcendental Meditation and start transcending every day, you move to the centre of the fastest current, to the centre of the river, and you fly toward the goal.

The goal of human life is to gain enlightenment, full-on, total wideawake, having everything enlightenment. It’s the real thing. Transcending every day accelerates that trip. Every human being at some time will enjoy supreme enlightenment, but it has to be unfolded. And here’s a technique to unfold it rapidly.

If you see the big picture, you are making the subconscious conscious. So, there’s all these things hiding in there. But now you’re revealing more and more, and it doesn’t mean they’re dark things. It’s just things that are available to you. You’re unfolding your full potential, making the subconscious conscious.

Here’s another strange thing to think about… Ladies and gentlemen, it’s all consciousness. Always has been, and always will be. Consciousness takes on these forms and forces and makes this world we live in, and universes, and galaxies, and planets, and rivers, and squirrels. It makes everything, it’s all consciousness.

I believe that one day, the 21st century will be called a century when consciousness starts being taken seriously, and people start to realise their full potential and enjoy life. We’re supposed to be happy campers; we’re supposed to truly enjoy everything, and negativity and all this stress and all these dark things are not supposed to be there. When you transcend, and experience it within—that’s pure consciousness, and it has its qualities. Unbounded intelligence is there, unbounded happiness, unbounded creativity, unbounded love, unbounded energy, unbounded peace with each and every human being. Common sense would tell us that this is a beautiful thing to experience every day. Get the technique so you can really feel it and experience it every day, unfold it, and enjoy life.

h: Amen.

DL: Amen.

h: In your work, there exists no clear distinction between dreams and reality; instead, they converge in what the Surrealists called “absolute reality.” Are the answers to life’s most significant questions to be found within such a reality?

DL: Beautiful! Yes and yes.

h: Quantum physics, in its quest to elucidate the nature of reality, comes across a completely interconnected world, where some of the connections remain elusive or incompletely comprehended by us. It’s intriguing to think that artists may have felt this before scientists. How do you perceive the connection between science and art? And do you feel that maybe artists have surpassed scientists in their comprehension of the world?

DL: I thought everyone knew that artists were always way ahead of the scientists.