Go Fish

"Little fish swim on the surface, but the big ones swim down below," writes director David Lynch. "If you can expand the container you're fishing in -- your consciousness -- you can catch bigger fish."

In Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, Lynch shares a series of tiny stories illustrating his creative life. Despite the title, Fish does not concern itself with the intricacies of Transcendental Meditation but instead focuses on its effect on Lynch's life over 33 years of practice.

Most chapters run only a few hundred words; some run only a sentence or two. Chapters such as "Ask the Idea" and "Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit" range from descriptions of Lynch's creative epiphanies to esoteric and unexpected musings on human nature. Some seem conceived almost as Zen koans; the chapter entitled "The Box And The Key" reads, in its entirety: "I don't have a clue what those are."

Seemingly random but uniformly insightful, Fish provides a unique look into Lynch's creative process and offers a number of pithy and unusual tips to those of us on the same path.

Image by olya under Creative Commons license.