The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield is an inspiring, motivational book that encourages readers to confront the Resistance—fear, self-doubt, distraction, and distraction—of creative work. The main takeaway is that you must have the will to persist, despite the obstacles you may encounter, in order to fulfil your creative potential.
As a UX designer, here are some key learnings from the book:
- Understand and be aware of the blocks in creativity, such as Resistance, so that you can focus on your project without distractions
- Draw inspiration from the sources around you, and be influenced but not deterred from your own creative path
- Utilize self-discipline and persistence to push through moments of difficulty, in order to gain success in the end
Given the content of The War of Art, related books for UX designers that may be of interest include Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter, The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman, and Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
✏️ Highlights
Pressfield labels the enemy of creativity Resistance, his all-encompassing term for what Freud called the Death Wish—that destructive force inside human nature that rises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that’s actually
Pressfield labels the enemy of creativity Resistance, his all-encompassing term for what Freud called the Death Wish—that destructive force inside human nature that rises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that’s actually good.
To show just how anal I can get, I put on every shirt, pair of pants, sweater, jacket, and sock, sorting them into piles: spring, summer, fall, winter, Salvation Army. Then I tried them on all over again, this time parsing them into spring casual, spring formal, summer casual … Two days of this and I thought I was going mad. Want to know how to cure writer’s block? It’s not a trip to your psychiatrist. For as Pressfield wisely points out, seeking “support” is Resistance at its most seductive. No, the cure is found in Book Two: “Turning Pro.”
“When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us … we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come.
Some years ago I was as blocked as a Calcutta sewer,
endurance, acting in the face of fear and failure—no excuses, no bullshit. And best of all, Steve’s brilliant insight that first, last, and always, the professional focuses on mastery of the craft. Book Three, “The Higher Realm,” looks at Inspiration, that sublime result that blossoms in the furrows of the professional who straps on the harness and plows the fields of his or her art. In Pressfield’s words: “When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us … we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come.
That negative force, that dark antagonism to creativity, is embedded deep in our humanity. But in Book Three he shifts gears and looks for the cause of Inspiration not in human nature, but on a “higher realm.” Then with a poetic fire he lays out his belief in muses and angels. The ultimate source of creativity, he argues, is divine.
Like our IQ, talent is a gift from our ancestors. If we’re lucky, we inherit it. In the fortunate talented few, the dark dimension of their natures will first resist the labor that creativity demands, but once they commit to the task,
When I start making typos, I know I’m getting tired. That’s four hours or so.
The office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got.
All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is. One
Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul’s seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star’s beacon and Polaris.
Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine.
How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?
Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
11)The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity. In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.
RESISTANCE’S GREATEST HITS The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities that most commonly elicit Resistance:
pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art,
launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or
diet or health regimen.
7)Education of every kind.
10)Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.
Henry Fonda was still throwing up before each stage performance, even when he was seventy-five.
So if you’re in Calcutta working with the Mother Teresa Foundation and you’re thinking of bolting to launch a career in telemarketing… relax. Resistance will give you a free pass.
Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.
Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write my symphony.” Instead we say, “I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.”
The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance.
drugs, shopping, masturbation, TV, gossip, alcohol, and the consumption of all products containing fat, sugar, salt, or chocolate.
We get ourselves in trouble because it’s a cheap way to get attention. Trouble is a faux form of fame. It’s easier to get busted in the bedroom with the faculty chairman’s wife than it is to finish that dissertation on the metaphysics of motley in the novellas of Joseph Conrad.
compulsive screwing-up, and such seemingly benign foibles as jealousy, chronic lateness, and the blasting of rap music at 110 dB from your smoked-glass ’95 Supra. Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure.
Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren’t diseases, they’re marketing ploys. Doctors didn’t discover them, copywriters did. Marketing
Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren’t diseases, they’re marketing ploys. Doctors didn’t discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did.
call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.
When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.
Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.
Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren’t sick, they’re self-dramatizing.
As Jerry Seinfeld observed of his twenty years of dating: “That’s a lot of acting fascinated.”
A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one’s experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat.
Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don’t do it. If you’re doing it, stop.
Maybe we believe (or wish we could) that some of our spouse’s power will rub off on us, if we just hang around it long enough.
But is it love? If we’re the supporting partner, shouldn’t we face our own failure to pursue our unlived life, rather than hitchhike on our spouse’s coattails?
if we’re the supported partner, shouldn’t we step out from the glow of our loved one’s adoration and instead encourage him to let his own light shine?
Resistance becomes clinical. Depression, aggression, dysfunction. Then actual crime and physical self-destruction. Sounds like life, I know. It isn’t. It’s Resistance. What
John Lennon once wrote: Well, you think you’re so clever and classless and free But you’re all fucking peasants As far as I can see
We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don’t know is how to be alone. We
We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don’t know is how to be alone. We don’t know how to be free individuals.
artist and the fundamentalist arise from societies at differing stages of development.
His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to permit the luxury of self-examination. The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it. He is lucky.
The dislocation and emasculation experienced by the individual cut free from the familiar and comforting structures of the tribe and the clan, the village and the family.
Certainly I wouldn’t be writing this book, on this subject, if living with freedom were easy. The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.
If you find yourself criticizing other people, you’re probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement.
The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to
The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you—and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.
The professional has learned that success, like happiness,
The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work.
We feel comfortable with the tribe around us; it makes us nervous going off into the woods on our own. Here’s the trick: We’re never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly.
It is a commonplace among artists and children at play that they’re not aware of time or solitude while they’re chasing their vision. The hours fly. The sculptress and the tree-climbing tyke both look up blinking when Mom calls, “Suppertime!”
Friends sometimes ask, “Don’t you get lonely sitting by yourself all day?” At first it seemed odd to hear myself answer No. Then I realized that I was not alone; I was in the book; I was with the characters. I was with my Self.
I went back to the kitchen. In the sink sat ten days of dishes. For some reason I had enough excess energy that I decided to wash them. The warm water felt pretty good. The soap and sponge were doing their thing. A pile of clean plates began rising in the drying rack. To my amazement I realized I was whistling.
what I hate even worse is the word support. Seeking support from friends and family is like having your people gathered around at your deathbed. It’s nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.
the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.
Suddenly Springsteen pulled over, handed Carol the keys, and bolted.
The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week.
The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money.
The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation.
Resistance hates it when we turn pro.
thinking about the work. I’ve already consigned that to the Muse. What I am aware of is Resistance. I feel it in my guts. I afford it the utmost
the Principle of Priority, which states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.
WE’RE ALL PROS ALREADY All of us are pros in one area: our jobs. We get a paycheck. We work for money. We are professionals.
1) We show up every day. We might do it only because we have to, to keep from getting fired. But we do it. We show up every day.
We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure.
consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling? One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he overidentifies with his art.
He does not have a sense of humor about failure.
The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification. He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare.
The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.
What Henry Fonda does, after puking into the toilet in his dressing room, is to clean up and march out onstage. He’s still terrified but he forces himself forward in spite of his terror. He knows that once he gets out into the action, his fear will recede and he’ll be okay.
A professional’s work has style; it is distinctively his own. But he doesn’t let his signature grandstand for him.
His style serves the material. He does not impose it as a means of drawing attention to himself.
Fear of rejection isn’t just psychological; it’s biological. It’s in our cells.
Resistance knows this and uses it against us. It uses fear of rejection to paralyze us and prevent us, if not from doing our work, then from exposing it to public evaluation.
The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance.
We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.
The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level.
returned to the task at hand. The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the professional
The professional blows critics off. He doesn’t even hear them. Critics, he reminds himself, are the unwitting mouthpieces of Resistance and as such can be truly cunning and pernicious.
The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment.
meetings with myself every Monday. I sit down and go over my assignments. Then I type it up and distribute it to myself.
have one of those meetings with myself every Monday. I sit down and go over my assignments. Then I type it up and distribute it to myself.
If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves. We’re less subjective. We don’t take blows as personally.
Resistance is a bully. Resistance has no strength of its own; its power derives entirely from our fear of it.
there are forces we can call our allies.
Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose. This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
Just as Resistance has its seat in hell, so Creation has its home in heaven.
“Moby Dick.” I started each day over coffee with Paul. He turned me on to all kinds of authors I had never heard of, lectured me on self-discipline, dedication, the evils of the marketplace.
Rest in peace, motherfucker.
The Muses were nine sisters, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, which means “memory.” Their names are Clio, Erato, Thalia, Terpsichore, Calliope, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Melpomene, and Urania. Their job is to inspire artists.
There’s a neighborhood in New Orleans where the streets are named after the Muses. I lived there once and had no idea; I thought they were just weird names.
a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.
The gods, though not unlike humans, are infinitely more powerful.
They can tell the future, some of them, and though the playwright Agathon tells us, This alone is denied to God: the power to undo the past
I believe that above the entire human race is one super-angel, crying “Evolve! Evolve!”
When I finish a day’s work, I head up into the hills for a hike. I take a pocket tape recorder because I know that as my surface mind empties with the walk, another part of me will chime in and start talking.
This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don’t even notice. But it’s a miracle. And its implications are staggering.
Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbits; rivers make their way to the sea.
How do we experience this? By having ideas. Insights pop into our heads while we’re shaving or taking a shower or even, amazingly, while we’re actually working.
This is why artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation. It’s also why “noncreative people” hate “creative people.” Because they’re jealous. They sense that artists and writers are tapped into some grid of energy and inspiration that they themselves cannot connect with.
The moment a person learns he’s got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche.
Maybe, he realizes, working this weekend on that big deal at the office isn’t all that vital. Maybe it’s more important to fly cross-country for his grandson’s graduation.
Is it possible, Tom Laughlin asks, that the disease itself evolved as a consequence of actions taken (or not taken) in our lives?
The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
Here’s what I think. I think angels make their home in the Self, while Resistance has its seat in the Ego.
Here’s what the Ego believes:
There is no life beyond life.
Time and space are real.
To get from breakfast to supper we have to live the whole day.
Every individual is different and separate from every other. The Ego believes that I am distinct
Every individual is different and separate from every other.
The predominant impulse of life is self-preservation.
It is wise, the Ego believes, to have children to carry on our line when we die, to achieve great things that will live after us, and to buckle our seat belts.
Here’s what the Self believes: 1) Death is an illusion.
In other dimensions we move “swift as thought” and inhabit multiple planes simultaneously.
All beings are one. If I hurt you, I hurt myself.
supreme emotion is love. Union and mutual assistance are the imperatives of life.
when suburban kids take Ecstasy and dance all night at a rave, they’re seeking the Self.
when we seat our consciousness in the Self, we put the ego out of business.
The Ego doesn’t want us to evolve. The Ego runs the show right now. It likes things just the way they are.
instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.
soul. Another way of thinking of it is this: We’re not born with unlimited choices. We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny.
not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
If we were born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter.
If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it’s our job to realize it and get down to business.
We run naturally in packs and cliques; without thinking about it, we know who’s the top dog and who’s the underdog.
It’s hard not to. School, advertising, the entire materialist culture drills us from birth to define ourselves by others’ opinions.
So is Michigan State. The individual in multitudes
let’s look at what happens in a hierarchical orientation. An individual who defines himself by his place in a pecking order will: 1) Compete against all others in the order, seeking to elevate his station by advancing against those above him,
beneath. 2) Evaluate his happiness/success/achievement by his rank within the hierarchy, feeling most satisfied when he’s high and most miserable when he’s low.
whole life. The artist must operate territorially. He must do his work for its own sake.
The artist must operate territorially. He must do his work for its own sake.
even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes
Stevie Wonder’s territory is the piano. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s is the gym. When Bill Gates pulls into the parking lot at Microsoft, he’s on his territory.
Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Pressfield labels the enemy of creativity Resistance, his all-encompassing term for what Freud called the Death Wish—that destructive force inside human nature that rises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that’s actually
Pressfield labels the enemy of creativity Resistance, his all-encompassing term for what Freud called the Death Wish—that destructive force inside human nature that rises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that’s actually good.
To show just how anal I can get, I put on every shirt, pair of pants, sweater, jacket, and sock, sorting them into piles: spring, summer, fall, winter, Salvation Army. Then I tried them on all over again, this time parsing them into spring casual, spring formal, summer casual … Two days of this and I thought I was going mad. Want to know how to cure writer’s block? It’s not a trip to your psychiatrist. For as Pressfield wisely points out, seeking “support” is Resistance at its most seductive. No, the cure is found in Book Two: “Turning Pro.”
“When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us … we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come.
Some years ago I was as blocked as a Calcutta sewer,
endurance, acting in the face of fear and failure—no excuses, no bullshit. And best of all, Steve’s brilliant insight that first, last, and always, the professional focuses on mastery of the craft. Book Three, “The Higher Realm,” looks at Inspiration, that sublime result that blossoms in the furrows of the professional who straps on the harness and plows the fields of his or her art. In Pressfield’s words: “When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us … we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come.
That negative force, that dark antagonism to creativity, is embedded deep in our humanity. But in Book Three he shifts gears and looks for the cause of Inspiration not in human nature, but on a “higher realm.” Then with a poetic fire he lays out his belief in muses and angels. The ultimate source of creativity, he argues, is divine.
Like our IQ, talent is a gift from our ancestors. If we’re lucky, we inherit it. In the fortunate talented few, the dark dimension of their natures will first resist the labor that creativity demands, but once they commit to the task,
When I start making typos, I know I’m getting tired. That’s four hours or so.
The office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got.
All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is. One
Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul’s seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star’s beacon and Polaris.
Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine.
How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?
Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
11)The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity. In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.
RESISTANCE’S GREATEST HITS The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities that most commonly elicit Resistance:
pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art,
launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or
diet or health regimen.
7)Education of every kind.
10)Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.
Henry Fonda was still throwing up before each stage performance, even when he was seventy-five.
So if you’re in Calcutta working with the Mother Teresa Foundation and you’re thinking of bolting to launch a career in telemarketing… relax. Resistance will give you a free pass.
Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.
Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write my symphony.” Instead we say, “I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.”
The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance.
drugs, shopping, masturbation, TV, gossip, alcohol, and the consumption of all products containing fat, sugar, salt, or chocolate.
We get ourselves in trouble because it’s a cheap way to get attention. Trouble is a faux form of fame. It’s easier to get busted in the bedroom with the faculty chairman’s wife than it is to finish that dissertation on the metaphysics of motley in the novellas of Joseph Conrad.
compulsive screwing-up, and such seemingly benign foibles as jealousy, chronic lateness, and the blasting of rap music at 110 dB from your smoked-glass ’95 Supra. Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure.
Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren’t diseases, they’re marketing ploys. Doctors didn’t discover them, copywriters did. Marketing
Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren’t diseases, they’re marketing ploys. Doctors didn’t discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did.
call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.
When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.
Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.
Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren’t sick, they’re self-dramatizing.
As Jerry Seinfeld observed of his twenty years of dating: “That’s a lot of acting fascinated.”
A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one’s experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat.
Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don’t do it. If you’re doing it, stop.
Maybe we believe (or wish we could) that some of our spouse’s power will rub off on us, if we just hang around it long enough.
But is it love? If we’re the supporting partner, shouldn’t we face our own failure to pursue our unlived life, rather than hitchhike on our spouse’s coattails?
if we’re the supported partner, shouldn’t we step out from the glow of our loved one’s adoration and instead encourage him to let his own light shine?
Resistance becomes clinical. Depression, aggression, dysfunction. Then actual crime and physical self-destruction. Sounds like life, I know. It isn’t. It’s Resistance. What
John Lennon once wrote: Well, you think you’re so clever and classless and free But you’re all fucking peasants As far as I can see
We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don’t know is how to be alone. We
We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don’t know is how to be alone. We don’t know how to be free individuals.
artist and the fundamentalist arise from societies at differing stages of development.
His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to permit the luxury of self-examination. The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it. He is lucky.
The dislocation and emasculation experienced by the individual cut free from the familiar and comforting structures of the tribe and the clan, the village and the family.
Certainly I wouldn’t be writing this book, on this subject, if living with freedom were easy. The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.
If you find yourself criticizing other people, you’re probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement.
The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to
The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you—and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.
The professional has learned that success, like happiness,
The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work.
We feel comfortable with the tribe around us; it makes us nervous going off into the woods on our own. Here’s the trick: We’re never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly.
It is a commonplace among artists and children at play that they’re not aware of time or solitude while they’re chasing their vision. The hours fly. The sculptress and the tree-climbing tyke both look up blinking when Mom calls, “Suppertime!”
Friends sometimes ask, “Don’t you get lonely sitting by yourself all day?” At first it seemed odd to hear myself answer No. Then I realized that I was not alone; I was in the book; I was with the characters. I was with my Self.
I went back to the kitchen. In the sink sat ten days of dishes. For some reason I had enough excess energy that I decided to wash them. The warm water felt pretty good. The soap and sponge were doing their thing. A pile of clean plates began rising in the drying rack. To my amazement I realized I was whistling.
what I hate even worse is the word support. Seeking support from friends and family is like having your people gathered around at your deathbed. It’s nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.
the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.
Suddenly Springsteen pulled over, handed Carol the keys, and bolted.
The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week.
The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money.
The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation.
Resistance hates it when we turn pro.
thinking about the work. I’ve already consigned that to the Muse. What I am aware of is Resistance. I feel it in my guts. I afford it the utmost
the Principle of Priority, which states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.
WE’RE ALL PROS ALREADY All of us are pros in one area: our jobs. We get a paycheck. We work for money. We are professionals.
1) We show up every day. We might do it only because we have to, to keep from getting fired. But we do it. We show up every day.
We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure.
consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling? One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he overidentifies with his art.
He does not have a sense of humor about failure.
The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification. He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare.
The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.
What Henry Fonda does, after puking into the toilet in his dressing room, is to clean up and march out onstage. He’s still terrified but he forces himself forward in spite of his terror. He knows that once he gets out into the action, his fear will recede and he’ll be okay.
A professional’s work has style; it is distinctively his own. But he doesn’t let his signature grandstand for him.
His style serves the material. He does not impose it as a means of drawing attention to himself.
Fear of rejection isn’t just psychological; it’s biological. It’s in our cells.
Resistance knows this and uses it against us. It uses fear of rejection to paralyze us and prevent us, if not from doing our work, then from exposing it to public evaluation.
The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance.
We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.
The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level.
returned to the task at hand. The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the professional
The professional blows critics off. He doesn’t even hear them. Critics, he reminds himself, are the unwitting mouthpieces of Resistance and as such can be truly cunning and pernicious.
The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment.
meetings with myself every Monday. I sit down and go over my assignments. Then I type it up and distribute it to myself.
have one of those meetings with myself every Monday. I sit down and go over my assignments. Then I type it up and distribute it to myself.
If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves. We’re less subjective. We don’t take blows as personally.
Resistance is a bully. Resistance has no strength of its own; its power derives entirely from our fear of it.
there are forces we can call our allies.
Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose. This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
Just as Resistance has its seat in hell, so Creation has its home in heaven.
“Moby Dick.” I started each day over coffee with Paul. He turned me on to all kinds of authors I had never heard of, lectured me on self-discipline, dedication, the evils of the marketplace.
Rest in peace, motherfucker.
The Muses were nine sisters, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, which means “memory.” Their names are Clio, Erato, Thalia, Terpsichore, Calliope, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Melpomene, and Urania. Their job is to inspire artists.
There’s a neighborhood in New Orleans where the streets are named after the Muses. I lived there once and had no idea; I thought they were just weird names.
a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.
The gods, though not unlike humans, are infinitely more powerful.
They can tell the future, some of them, and though the playwright Agathon tells us, This alone is denied to God: the power to undo the past
I believe that above the entire human race is one super-angel, crying “Evolve! Evolve!”
When I finish a day’s work, I head up into the hills for a hike. I take a pocket tape recorder because I know that as my surface mind empties with the walk, another part of me will chime in and start talking.
This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don’t even notice. But it’s a miracle. And its implications are staggering.
Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbits; rivers make their way to the sea.
How do we experience this? By having ideas. Insights pop into our heads while we’re shaving or taking a shower or even, amazingly, while we’re actually working.
This is why artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation. It’s also why “noncreative people” hate “creative people.” Because they’re jealous. They sense that artists and writers are tapped into some grid of energy and inspiration that they themselves cannot connect with.
The moment a person learns he’s got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche.
Maybe, he realizes, working this weekend on that big deal at the office isn’t all that vital. Maybe it’s more important to fly cross-country for his grandson’s graduation.
Is it possible, Tom Laughlin asks, that the disease itself evolved as a consequence of actions taken (or not taken) in our lives?
The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
Here’s what I think. I think angels make their home in the Self, while Resistance has its seat in the Ego.
Here’s what the Ego believes:
There is no life beyond life.
Time and space are real.
To get from breakfast to supper we have to live the whole day.
Every individual is different and separate from every other. The Ego believes that I am distinct
Every individual is different and separate from every other.
The predominant impulse of life is self-preservation.
It is wise, the Ego believes, to have children to carry on our line when we die, to achieve great things that will live after us, and to buckle our seat belts.
Here’s what the Self believes: 1) Death is an illusion.
In other dimensions we move “swift as thought” and inhabit multiple planes simultaneously.
All beings are one. If I hurt you, I hurt myself.
supreme emotion is love. Union and mutual assistance are the imperatives of life.
when suburban kids take Ecstasy and dance all night at a rave, they’re seeking the Self.
when we seat our consciousness in the Self, we put the ego out of business.
The Ego doesn’t want us to evolve. The Ego runs the show right now. It likes things just the way they are.
instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.
soul. Another way of thinking of it is this: We’re not born with unlimited choices. We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny.
not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
If we were born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter.
If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it’s our job to realize it and get down to business.
We run naturally in packs and cliques; without thinking about it, we know who’s the top dog and who’s the underdog.
It’s hard not to. School, advertising, the entire materialist culture drills us from birth to define ourselves by others’ opinions.
So is Michigan State. The individual in multitudes
let’s look at what happens in a hierarchical orientation. An individual who defines himself by his place in a pecking order will: 1) Compete against all others in the order, seeking to elevate his station by advancing against those above him,
beneath. 2) Evaluate his happiness/success/achievement by his rank within the hierarchy, feeling most satisfied when he’s high and most miserable when he’s low.
whole life. The artist must operate territorially. He must do his work for its own sake.
The artist must operate territorially. He must do his work for its own sake.
even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes
Stevie Wonder’s territory is the piano. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s is the gym. When Bill Gates pulls into the parking lot at Microsoft, he’s on his territory.
Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Steve traces Resistance down its evolutionary roots to the genes.
Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction.
Woman learns she has cancer, six months to live. Within days she quits her job, resumes the dream of writing
Woman’s friends think she’s crazy; she herself has never been happier. There’s a postscript. Woman’s cancer goes into remission.
Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?
If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business.
The alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with the junk food, cosmetic surgery, and infotainment businesses,
You think Resistance isn’t real? Resistance will bury you.
Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within.
Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.
The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got. The professional must be alert for this counterattack. Be wary at the end. Don’t open that bag of wind. RESISTANCE RECRUITS ALLIES Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.
danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got.
sex provides immediate and powerful gratification.
When someone sleeps with us, we feel validated and approved of, even loved. Resistance gets a big kick out of that. It knows it has distracted us with a cheap, easy fix and kept us from doing our work.
not all sex is a manifestation of Resistance. In my experience, you can tell by the measure of hollowness you feel afterward. The more empty you feel, the more certain you can be that your true motivation was not love or even lust but Resistance.
Why put in years of work designing a new software interface when you can get just as much attention by bringing home a boyfriend with a prison record?
Dad gets drunk, Mom gets sick, Janie shows up for church with an Oakland Raiders tattoo. It’s more fun than a movie. And it works: Nobody gets a damn thing done.
I was so unhappy not going ahead. I was developing symptoms. As soon as I sat down and began, I was okay.
There’s guilt but we can’t put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party.
We feel unloved and unlovable. We’re disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves.
this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture. We overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games,
We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.
If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are.
4) We are committed over the long haul. Next year we may go to another job, another company, another country. But we’ll still be working. Until we hit the lottery, we are part of the labor force.
