Epistemology: An Anthology

Creating soap opera in our lives is a symptom of 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?

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 amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps.

This book is amazing in terms of giving you metaphors and frameworks for the creative life. It's also full of little pieces of wisdom--in short: if this is something you are meant to do, then shut up and go do it.

Kind of garbage with a few nuggets. I knew not long in this was written by a white boomer. It felt pretty sexist too and had religious overtones. Ew, yawn.

While there is some inspiration to be found in the story of creativity as a war against resistance I found it to be a bit overblown in its telling.

I’m writing this review after reading this book for the second time. And despite the impact it had on me after my first reading, I’m now feeling a bit like the man who lost his glasses and then grew accustomed to being half blind.

It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.

Pressfield writes from a place of deep wisdom and experience. He knows about this business of creativity because he has lived in the trenches of battle.

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.

Why does Resistance yield to our turning pro? Because Resistance is a bully. Resistance has no strength of its own; its power derives entirely from our fear of it. A bully will back down before the runtiest twerp who stands his ground.

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.