Resistance
I’m reading The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. He talks of Resistance (with a capital R) like it’s something to be reckoned with. You don’t have to be a creative artist to know what he’s talking about. Resistance somehow wheedles its way into everyone’s life, at some time or another.
I’m sharing a section I found applicable to me, and I thought, hmmm, you might enjoy it also.
When I began this book, Resistance almost beat me. This is the form it took. It told me (the voice in my head) that I was a writer of fiction, not nonfiction, and that I shouldn’t be exposing these concepts of Resistance literally and overtly; rather, I should incorporate them metaphorically into a novel. That’s a pretty damn subtle and convincing argument. The rationalization Resistance presented me with was that I should write, say, a war piece in which the principles of Resistance were expressed as the fear a warrior feels.
Resistance also told me I shouldn’t seek to instruct, or put myself forward as a purveyor of wisdom; that this was vain, egotistical, possibly even corrupt, and that it would work harm to me in the end. That scared me. It made a lot of sense.
What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead. I was developing symptoms. As soon as I sat down and began, I was okay.
What is Resistance saying to you? What do you want to do, but you’re afraid to do? How can you silence Resistance, or is it time to put the ol’ ear plugs in and go for it?
[Post image: Chainmail by vclare on stock.xchng]
Lindsey
I read this book also & think of it often … Love the passage you share. xo