It’s All About Resistance
We’ve been talking in the past few posts about self-reliance, self-sufficiency, the mindset of the entrepreneur and the professional.
We’ve said to the aspiring writer or artist, “Brother, Sister, beyond talent and imagination, you’ve got to be mentally tough to succeed in these hardcore fields.”
Why? What’s the reason we have to be tough? Whom are we fighting? Who’s the enemy?
In The War of Art, I call it “Resistance.” With a capital-R.
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 your life 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 afflicts everyone, but it takes its greatest toll on the artist.
Why? Because the artist is alone. She has no coach, no mentor, no Gandolf or Merlin or Obi-wan Kenobi. She’s alone inside her own skull … and rattling around inside that unholy hemisphere is the demonic voice of her own Resistance. Fear. Self-doubt. Distraction. Procrastination. Laziness. Arrogance, Perfectionism. Complacency.
You and I as artists have to acquire—however and by whatever means —the same degree of mental toughness as test pilots and solo mountaineers and the greatest adventurers exploring the inner landscape of the human soul.
Yes, the artist faces competitors and rivals in the flesh. But her greatest foe resides inside her own head.
She is her own worst enemy.
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