GOOP.

Okay, so I get Gwyneth Paltrow's weekly newsletter, GOOP. Don't judge. I love vague self-help almost as much as I love Gwyneth's unselfaware ramblings and INSANE "detox"/starvation plans. I also, as you know, love David Lynch. But never did I think my interests would meet.
This week, G.Pal's newsletter was about MEDITATION. Of course! Strangely enough, she'd never tried it. I'm sure she doesn't have a lot of spare time, since she is usually rising at 7 to drink lukewarm lemon water (DETOX, people, rid your body of the toxins!) and then doing 50-100 repetitions of various exercises designed to make her butt look good. As G. Pal herself puts it:
"My New Year’s resolution is to learn how to meditate. It’s always sounded like something I should do, but I don’t know how to. My friends who do it say it’s really freakin’ brilliant. They say you can’t know the peace/awareness/contentment until you do it. My brain drives me mental. I am going to start. Tomorrow. "
It seems pretty likely at this point that Gwyneth runs this whole GOOP operation on her own, without anyone checking over what she's writing, because that sounds crazy. "My brain drives me mental," really? Is that supposed to be a joke? I'm convinced that early in the morning (perhaps even before she's had her lukewarm lemon water) she just jots down some stuff and is then like, "Fuck it, I'm GOOPin' it." She enlisted three different mediation experts to describe their processes. You can guess who was reppin' Transcendental Meditation.
David Lynch's thoughts on meditation are pretty common knowledge, since that's the focus of his writing (and unfortunately his film making ) lately. He does drop this gem:
"I sat down, closed my eyes, started this mantra — which is a specific sound-vibration-thought — and it was like I was in an elevator and they cut the cable. Boom! I fell into bliss – pure bliss. And I was just in there. Then the teacher said, “It’s time to come out; it’s been twenty minutes.” And I said, “IT’S ALREADY BEEN TWENTY MINUTES?!” And she said “Shhhh!,” because other people were meditating."
Most importantly, he says that if you have a meditation-related question, you should email him and he will personally respond. Don't think I'm not tempted. Although I am not into meditation (obviously), I always admire the passion that David Lynch brings to everything that he does. I just wish it would involve new movies.