“You may say that people look for meaning in everything, but they don’t. They’ve got life going on around them, but they don’t look for meaning there. They look for meaning when they go to a movie. I don’t know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.”

David Lynch, interview with the LA Times, August 20, 1989

David Lynch’s death was announced yesterday, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I feel like I ought to feel something, but I’m not entirely sure what. I didn’t know him. I never met him. His art influenced me, still does, and that’s not going to change. The world has exactly as many David Lynch films, television shows, paintings, and photographs as it did two days ago. But maybe it’s the realization that this is it. That’s all we get. There’s no anticipation of more.

It feels like a turning point, similar to when Bowie died. The world feels a little less. When Roger Corman died last year, I felt it too, but I know his name doesn’t resonate the same way. He was more niche, less of a consciously recognized part of the collective cultural moment. Still, that sense of the world being just a bit worse without these people in it, while it remains full of so many others who actively make it terrible, feels profoundly unfair.

And there’s another loss I’ve been sitting with: Neil Gaiman. He’s not dead, but he’s dead to me. I’ve made my peace with the idea that I’ll never revisit his work or finally read the books of his I hadn’t gotten around to. That’s a different kind of loss entirely. It feels like theft. Neil Gaiman was taken from me by Neil Gaiman, in much the same way Bill Cosby robbed me of the comedy records that got me through some rough times as a kid.

I can still listen to Bowie. I’ve got a poster of Ziggy Stardust hanging over my desk, and it’ll stay there. I still turn to Roger Corman’s How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood (and Never Lost a Dime) when I need a reminder about how to stay creative in an industry that doesn’t make it easy. Lynch’s work is still out there, scattered across streaming services that make me miss the days of physical media. Their influence isn’t going anywhere.

What feels urgent in these moments is the reminder to focus on my own work, to create the things I want to create, and to do it in the way that feels true to me. I don’t expect to leave the kind of legacy Bowie, Lynch, or Corman did. I don’t think about the size of my impact, but I can’t ignore the urgency of making things while I can. Because the world keeps wearing out, and it feels like the only way to fight back is to leave something behind.