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Like A Magnetized Needle Floating On A Surface Of Oil, Resistance Will Unfailingly Point To True North--meaning That Calling Or Action It Most Wants To Stop Us From Doing. We Can Use This. We Can Use It As A Compass. We Can Navigate By Resistance, Letting It Guide Us To That Calling Or Action That We Must Follow Before All Others. Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The More Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

-Steven Pressfield

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Like A Magnetized Needle

Steven Pressfield

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Like A Magnetized Needle Floating On A Surface Of Oil, Resistance Will Unfailingly Point To True North--meaning That Calling Or Action It Most Wants To Stop Us From Doing. We Can Use This. We Can Use It As A Compass. We Can Navigate By Resistance, Letting It Guide Us To That Calling Or Action That We Must Follow Before All Others. Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The More Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

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The More Fear We Feel About A Specific Enterprise, The More Certain We Can Be That That Enterprise Is Important To Us And To The Growth Of Our Soul.

Slay That Dragon Once, And He Will Never Have Power Over You Again.

Always Attack. Even In Defense, Attack. The Attacking Arm Possesses The Initiative And Thus Commands The Action. To Attack Makes Men Brave; To Defend Makes Them Timorous.

The Professional Tackles The Project That Will Make Him Stretch. He Takes On The Assignment That Will Bear Him Into Uncharted Waters, Compel Him To Explore Unconscious Parts Of Himself. Is He Scared? Hell, Yes. He's Petrified.

Uncharted Waters

The Artist Committing Himself To His Calling Has Volunteered For Hell, Whether He Knows It Or Not. He Will Be Dining For The Duration On A Diet Of Isolation, Rejection, Self-doubt, Despair, Ridicule, Contempt, And Humiliation.

The Amateur Has A Long List Of Fears. Near The Top Are Two: Solitude And Silence. The Amateur Fears Solitude And Silence Because She Needs To Avoid, At All Costs, The Voice Inside Her Head That Would Point Her Toward Her Calling And Her Destiny. So She Seeks Distraction. The Amateur Prizes Shallowness And Shuns Depth. The Culture Of Twitter And Facebook Is Paradise For The Amateur.

We’re All Pros Already. 1) We Show Up Every Day 2) We Show Up No Matter What 3) We Stay On The Job All Day 4) We Are Committed Over The Long Haul 5) The Stakes For Us Are High And Real 6) We Accept Remuneration For Our Labor 7) We Do Not Overidentify With Our Jobs 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 Song We’re Composing Already Exists In Potential. Our Work Is To Find It.

Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.

Nothing Is As Empowering As Real-world Validation, Even If It's For Failure.

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When You're A Working Writer, Sooner Or Later Friends And Acquaintances Will Get You Alone And Confide That They, Too, Have A Book In Them.

Sooner Or Later

When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us... Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

Playing The Game For Money Produces The Proper Professional Attitude. It Inculcates The Lunch-pail State Of Mind That Shows Up For Work Despite Rain Or Snow Or Dark Of Night And Slugs It Out Day After Day.

Right Now With Blogs And The Flood Of Internet Access, A Multitude Of Aspiring Writers Think They're Ready For Prime Time. They're Not. Be Great. Read. Write. Bust Your Ass. Learn And Find Your Voice. As Hard As You Think It Is, It's A Hundred Times Harder.

Sometimes, When We're Terrified Of Embracing Our True Calling, We'll Pursue A Shadow Calling Instead. That Shadow Career Is A Metaphor For Our Real Career. Its Shape Is Similar, Its Contours Feel Tantalizingly The Same. But A Shadow Career Entails No Real Risk. If We Fail At A Shadow Career, The Consequences Are Meaningless To Us. Are You Pursuing A Shadow Career?

Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.

A Work-in-progress Generates Its Own Energy Field. You, The Artist Or Entrepreneur, Are Pouring Love Into The Work; You Are Suffusing It With Passion And Intention And Hope.

The Professional Is Acutely Aware Of The Intangibles That Go Into Inspiration. Out Of Respect For Them, She Lets Them Work. She Grants Them Their Sphere While She Concentrates On Hers.

No Industry Is Immune And No Occupation Is Safe. All Of Us Need To Begin To Think In Terms Of Our Own Inner Strengths, Our Resilience And Resourcefulness, Our Capacity To Adapt And To Rely Upon Ourselves And Our Families.

Resistance Will Tell You Anything To Keep You From Doing Your Work.

Artists Are Modest. They Know They're Not Doing The Work; They're Just Taking Dictation.

The Difference Between An Amateur And A Professional Is In Their Habits. An Amateur Has Amateur Habits. A Professional Has Professional Habits. We Can Never Free Ourselves From Habit. But We Can Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones.

The Essence Of Professionalism Is The Focus Upon The Work And Its Demands, While We Are Doing It, To The Exclusion Of All Else.

Writers Think In Metaphors. Editors Work In Metaphors. A Great Reader Reads In Metaphors.

Resistance Is Implacable, Intractable, Indefatigable.

In The Hierarchy, The Artist Faces Outward. Meeting Someone New He Asks Himself, What Can This Person Do For Me? How Can This Person Advance My Standing? In The Hierarchy, The Artist Looks Up And Looks Down. The One Place He Can't Look Is That Place He Must: Within.

Meeting Someone

The Problem I've Always Discovered In My Own Work When This Kind Of Thing Happens When You Hit The Wall Is There's Almost Always A Reason. You've Almost Always Made A Mistake In The Initial Conception Of The Project. You Misapprehended Something Or You Thought Something Would Work And Now You're Three Quarters On The Way Through And You See That It Doesn't Work.

Don't Cheat The World Of Your Contribution. Give It What You've Got.

Do We Have To Stare Death In The Face To Make Us Stand Up And Confront Resistance?

Turning Pro Is A Mindset. If We Are Struggling With Fear, Self-sabotage, Procrastination, Self-doubt, Etc., The Problem Is, We’re Thinking Like Amateurs. Amateurs Don’t Show Up. Amateurs Crap Out. Amateurs Let Adversity Defeat Them. The Pro Thinks Differently. He Shows Up, He Does His Work, He Keeps On Truckin’, No Matter What.

Procrastination

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There's A Phrase You Hear In Israel: "we're Not Jews, We're Israelis." What That Means Is That The Stereotype We're Familiar With Here In The States Of The Diaspora Jew, I.e. Jews In America Or Europe Or Russia, Etc. Does Not Fit At All With The Reality Of The Homegrown "sabras" Of Israel.

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Procrastination

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Procrastination

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...she (the Artist, The Writer) Doesn't Wait For Inspiration, She Acts In The Anticipation Of Its Apparition.

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In Other Words, Any Act That Rejects Immediate Gratification In Favor Of Long-term Grown, Health, Or Integrity. Or, Expressed Another Way, Any Act That Derives From Our High Nature Instead Of Our Lower. Any Of These Will Elicit Resistance.

You Are A Writer When You Tell Yourself You Are. No One Else's Opinion Matters. Screw Them. You Are When You Say You Are.

Go Tell The Spartans, Stranger Passing By, That Here Obedient To Their Laws We Lie.

It’s Better To Be In The Arena, Getting Stomped By The Bull, Than To Be Up In The Stands Or Out In The Parking Lot.

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These Scars On My Body,” Alexander Declared, “were Got For You, My Brothers. Every Wound, As You See, Is In The Front. Let That Man Stand Forth From Your Ranks Who Has Bled More Than I, Or Endured More Than I For Your Sake. Show Him To Me, And I Will Yield To Your Weariness And Go Home.” Not A Man Came Forward. Instead, A Great Cheer Arose From The Army. The Men Begged Their King To Forgive Them For Their Want Of Spirit And Pleaded With Him Only To Lead Them Forward.

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 Not A Peripheral Opponent. Resistance Arises From Within. It Is Self-generated And Self-perpetuated. Resistance Is The Enemy Within.

The 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.

If You're Are Paralyzed With Fear It's A Good Sign. It Shows You What You Have To Do.

Resistance By Definition Is Self-sabotage.

To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls.

Writers Think In Metaphors. Editors Work In Metaphors. A Great Reader Reads In Metaphors. All Are Continually Asking, "what Does This Represent? What Does It Stand For?" They Are Trying To Take Everything One Level Deeper. When They Get To That Level, They Will Try To Go Deeper Again.

If You Find Yourself Asking Yourself (and Your Friends), "am I Really A Writer? Am I Really An Artist?" Chances Are You Are. The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.

The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying.

Positive Thinking

You Don't Need To Take A Course Or Buy A Product. All You Have To Do Is Change Your Mind.

But Nothing Really Clicked For Me Until I Gave Up Completely On Hitting The Overlap And Just Did What I Loved, Even When I Thought Nobody Else In The World Would Be Interested.

You And I May Only Be Mortals, With All The Foolishness And Fallibility That That State Implies, But We're Mortals Made In The Image Of Heaven. The Gods Can't Do Their Work Without Us. So Let's Be Bold, In Their Cause And In Our Own. It's Our Job, We Humans, To Make Manifest That Which Is Unmanifest-and To Raise Into Consciousness, In This Material Dimension, That Which Had Been Known Before Only In Heaven.

Don't Prepare. Begin. Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation. The Enemy Is Resistance, Our Chattering Brain Producing Excuses. Start Before You Are Ready.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt.

When We're Living As Amateurs, We're Running Away From Our Calling - Meaning Our Work, Our Destiny, The Obligation To Become Our Truest And Highest Selves.

A Horse Must Be A Bit Mad To Be A Good Cavalry Mount, And Its Rider Must Be Completely So.

Resistance Really Takes The Shape, For Me, In Voices In My Head Telling Me Why I Can't Do Something Or Why I Should Put It Off For Another Day, Procrastinate For Another Day.

If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Write A Symphony Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children. You Hurt Me. You Hurt The Planet.

We Show Up. We Do Our Best. Good Things Happen.

Do I Really Believe That My Work Is Crucial To The Planet's Survival? Of Course Not. But It's As Important To Me As Catching That Mouse Is To The Hawk Circling Outside My Window. He's Hungry. He Needs A Kill. So Do I.

Resistance Is Greatest Just Before The Finish Line.

Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

That’s Why An Artist Must Be A Warrior And, Like All Warriors, Artists Over Time Acquire Modesty And Humility. They May, Some Of Them, Conduct Themselves Flamboyantly In Public. But Alone With The Work They Are Chaste And Humble. They Know They Are Not The Source Of The Creations They Bring Into Being. They Only Facilitate. They Carry. They Are The Willing And Skilled Instruments Of The Gods And Goddesses They Serve.

Persian Envoy "our Arrows Will Black Out The Sun..." Dienekes Of The Spartans.."good, Then We'll Fight In The Shade.

The Professional Arms Himself With Patience, Not Only To Give The Stars Time To Align In His Career, But To Keep Himself From Flaming Out In Each Individual Work.

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!'

Creative Work Is Not A Selfish Act Or A Bid For Attention On The Part Of The Actor. It's A Gift To The World And Every Being In It. Don't Cheat Us Of Your Contribution. Give Us What You've Got.

To Labor In The Arts For Any Reason Other Than Love Is Prostitution.

Contempt For Failure Is Our Cardinal Virtue.

I'm Superstitious. I Keep Mum While I'm Working On Something.

Are You Paralyzed With Fear? That’s A Good Sign. Fear Is Good. Like Self-doubt, Fear Is An Indicator. Fear Tells Us What We Have To Do. Remember One Rule Of Thumb: The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It.

The Amateur Tweets. The Pro Works.

I Love Memoirs, Particularly Obscure Ones Because The Writer Is Usually A Regular Guy Just Telling What Happened To Him And To His Friends. What These Tales Lack In Artfulness They Make Up For In Passion And Authenticity. For A Writer Of Fiction, They Are Solid Gold. I Have Stolen So Much From Memoirs It's Ridiculous.

The Opposite Of Fear," Dienekes Said, "is Love.

The Artist And The Fundamentalist Both Confront The Same Issue, The Mystery Of Their Existence As Individuals.

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.

Concerning All Acts Of Initiative There Is One Elementary Truth, The Ignorance Of Which Kills Countless Ideas And Splendid Plans: That The Moment One Definitely Commits Oneself, Then Providence Moves Too.

I Wrote In The War Of Art That I Could Divide My Life Neatly Into Two Parts: Before Turning Pro And After. After Is Better.

The Gnostics Believed That Exile Was The Essential Condition Of Man. Do You Agree? I Do. The Artist And The Addict Both Wrestle With This Experience Of Exile. They Share An Acute, Even Excruciating Sensitivity To The State Of Separation And Isolation, And Both Actively Seek A Way To Overcome It, To Transcend It, Or At Least To Make The Pain Go Away. What Is The Pain Of Being Human? It's The Condition Of Being Suspended Between Two Worlds And Being Unable To Fully Enter Into Either.

One Thing I've Found In Any Project Is Almost Universally About Three Quarters Of The Way Through - Or Maybe A Little Father, Maybe Seventh Eighths On The Way Through - Any Project Will Explode.

When We Turn Pro We Stop Running From Our Fears. We Turn Around And Face Them.

Many Pedestrians Have Been Maimed Or Killed At The Intersection Of Resistance And Commerce.

Courage Is Inseparable From Love And Leads To What May Arguably Be The Noblest Of All Warrior Virtues: Selflessness.

Fear Is Good. Like Self-doubt, Fear Is An Indicator. Fear Tells Us What We Have To Do. Remember Our Rule Of Thumb: The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It. Resistance Is Experienced As Fear; The Degree Of Fear Equates To The Strength Of Resistance. Therefore The More Fear We Feel About A Specific Enterprise, The More Certain We Can Be That That Enterprise Is Important To Us And To The Growth Of Our Soul. That's Why We Feel So Much Resistance. If It Meant Nothing To Us, There'd Be No Resistance.

The Artist Must Be Like That Marine. He Has To Know How To Be Miserable. He Has To Love Being Miserable. He Has To Take Pride In Being More Miserable Than Any Soldier Or Swabbie Or Jet Jockey. Because This Is War, Baby. And War Is Hell.

A Cavalryman's Horse Should Be Smarter Than He Is. But The Horse Must Never Be Alowed To Know This.

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be.

Its [resistance] Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us From Doing Our Work.

F@*# Self-doubt. I Despise It. I Hold It In Contempt, Along With The Hell-spawned Ooze-pit Of Resistance From Which It Crawled. I Will Never Back Off. I Will Never Give The Work Anything Less Than 100%. If I Go Down In Flames, So Be It. I'll Be Back.

We Will Have To Choose Between The Life We Want For Our Future And The Life We Have Left Behind.

The Principle Of Priority States (a) You Must Know The Difference Between What Is Urgent And What Is Important, And (b) You Must Do What’s Important First.

When We Make Our Art A Practice, When We Make Our Workspace Sacred And Enter It Daily With Respect And High Intention, Then We Elevate Our Actions (even If They're Taking Place Within The Profane Arena Of Commerce) Beyond Ego And Above Gimme-gimme Ambition.

For What Can Be More Noble Than To Slay Oneself? Not Literally. Not With A Blade In The Guts. But To Extinguish The Selfish Self Within, That Part Which Looks Only To Its Own Preservation, To Save Its Own Skin. That, I Saw, Was The Victory You Spartans Had Gained Over Yourselves. That Was The Glue. It Was What You Had Learned And It Made Me Stay, To Learn It Too.

The Great Thing About Writing About The Ancient Spartans Or Athenians Is That So Much Knowledge Is No Longer Extant That No One, Except Maybe A Cambridge Or Oxford Don, Can Call You Out And Prove You Wrong.

If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children, You Hurt Me, You Hurt The Planet. You Shame The Angels Who Watch Over You And You Spite God Almighty, Who Created You And Only You With Your Unique Gifts, For The Sole Purpose Of Nudging The Human Race One Millimeter Further Along Its Path Back To God.

The Professional Loves Her Work. She Is Invested In It Wholeheartedly. But She Does Not Forget That The Work Is Not Her.

It’s Not The Writing Part That’s Hard. What’s Hard Is Sitting Down To Write.

Our Greatest Battle Is To Become Ourselves, In The Face Of Adversity.

Next Morning I Went Over To Paul’s For Coffee And Told Him I Had Finished. “good For You,” He Said Without Looking Up. “start The Next One Today.

When We Are Succeeding - That Is, When We Have Begun To Overcome Our Self-doubt And Self-sabotage, When We Are Advancing In Our Craft And Evolving To A Higher Level - That's When Panic Strikes. When We Experience Panic, It Means That We're About To Cross A Threshold. We're Poised On The Doorstep Of A Higher Plane.

As Artists And Professionals, It Is Our Obligation To Enact Our Own Internal Revolution, A Private Insurrection Inside Our Own Skulls. In This Uprising We Free Ourselves From The Tyranny Of Consumer Culture.

Cousin, The Days Of Gods And Heroes Are Over." "not To Me. Not To Them.

We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are. More Than Our Parents/children/teachers Think We Are. We Fear That We Actually Possess The Talent That Our Still, Small Voice Tells Us. That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perseverance, The Capacity. We Fear That We Truly Can Steer Our Ship, Plant Our Flag, Reach Our Promised Land. We Fear This Because, If It’s True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know. We Pass Through A Membrane. We Become Monsters And Monstrous.

Anything That Draws Attention To Ourselves Through Pain-free Or Artificial Means Is A Manifestation Of Resistance.

The Artist And The Mother Are Vehicles, Not Originators. They Don't Create The New Life, They Only Bear It. This Is Why Birth Is Such A Humbling Experience. The New Mom Weeps In Awe At The Little Miracle In Her Arms. She Knows It Came Out Of Her But Not From Her, Through Her But Not Of Her.

Reading Is Alive And Well And Will Get More Alive And More Well. Reading On Tablets (or Whatever The Next Tech Device Will Be) Is The Future - And The Future Is Now.

Figure Out What Scares You The Most And Do That First.

Long-term, We Must Begin To Build Our Internal Strengths. It Isn't Just Skills Like Computer Technology. It's The Old-fashioned Basics Of Self-reliance, Self-motivation, Self-reinforcement, Self-discipline, Self-command.

Evolution Has Programmed Us To Feel Rejection In Our Guts. This Is How The Tribe Inforced Obedience, By Wielding The Threat Of Expulsion. Fear Of Rejection Isn't Just Psychological; It's Biological. It's In Our Cells.

The Athlete Knows The Day Will Never Come When He Wakes Up Pain-free. He Has To Play Hurt.

Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It.

Making A Judgment, Taking A Stand And Then Acting Against An Injustice Or Acting To Support Excellence Is The Stuff Of The Everyman Hero. If You Are An Aspiring Artist And You Wish To Avoid “judgments,” You'll Find That You Have Nothing To Say.

I Believe In Previous Lives And The Muse—and That Books And Music Exist Before They Are Written And That They Are Propelled Into Material Being By Their Own Imperative To Be Born, Via The Offices Of Those Willing Servants Of Discipline, Imagination And Inspiration Whom We Call Artists.

When We Conquer Our Fears, We Discover A Boundless, Bottomless, Inexhaustible Well Of Passion.

A Child Has No Trouble Believing The Unbelievable, Nor Does The Genius Or The Madman. It’s Only You And I, With Our Big Brains And Our Tiny Hearts, Who Doubt And Overthink And Hesitate.

When A Novelist Or Screenwriter Is Looking For A Subject, The Element He's Seeking Is Conflict. Conflict Makes Drama. Conflict Produces Great Characters And Memorable Scenes. So War Is A Natural Topic.

A Contemporary Or Near-future Book Is Much Harder Because You Can't Fake The Facts. There Are People Alive Who Know Much More Than You Do About The Subject. You Have To Really Have Your Research Together - And Of Course No One Can Know Everything About A Topic.

I Had Always Been An Enthusiastic Reader Of Stuff About Ancient Greece. I Would Read Herodotus And Thucydides Just For Fun.

The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.

Someone Once Asked Somerset Maughham 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.

The Last Thing We Want Is To Remain As We Are.

The Opposite Of Fear Is Love - Love Of The Challenge, Love Of The Work, The Pure Joyous Passion To Take A Shot At Our Dream And See If We Can Pull It Off.

We Must Do Our Work For Its Own Sake, Not For Fortune Or Attention Or Applause.

No Matter How Great A Writer, Artist, Or Entrepreneur, He Is A Mortal, He Is Fallible. He Is Not Proof Against Resistance. He Will Drop The Ball; He Will Crash. That’s Why They Call It Rewriting.

We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are... That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perserverance, The Capacity... Because, If It's True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know.

Resistance In My Experience Always Kicks In When You're Trying To Move From A Lower Level To A Higher Level Or To Identify With A Braver Part Of Yourself Or Your Higher Nature. So It's That Negative Repelling Force. It's Kind Of The Dragon That We Have To Slay Every Day If We're Artists Or Entrepreneurs.

The Spartans Say That Any Army May Win While It Still Has Legs Under It; The Real Test Comes When All Strength Is Fled And The Men Must Produce Victory On Will Alone.

Socrates Demonstrated Long Ago, That The Truly Free Individual Is Free Only To The Extent Of His Own Self-mastery.

Don't Prepare, Do. Don't Let Resistance Sucker You Into Wasting Months On Background, Foundation, Planning. All That Can Come Later.

The Amateur Believes He Must First Overcome His Fear; Then He Can Do His Work. The Professional Knows That Fear Can Never Be Overcome. He Knows There Is No Such Thing As A Fearless Warrior Or A Dread-free Artist.

Most Of Us Have Two Lives. The Life We Live, And The Unlived Life Within Us. Between The Two Stands Resistance.

Research Can Become Resistance. We Want To Work, Not Prepare To Work.

Of Any Activity You Do, Ask Yourself: If I Were The Last Person On Earth, Would I Still Do It?

Like A Magnetized Needle Floating On A Surface Of Oil, Resistance Will Unfailingly Point To True North--meaning That Calling Or Action It Most Wants To Stop Us From Doing. We Can Use This. We Can Use It As A Compass. We Can Navigate By Resistance, Letting It Guide Us To That Calling Or Action That We Must Follow Before All Others. Rule Of Thumb: The More Important A Call Or Action Is To Our Soul's Evolution, The More Resistance We Will Feel Toward Pursuing It.

When We Sit Down To Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.

The Highest Treason A Crab Can Commit Is To Make A Leap For The Rim Of The Bucket.

The Working Artist Will Not Tolerate Trouble In Her Life Because She Knows Trouble Prevents Her From Doing Her Work. The Working Artist Banishes From Her World All Sources Of Trouble. She Harnesses The Urge For Trouble And Transforms It In Her Work.

The Last Element In Drama Is High Stakes. War, Of Course, Is Life And Death - Survival, Not Only For The Story's Characters, But Often For The Society Itself. That's Why I'm Drawn To Stories That Are Built Around Wars, Even If They're Not Technically "war Stories."

A Writer Writes With His Genius; An Artist Paints With Hers; Everyone Who Creates Operates From This Sacramental Center.

What Force Is Yanking At Our Sleeves? This Process Of Self-revision And Self-correction Is So Common We Don't Even Notice. But It's A Miracle.

In My Experience, Depth Of Work Consists Of Two Components. The First Is Recklessness; The Second Is Discipline. Dionysian; Apollonian. Passion;reason.

Ambition, I Have Come To Believe, Is The Most Primal And Sacred And Fundament Of Our Being. To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls. Not To Act Upon That Ambition Is To Turn Our Backs On Ourselves And On The Reason For Our Existence.

Look In Your Own Heart. Unless I'm Crazy, Right Now A Still Small Voice Is Piping Up, Telling You As It Has Ten Thousand Times, The Calling That Is Yours And Yours Alone. You Know It. No One Has To Tell You. And Unless I'm Crazy, You're No Closer To Taking Action On It Than You Were Yesterday Or Will Be Tomorrow. You Think Resistance Isn't Real? Resistance Will Bury You.

The Hero Wanders, The Hero Suffers, The Hero Returns. You Are That Hero.

I Am Going To Write My Symphony; I'm Just Going To Start Tomorrow.

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.

Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation; It’s Not The Difficulty Of The Project Or The State Of The Marketplace Or The Emptiness Of Our Bank Account. The Enemy Is Our Chattering Brain, Which, If We Give It So Much As A Nanosecond, Will Start Producing Excuses, Alibis, Transparent Self-justifications And A Million Reasons Why We Can’t/shouldn’t/won’t Do What We Know We Need To Do.

You Have Never Tasted Freedom, Friend, Or You Would Know It Is Purchased Not With Gold, But Steel.

Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt. We Experince It As An Energy Field Radiating From A Work-in-potential... Its Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us, Prevent Us From Doing Our Work.

As Resistance Works To Keep Us From Becoming Who We Were Born To Be, Equal And Opposite Powers Are Counterpoised Against It. These Are Our Allies And Angels.

The Professional Learns To Recognize Envy-driven Criticism And To Take It For What It Is: The Supreme Compliment. The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.

The More You Love Your Art/ Calling/ Enterprise, The More Important Its Accomplishment To The Evolution Of Your Soul, The More You Will Fear It And The More Resistance You Will Experience Facing It.

When A Warrior Fights Not For Himself, But For His Brothers, When His Most Passionately Sought Goal Is Neither Glory Nor His Own Life's Preservation, But To Spend His Substance For Them, His Comrades, Not To Abandon Them, Not To Prove Unworthy Of Them, Then His Heart Truly Has Achieved Contempt For Death, And With That He Transcends Himself And His Actions Touch The Sublime. That Is Why The True Warrior Cannot Speak Of Battle Save To His Brothers Who Have Been There With Him. The Truth Is Too Holy, Too Sacred, For Words." -suicide (gates Of Fire)

Be Too Dumb To Quit And Too Stubborn To Back Off.

The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It.

Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Warrior And The Artist Live By The Same Code Of Necessity, Which Dictates That The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.

The Professional Respects His Craft. He Does Not Consider Himself Superior To It. He Recognizes The Contributions Of Those Who Have Gone Before Him. He Apprentices Himself To Them.

Those Who Will Not Govern Themselves Are Condemned To Find Masters To Govern Over Them.

As All Born Teachers, He Was Primarily A Student.

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.

Thr Principle Of Organization Is Built Into Nature. Chaos Itself Is Self-organizing. Out Of Primordial Disorder, Stars Find Their Orbit; Rivers Make Their Way To The Sea.

It Is One Thing To Study War And Another To Live The Warrior's Life.

You Know, Hitler Wanted To Be An Artist. At Eighteen He Took His Inheritance, Seven Hundred Kronen, And Moved To Vienna To Live And Study... 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.

It's One Thing To Lie To Ourselves. It's Another Thing To Believe It.

When We Sit Down Day After Day And Keep Grinding, Something Mysterious Starts To Happen... Unseen Forces Enlist In Our Cause; Serendipity Reinforces Our Purpose.

Art Is A War - Between Ourselves And The Forces Of Self-sabotage That Would Stop Us From Doing Our Work. The Artist Is A Warrior.

The Professional, Though He Accepts Money, Does His Work Out Of Love. He Has To Love It. Otherwise He Wouldn’t Devote His Life To It Of His Own Free Will.

He Who Whets His Steel, Whets His Courage

I Was Keenly Conscious Of The Comrades-in-arms Who Had Fallen With Me. A Bond Surpassing By A Hundredfold That Which I Had Known In Life Bound Me To Them. I Felt A Sense Of Inexpressible Relief And Realized That I Had Feared, More Than Death, Separation From Them. I Apprehended That Excruciating War Survivor's Torment, The Sense Of Isolation And Self-betrayal Experienced By Those Who Had Elected To Cling Yet To Breath When Their Comrades Had Let Loose Their Grip.

There Is An Enemy. There Is An Intelligent, Active, Malign Force Working Against Us. Step One Is To Recognize This. This Recognition Alone Is Enormously Powerful. It Saved My Life, And It Will Save Yours.

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Joanna Noelle Levesque

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