There have been few points in my life where I felt it was not moving in the right direction. So, I chose to change that direction and see where it would take me. One such time was in college. I was a kicker on the football team. A rising soccer star that turned his attention to America's game and... it wasn't that great. The Summer before my senior year, I wasn't sure I wanted to play on the team anymore; it just wasn't my scene. However, before quitting the team I moved into with a couple football player friends of mine starting in the Summer and I just didn't want to be there. Fortunately, there was a room in the basement where I recaptured my love of movies. I just hung out watched movies and had friends over to watch movies, like I was living in a basement Studio apartment. I'm pretty sure I was reading Entertainment Weekly around that time. That was the available Hollywood mag in DePere, WI. In that magazine I saw an ad for the New York Film Academy's 6 week Summer course in August. That is when football camp started. The decision that I made that Summer began a journey towards the realization that meditation might be the key to everything I am looking for.
I decided to go to the New York Film Academy's Boston campus. We had class at the Harvard Faculty Club and stayed in the MIT dorms. I felt really smart. The experience was incredible and helped give me the kick in the ass that I needed to get into filmmaking as a career. But, during my time there, I became friends with a fellow student named Keith Taylor. He was a big David Lynch fan. I liked Lynch, but didn't really get it. Kieth showed me Fire Walk With Me, the Twin Peaks movie. I didn't know what in the hell I was watching, but I became mesmerized and haunted by it. I knew the second I got home and back to my basement studio, I would watch Twin Peaks. And, for that 3 weeks before school started I rented and watched the 2 seasons of Twin Peaks. Then I found a place to buy the VHS set and I watched them again.
At this point my "I don't really get David Lynch," changed completely. I felt like I was suddenly tapped into the world of David Lynch. I began ingesting each of his movies over and over that year. The highlight was finding a used VHS of Wild at Heart at Amoeba in SanFrancisco visiting my sister. I wore that completely out. But, my obsession with Lynch stopped there, at his movies. Because that is all I needed at the time. I had a filmmaker role model.
What I failed to realize for the following 6 years is that my obsession with his movies may have been better served with an obsession with his meditation practice. My first awakening came when I was given the change to see David Lynch give a talk about his book "Catching the Big Fish" before a Donvan at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. It was weird. It was eye opening. And I got to watch David Lynch talk about how the future was DV and everyone should meditate. One of those two things is now true. After the show, we all got a free copy of his book on the way out. That night is when I first discovered what TM really was. I didn't act on it. But, I knew my role model used it as a super power and that got my interests peaked.
Cut to 2012, six or so years later. I had moved to Portland from LA in November and it would have been in about May when I decided to get a mantra. When you move from Portland to LA in November, it does a little bit of damage to your psyche. Now, I am an editor, so I don't get outdoors much. But, in LA when I did, there was sun there. In Portland, there was grey and there was rain. I had lived in England for 6 moths in college, so I thought I would be prepared. I was not. And I was smoking too much weed to compensate. So, my now ex wife and I headed to the local TM trainers, made a donation and got ourselves some mantras. Surely meditation would get me to a David Lynch type level of existence that no longer required cannabis to compensate.
Turns out. It works. It's great. Calm, cool, confident. I love TM. My ex wife and I got audited near the end of 2012 and TM got me through it. I literally give it and my consistency all the credit. When I use it to my advantage, my stress levels go down and my creativity goes up. I get a feeling of a unified oneness with universe and really hard times are made easier. mThe problem is that you have to remember to do it everyday. This is were my struggles lie. My ego fights urge to meditate. And now it is 9 years later, and though I have practiced to my advantage when I needed to (and boy do I need to sometimes), I never found a groove that I could call consistent that lasted more than a couple months.
Since learning TM, I have learned how to Shamanic Journey and spent 10 days at a Vipassana. I will blog about both soon. And I am realizing that all meditation is difficult, but incredibly rewarding when done right. And TM seems to be the easiest one to master and the hippest as well. Right now I am trying to see which meditations do the most good to me in the real world and TM seems like a real good staple to have. Lately, I have begun trying to be more purposeful with my posture and I try to stare at my third eye when I meditate. But, still struggle to keep it consistant. And something tells me that consistency is the key to finding the flow with the universe. And right now that seems more important than ever.
I hope that by writing this blog I get the kick start that I need to keep my practice consistent. A little accountability for a change could go a long way.