The War of Art
Two Quotes
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
Have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust in the attic? Ever quit a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice? Have you ever bailed out on a call to embark upon a spiritual practice, dedicate yourself to a humanitarian calling, commit yourself to the service of others? Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless; to run for office, crusade for the planet, campaign for world peace, or to preserve the environment? Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? 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...
Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life that God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. 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.
Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance. As powerful as is our soul's call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and harder to kick than crack cocaine.
Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters?Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. Why is this so important? Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. 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. And it's not just a witness, but an eager and active ally.What I call Professionalism someone else might call the Artist's Code or the Warrior's Way. It's an attitude of egolessness and service. The Knights of the Round Table were chaste and self-effacing. Yet they dueled dragons.We're facing dragons too. Fire-breathing griffins of the soul, whom we must outfight and outwit to reach the treasure of our self-in-potential and to release the maiden who is God's plan and destiny for ourselves and the answer to why we were put on this planet.
Introduction
This book was awesome. I adopted Pressfield's dichotomous model of the Self vs Ego, Resistance, Inspiration, and The Work. I believe in them after reading this book. It all makes sense. So, Ego is the part of us that deals with practical & survival type things. The Ego recognizes that death is coming for us all. The Ego wants us to be in a good position financially. What will we do today, and where are we in the pecking order? How much is my credit card bill this month, and how much gas is in the car? Ego is 100% needed. The only problem is that it likes being in control. It doesn't want the Self to take over. So it marshals it's forces and uses Resistance to suppress the Self. The Self is the part of us which connects to the divine. It is idealistic, and doesn't worry. it wants to self-actualize and evolve. It views the world as immortal and improving. It draws upon the divine for creative purposes.
The Ego's main weapon is Resistance. The Self's greatest purpose is to fulfill its calling. The Self is not alone; the angels and muses are whispering encouragement and trying to help. They are always trying to give Inspiration, which is the juice you need to fulfill your calling. There is a never-ending war between Resistance and Inspiration. In order to tip the scales in one direction or the other, it always depends on what you do. You can either take the easy road, giving in, and failing to fulfill your destiny, or you can 'turn pro' and grind through The Work. If you do this, you can create an opening for the divine to feed you some Inspiration.
Each chapter is about 1 page, give or take. Each idea is presented in a succinct way. The War of Art is a quick-reading book - you can get through it in a couple of hours. Pressfield organized his book into three sections or 'books'.
Book 1 is about what he calls The Resistance. It's the unseen force that wants you to procrastinate. It helps you waste your time. It presents many logical and reasonable arguments to why you should not sit down and do your work. Resistance will oppose you in any course of action will empower you, enlighten you, elevate you, make you fit, make you stronger, or improve your life in some meaningful way. Pressfield's list:
- creative pursuit
- entrepreneurial venture
- diet
- spiritual program
- any activity which produces tighter abdominals
- any attempt to overcome a bad habit or addiction
- education of all kinds
- any act of courage
- any enterprise aimed at helping others
- any commitment of the heart (marriage, decision to have a child, or to weather a rocky patch in a relationship)
- taking a principled stand despite adversity
Book 1 continues to describe how Resistance might act in different scenarios. How it might try to exploit you. What are its characteristics and personifications.
Book 2 is about combating Resistance, or what he calls *turning pro*. He has another whole book on the subject of turning pro that I feel needs to be read at some point. He outlines many characteristics of the pro. Most of these are what I would call virtues. He talks about dedication, freedom, courage, grit, humility, honesty, patience, love, equanimity, response to criticism, preparedness, and mastery of technique.
Book 3 details Pressfield's beliefs in the supernatural. He believes in Muses and Angels, which are heavenly beings that rally around the dedicated artist to concentrate luck and fate around them. It's kind of like in The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan how some of the characters are tavaren. They have some unseen way of influencing fate. Only with Pressfield, you can become tavaren if you sit down and diligently overcome Resistance and do your work. By this he means God's work. The work you were put on Earth to do. Your life's work, or your calling.
My Favorite Ideas
1 - Resistance
Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. 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; and 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.Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance. As powerful as is our soul's call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine....Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It's a repelling force. It's negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.
Resistance should be self-explanatory. We've all felt it. It's our tendency toward self-sabotage. It's the devil on your shoulder. In later chapters, Pressfield names it the power of the Ego. Ego is the part of you which bears forth Resistance. Which brings us to the next big idea.
2 - The Ego and the Self
In Pressfield's model, there are two opposing forces within you. The first is the Ego whose job it is to keep you alive. A very important task, no doubt.
The Ego's job is to take care of business in the material world.
The Ego believes that death is real, time and space are real, it's every man for himself, life is about self-preservation, and there is no God.
The Ego wants you to believe in fundamentalism. The individual who embraces fundamentalism cannot stand freedom. They imagine the glory of the past, and try to get "back to the good old times". The fundamentalist spends his creative energy defining and shaping and making attributions to Satan. They are so concerned with who is the enemy. They divide into factions of 'us vs them'. They fantasize about all the wrongs in the world, and about all the evil thoughts that their enemies must surely be thinking.
The Ego criticizes, doubts, and fears. It rationalizes -
Resistance presents us with a series of plausible, rational justifications for why we shouldn't do our work. What's particularly insidious about the rationalizations that Resistance presents to us is that a lot of them are true. They're legitimate.
You might actually have responsibilities. Circumstance might actually be bad right now. Your wife might need you, and the company might actually need extra hours of your time. But you can still find and make time for your important work. Resistance leaves that part out. I have certainly been guilty of letting Resistance hold me back with rationalizations.
The Ego produces Resistance and attacks the awakening artist... The enemy of the artist is the small-time Ego, which begets Resistance, which is the dragon that guards the gold.
I'm thinking about something I've heard Brian Johnson repeat many times. That the first rule of being a hero is that it's supposed to be hard. He likes to say "we're battling dragons, not sidestepping lizards". No pressure, no diamonds. We have to be prepared to do the hard work to actualize ourselves. I think Pressfield would agree with him. The hero's journey is a little like what Pressfield called Professionalism.
Thinking about this big idea reminds me that I still need to read Ryan Holiday's "Ego is the Enemy". I assume it will be along these lines. My reading list is growing faster than I can read.
Now we're moving on from Ego and turning our attention now to the Self. The Self is the yin to the Ego's yang. The Self has the following beliefs (which run contrary to the Ego's beliefs stated at the beginning of this section): death is an illusion, time and space are illusions, all beings are one, the supreme emotion is love, and God is all there is.
The margins of the Self touch upon the Divine Ground. Meaning the Mystery, the Void, the source of Infinite Wisdom and Consciousness.
The Self is the part of you that can turn pro. Which brings us to the next big idea.
3 - Turning Pro
The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work.
Turning pro is the thing that Resistance hates the most. Turning pro can happen in an instant. It's a decision. When Michaelangelo scuplted David, he didn't choose to portray David's moment of victory over Goliath. He chose to portray David in the moment of decision, when the outcome was unclear. When David stepped up heroically to serve, displaying a willingness to act despite fear. The courage to commit to a course of action that is potentially fatal. In the lingo of this book, it was the moment David turned pro.
There's no mystery to turning pro. It's a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our mind to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.
When you turn pro, you have your dojo moment (as Brian Johnson likes to say). Imagine you're entering a dojo for the first time. The way you approach the experience will be vastly different depending on your intention. If you're just there for entertainment, you'll follow along and have a bit of fun. But if you're going for mastery, you'll listen eagerly and absorb every bit of wisdom from the master. You'll practice in your off-time. You'll spend every minute in the dojo with focused intention.
All of us are pros in one area: our jobs.We get a paycheck. We work for money. We are professionals.Now: are there principles we can take from what we're already successfully doing in our workaday life and apply to our artistic aspirations? What exactly are the qualities that define us as 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.2. We show up no matter what. In sickness and in health, come hell or high water, we stagger in to the factory. We might do it only so as not to let down our co-workers, or for other, less noble reasons. But we do it. We show up no matter what.3. We stay on the job all day. Our minds may wander, but our bodies remain at the wheel. We pick up the phone when it rings, we assist the customer when he seeks our help. We don't go home till the whistle blows.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.5. The stakes for us are high and real. This is about survival, feeding our families, educating our children. It's about eating.6. We accept renumeration for our labor. We're not here for fun. We work for money.7. 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 artisitic 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. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.8. We master the technique of our jobs.9. We have a sense of humor about our jobs.10. We receive praise or blame in the real world.
The things we do as part of being an adult with a job make us a professional at whatever we do. We can carry forward the same concepts when thinking about turning pro at our creative endeavors and our calling.
Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. "I write only when inspiration strikes", he replied. "Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.
This quote stuck out to me. It means that inspiration comes to those who sit down and do the work. The professional knows that she must overcome Resistance in order to create the conditions conducive to heaven's aid.
Conclusion
This book is inspiring. It presents a model of thinking about your self and your journey. Pressfield considers the creative individual as a combination of Ego and Self. The Ego produces Resistance, which will repel you from self-actualizing and becoming what you're meant to be. It's a force in direct opposition to your best and highest Self.
The Self is the one in charge. It's the unique individual with certain uniqueness and God-given purpose. Our job is to find our purpose and then once identified, to pursue it in service to something bigger than ourselves. While we produce our own self-sabotage called Resistance, there are equal and opposite forces aligned with our best Self. The forces of heaven. The angels and the Muses will twist the fabric of reality, time and space ot assist your creative efforts if they are pleasing to the Muse. All you need to do is "try your best" and get past Resistance on a consistent basis.
Many parts of this book reminded me of another book I read in the same week (big surprise). That one was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. His four agreements that you need to make with yourself for a better life are: always be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally, don't make assumptions, and always do your best. I believe Pressfield touched on at least three of these (and maybe all four) in his description of the professional.
I want to linger a moment on 'always do your best'. This shows up as the way to attract the aid of heaven here. In Ruiz book, it's described as a way to live with satisfaction in yourself. As long as you tried your best, you have no basis for self-blame. You can rest assured that win or lose, you did what you could.
Another place I encountered this aphorism is in the Cub Scouts motto, "Do your best". I think this is a grand thing to teach your kids. There is no substitute for putting in the work. I'm also reminded of Maslow's "What one can be, one must be".
After reading this book, I'm feeling inspired to investigate more about the Muses, and how they have specific Muses which are said to help specific types of creators. I wonder if there's a Muse for engineering. Or one for entrepreneurial activity. Or one for writing code.
There's one last quote I want to leave here. I believe if you boil it down to the shortest description, you get this.
Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed. He replied: "Contempt for death"
Check out Brian Johnson's notes on The War of Art here: https://www.heroic.us/pn/the-war-of-art-steven-pressfield
About the Author
From the back of the book...
Steven Pressfield is the author of Gates of Fire, Tides of War, The Afghan Campaign, The Profession, The Warrior Ethos and Turning Pro, among others. He is a former Marine. In 2003, he was made an honorary citizen by the city of Sparta in Greece.
