We’ve been rewatching Twin Peaks recently, over the last few weeks. We watched David Lynch: Art Life for the first time just the other night. We were already writing this blog, about symbols of optimism and the role of art in reminding us of hope, when we all saw the news that David Lynch has died at 78. We’re not going to try to sum up the life of this giant here. This blog only touches on one or two of the infinite ways his life and work have inspired us.

Kermode: One of the recurrent images in your films is of electricity arcing, light bulbs crackling on, and you have a recurrent motif of two points and something arcing between them, and it seems to me that this somehow relates to what you think about the synaptic arcs in our brain when you talk about Transcendental Meditation, when you talk about the things you talk about, making connections. It seems to me that that's what that recurrent visual motif is about. I know you hate saying what things mean in your films but am I right in thinking that that's at least in the right area?
[Long pause]
Lynch: No.

We love Mark Kermode, and he laughed about this interaction himself in retrospect. He’s one of the great critics and thinkers on cinema of our times. Maybe he ought to know better than to ask David Lynch such a direct question about any theme or recurring motif in films and shows which are, according to Lynch’s constant testimony, unexplained products of a personal subconscious. Or rather, the stories explain themselves. If he could have explained them in words, he wouldn’t have needed to make a movie.
And yet, in another way, Kermode is right. Lynch, like every artist, puts out those unconscious images without interpretation, for the audience to experience as we desire. It's up to us, therefore, to wonder about what we’re seeing and try to make sense of the images on the screen. Lynch isn’t entirely silent on his life, on his work, and it can be interesting to pick up the artefacts he shares with us, turn them over in our hands, examine them, meditate upon them and extract whatever we need from them. For an artist who introduced us to so many dark worlds, it’s impossible to ignore the undying positivity and optimism in his works.
When we watch Twin Peaks, black coffee seems to stand for so much. Innocence. Optimism. Faith in humanity. A world worth preserving. Simple things not to be forgotten. Indomitable good in the face of relentless evil.
In the RR diner towards the end of season one, Sheriff Truman wants to hurry off in pursuit of a potential suspect but Agent Cooper encourages him to slow down, give himself a present, have a cup of black coffee. The town is under siege from drug dealers and sex traffickers, swaying punch-drunk under the barrage of drunken brawls, deeply damaged by murder. A good place is under threat. And the two lead policemen pause to drink coffee. It’s only a cup of black coffee. Black, unsweetened, never tainted by milk, cream, sugar, artificial sweeteners and no, not even the occasional fish that infiltrates the percolator. It doesn't stand for anything. It doesn't represent the world they're fighting so hard to protect. But it reminds us of it.
Life is a struggle. Life is hard work. It’s a fight, whether for success or only survival. Sometimes we struggle so hard, though, that life becomes all about the fight and we forget what we are fighting for. What needs protecting. What is important. In Lynch’s, no matter how dark the subject matter might get, he seems never to forget the good inside us all that is worth fighting for. In Twin Peaks, we do not watch Agent Cooper et al SOLVE the murder of Laura Palmer. We watch them SOLVING the murder of Laura Palmer. This is what the network never understood, and it’s why the show is remembered as one of the greatest television works of all time.
Twin Peaks is an Arcadian vision of a town trapped in olden times, like an insect preserved in amber. It’s a piece of wishful thinking, the sort of Americana whose negative aspect might be expressed in the phrase, “Make America Great Again”. The idea that America, or anywhere, was once a utopia, in the 19-somethings, and if only we could get back to that way of life, things would be ok. Lynch isn’t a fool, though, and he’s not banging the drum of that literal utopia of Nationalist fantasy. We can take, if we want to, this Arcadia as a metaphor for our own hearts. That we are all born with something so pure and simple when we are children that may be challenged, lost, even corrupted over the years, but that experience eventually might remind us is precious. Life-saving. “All stories are about conflict,” as Lynch reminds us in an AFI Institute interview, “about light and dark, struggle,” but he also reminds us that the “storyteller doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering.” As artists, we are responsible for calming our minds so that we can be available to explore the darkest subject matter and remain optimists. It is our job to offer hope.
Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a deceptively simple practice with profound implications. Rooted in ancient Vedic traditions and popularised in the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it involves sitting quietly for 20 minutes, twice a day, silently repeating a mantra. That’s it. Yet this modest act promises, and often delivers, access to deeper states of consciousness, states where creativity and clarity thrive. For artists and innovators, TM has become a trusted ally, a way to cut through the noise and uncover ideas waiting just below the surface.
Lynch, one of TM’s most famous advocates, likens the practice to fishing in an ocean of pure consciousness. “Ideas are like fish,” he says. “If you want to catch the big ones, you’ve got to go deeper.” Many artists have credited TM with unlocking new levels of focus and inspiration. While the practice doesn’t guarantee brilliance, it does create the mental stillness in which brilliance might find you.
Lynch’s creative process and the content of much of his work can be traced back to his TM practice. In Twin Peaks, the boundaries between the conscious and subconscious blur in ways that feel distinctly meditative. Agent Dale Cooper, the show’s central figure, embodies Lynch’s fascination with the intuitive mind. His reliance on dreams and Tibetan-inspired rituals as investigative tools mirrors Lynch’s belief in the power of transcendence to reveal hidden truths.
Think of Cooper’s dream sequences, particularly the now-iconic Red Room. It’s a space where symbols, fragments, and half-understood messages swirl together, challenging both Cooper and the audience to interpret their meaning. What’s most striking is how these dream scenes don’t feel like puzzles to be solved but experiences to be absorbed. This, too, reflects TM: the idea that the deepest insights emerge when we stop forcing them.
But Twin Peaks isn’t just about dreams. The entire series hums with the tension between surface-level conflicts, the quest for Laura Palmer’s killer opening up the well of secrets flooding the town, and the darker, more mysterious forces that drive them. For Lynch, these layers aren’t just narrative devices. They’re reflections of our own psyches, the ways we bury uncomfortable truths under seemingly manageable dramas. His TM practice didn’t just inspire this storytelling. It shaped it, giving Lynch the tools to craft a show that feels like a meditation in itself: cryptic, unsettling, and deeply revealing if you’re willing to sit with it.
We remind ourselves to take the time to have a cup of black coffee, not to stare into an alluring abyss, but just because it’s a cup of black coffee.
17.01.25
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