David Lynch - memento mori

I Didn’t love David Lynch for his movies.

I loved David Lynch because of David Lynch.

The unapologetic specificity of his existence.

In a world that rewards homogeny and shuns otherism, he stood as a beacon both of unwavering convictions and boundless potential for change.

Too many of his memorials just hang on the “weird” of David Lynch.

They miss the intensity of his kindness, the absolute lack of hesitation for his empathy, the incredible clarity of his loyalty to those he loved, and concern for those he did not yet know.

To a young man drenched in panic and desperate for some sort of assurance that his strangeness was not a disqualification, David Lynch stood as a monument to the fact that no matter how fearful, violent, tragic or strange the circumstance, being kind to yourself, and protective of those around you would allow for a kind of concretion to your reality that allowed the strangeness to flourish, not toxify.

I was a child raised amongst the gargantuan skeletons of a Hollywood I never got to know.

Like a scavenger picking desiccated leathery scraps off of the ribs of behemoths, trying desperately to find validity in my experience of a Los Angeles after dark, a New York drenched in cold fog, grasping at the echoes of stories told by artists who I would never get the chance to know.

No voice cut through the static more clearly than Lynch.

No presence or trajectory was more reassuring for someone still coming to terms with their strangeness that there was a world that might want to hear my voice.

To me, David Lynch’s legacy is as follows -

Listen to every voice and story, no matter how hard they may be to understand.

Be violent in your convictions, and protective of those in compromise without hesitation.

Be deeply kind to those you cannot know.

Plum the depths of strangeness without concern, and with a bottomless sense of hope.

Fix your hearts or die.