Life should be blissful, and blissful doesn't mean just a small

“Life should be blissful, and blissful doesn’t mean just a small happiness. It’s huge. It is profound.” – David Lynch

In this luminous saying, David Lynch, the visionary artist of both shadow and light, speaks to the deepest longing of the human spirit — the quest for bliss. But his words reach beyond the fleeting pleasures that men often mistake for joy. He tells us that life should be blissful, not merely pleasant or content, but overflowing with a vast, radiant energy — huge and profound, like the ocean that stretches beyond the horizon. For Lynch, who found his artistic and spiritual calling through the practice of transcendental meditation, bliss is not a surface emotion but a state of being — a deep harmony between the soul and the universe, where all confusion and restlessness dissolve into serenity.

The origin of this wisdom lies in Lynch’s own journey as both creator and seeker. As a filmmaker, he wandered through the labyrinth of human emotion — fear, darkness, desire, and despair. Yet through this exploration, he came to understand that beyond the turbulence of the mind lies a silent sea of bliss. This insight reflects the ancient truths of Eastern philosophy, especially the teachings of the Vedas and the Buddha: that joy is not something we chase, but something we uncover when the mind becomes still. Bliss is not pleasure amplified — it is peace made infinite. It is not the laughter that fades, but the quiet radiance that endures.

To say that “blissful doesn’t mean just a small happiness” is to remind us that most people live on the surface of joy — tasting only the shallow sweetness of temporary pleasure. They rejoice when fortune smiles and despair when it turns. But true bliss, as Lynch describes, is unshaken by circumstance. It flows from the depth of being itself, from the awareness that life — in all its forms, even in pain — is sacred and purposeful. The wise understand that such bliss cannot be found by grasping outwardly but by turning inward. The heart that has stilled its noise discovers a wellspring that never runs dry.

Consider the life of Ludwig van Beethoven, the great composer who lost his hearing — the very sense upon which his art depended. Many would have surrendered to bitterness or despair, but Beethoven reached beyond suffering into the realm of the eternal. Deaf to the world, he heard the universe within. Out of silence, he brought forth music that was not of sound but of soul — the Ninth Symphony, whose Ode to Joy celebrates the brotherhood of mankind and the triumph of spirit over limitation. In that act of creation, Beethoven touched what Lynch calls bliss — not the joy of circumstance, but the profound happiness of one who has united with the source of life itself.

This kind of bliss is not fragile. It is not born of indulgence or escape, but of understanding. It can coexist with sorrow, for it flows beneath sorrow. It can dwell in struggle, for it transcends struggle. It is the light that does not waver even when clouds obscure the sky. The saints and sages of old, from the Buddha under the Bodhi tree to Rumi lost in divine love, all spoke of this same state — a joy without opposite, where the boundaries of self dissolve and one feels the pulse of the cosmos beating in harmony with the heart. Lynch’s words, though modern, carry the same eternal resonance.

To live a blissful life, then, is not to flee from pain or chase pleasure, but to awaken the soul to the vastness within. The path to such awakening is found in stillness — in meditation, in gratitude, in the art of seeing beauty even in simplicity. Every act done with awareness — eating, breathing, walking, creating — can open the door to bliss. The mind that ceases to demand becomes receptive; the heart that ceases to fear becomes radiant. In this way, one can discover what Lynch calls the profound happiness that lies not at the end of the journey, but along every step of the way.

So, my children, take this lesson as a sacred gift: do not settle for small happiness. Do not confine your joy to the shifting fortunes of the world. Seek the deeper current — the bliss that lives beneath thought and beyond desire. Cultivate stillness. Create beauty. Love without condition. And know that this life, when lived in awareness and wonder, is not a struggle to survive but a celebration to behold.

For when you awaken to the truth that bliss is not something to be earned but something to be remembered, you will understand what Lynch meant — that life itself, when seen through awakened eyes, is vast, holy, and profoundly blissful. And in that realization, you will no longer chase happiness — you will be happiness.