“Ideas are like fish: you don’t make the fish; you catch the fish.”
The enigmatic film-maker David Lynch has no problem with capturing and exposing his weirdest and darkest ideas to film. In this short animation by The Atlantic, Lynch offers up nuggets of wisdom on creativity for film-makers, artists, writers and creators of all times.
Watching it won’t necessarily make you feel like you understand his films any better, but it will help to do away with some of the more romantic (and as it turns out, destructive) notions about creativity which Lynch wants all of us to do away with.
- Myth: Suffering is necessary for creativity.
Reality: Suffering cramps creativity - Creativity could come from anything – like seeing a reflection on a puddle
- Enjoy the process – creativity shouldn’t be drudgery
- Ideas are everywhere – they are waiting to be caught
- Be true to the idea and follow it through and more ideas will spring forth from it.
Content Catnip 