The War of Art
blog
I read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art last night, a short sharp shock of a book that I urge you all to get. Pressfield is a novelist and screenwriter, best known for The Legend of Bagger Vance, which transposes the Bhagvad-Gita into the modern American golf novel. The War of Art is a self-help book that details strategies for overcoming Resistance, the all-encompassing fear that prevents people from fulfilling their potential or doing anything challenging.
Resistance is the voice in your head that tells you to tidy your desk rather than write. Resistance is the feeling of depression you get when you are slighted. Resistance is smoking, drinking, drug-taking, procrastination, television; anything that you use to defer or distract. Resistance takes on many guises, all of which Pressfield describes with the passionate intensity of a man who battles them on a daily basis.
The book is split into three parts. The first describes the enemy, the second presents strategies to defeat the enemy, and the third offers advice on how to seduce the muses into providing you with inspiration. The key tip is to be humble, to be a craftsman absorbed in their own work rather than worried about what others think, to be present every day and to put in your hours rather than waiting for inspiration to strike.
The War of Art is a really good self-help book, one of few such books that forces you to confront yourself. So many times I have given into Resistance and rationalized my life away; Pressfield’s book is an armoury full of weapons to swat away these snickering little demons