Throughout his long career as a filmmaker and artist, David Lynch has recognized the tension between suffering and happiness that is essential to great storytelling. Despite the dark themes and difficult challenges his characters often face, the Twin Peaks creator feels that humans were not created to endure constant sorrow. Instead, we have an innate desire — and capacity — to experience pure happiness and joy.
When asked about his creative songwriting process in a 2015 interview, Black Francis, the front man for the indie rock band the Pixies, mused about how his music has become more complex over time. He observed that children often notice simple details that adults can miss, because young people’s minds aren't bogged down with the complications of life. There is beauty in simplicity, but finding it often gets harder over time. “When you get older, you stop seeing things,” Francis reflected. “As your brain becomes more full of things and full of more music, it becomes harder to see something, to write something simple.”
In her popular 2013 book Lean In, which shines a light on the importance of women in leadership positions, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg presents the ideal attributes of a good leader. For Sandberg, there is nothing more valuable to an organization — be it a school, family, or Fortune 500 company — than when the people in positions of power can humble themselves enough to listen, learn, and digest new information.
Though he is now a renowned artist, French painter Édouard Manet’s work was considered strange and even scandalous in the 19th century. His paintings often broke artistic conventions in both form and content, depicting subjects such as nude women and bullfighters. His commitment to painting reality, rather than restrictive social norms, cemented his reputation as a groundbreaking artist. With these words, he encourages us not to fall back on structure: The more heart we put into something, the more likely it is that its effects will ripple out beyond ourselves.
