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Your Life As Art
This book is about creating your life just as the artist creates a painting, a composer writes a symphony, or the poet writes a poem. Robert Fritz further develops his special insights that he introduced in his best selling book The Path of Least Resistance. In Your Life As Art, Fritz shows the relationship among the mechanics, the orientation, and the depth of the human spirit within the creative process, and how your life itself can be made like a work of art. Your Life As Art breaks new ground, shakes up the status quo, and, at once, is common sense and revolutionary insight that can change the way you understand the dynamics of your life-building process.
254 pages, Paperback
First published December 4, 2002
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283 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 1, 2020
"Do not spend any time trying to change your beliefs. Stop the self-mutilation. Instead, think in terms of what you want to create, not who you think you are."
April 12, 2021
Favorite excerpts:
“In my Path of Least Resistance books, I have illustrated this principle by a diagram of a person between two walls. The person has two different rubber bands connected to him that represents two different tension-resolution systems within the same structure. One rubber band is tied to the wall in front of him; the other to the wall behind him. Each rubber band is a separate system, but systems are connected to each other within the same unified structure.
In reality, sometimes you are closer to one wall, and sometimes you are closer to the other.
The wall in front of him has VISION written on it. The wall behind him is marked CONCEPT: You can’t have what you want.
As the person begins to move towards his vision, the rubber band in front of him relaxes. But the rubber band behind him is stretching tighter and tighter.
Within this structure, the dominant tension-resolution system is the contrast between having the result you want, and the concept that its not okay to have it. The longer you live with the result, the more tension builds. Your mind is trying to resolve the growing trepidation that the current situation produces. The structure strives to resolve the non-equilibrium.
The phrase The Path of Least Resistance refers to the principle in nature that energy moves where it is easier for it to go. Looking at this diagram, we can see that the place where it’s easiest to go within this structure is away from the situation of having the result. And that’s what we find in the oscillating pattern. Having achieved a result, the person is unable to keep it. There will be a reversal.
The structure has been in a state of pronounced non-equilibrium. But now it is restoring equilibrium. And remember, that is its goal. We could say that in producing this reversal, the structure is just doing its job.
--------------------
As the person moves away from the accomplishment of his vision, there is a new shift of dominance within the two competing tension-resolution systems. As reality moves away from the desired result, and the desire doesn’t go away, the new dominant tension is once again the contrast between the desired state and the actual state.
The actual goal may no longer be desired. But the type of goal may still be very much in play. The person may no longer want a relationship with the person they just divorced, but they may still want a loving relationship.
In fact, this type of pattern often is filled with irony. I have known people who, at the end of a cycle of oscillation with a relationship, swore off any new involvement. Usually a day after making this pronouncement, they met a new love interest that knocks them off their feet. The day after that, they are back in the pattern. – Pages 143-145
If you tried to create your life by managing your beliefs, you would create a conflict between the beliefs, on the one hand, and the mind’s unreasonable insistence on sanity, on the other. As you tell yourself that the bird is a swimming pool, your mind automatically rejects the idea. The inner thought process might be a little like this:
You: That thing that looks like a bird is really a swimming pool.
Your Mind: Bullxxxx.
You: It really is.
Your Mind: Bullxxxx.
You: When I look at it I can picture it as a swimming pool, and therefore it must be a…
Your Mind: Bullxxxx.
The more we try to impose beliefs on ourselves that are contradicted by the reality we observe, the more the mind will fight against it. – Pages 150-151
Eliminating Beliefs as a factor.
What is the difference between an oscillating structure and an advancing structure? CONCEPT.
When I first discovered macrostructural patterns in the early eighties, I began to experiment with trying to help people change their beliefs. The breakthrough discovery came when we experimented with a different notion. Instead of trying to alter the belief, we eliminate it as part of the structure.
The belief hasn’t changed. It just was no longer an element of the structure. The change of structure led to a change of structural tendencies. If the concept is no longer part of the structure, we only have two elements left: our desired state and our actual state. In other words, we are left with structural tension, a structure that can resolve and reach equilibrium when we accomplish our goals.
How is this done?
The answer is to see the creative process more accurately. Let’s think through why we create. When we create to make a creation, to have something we want to exist, to bring into being something we care enough about to create, there is no room for concepts.
What do your beliefs have to do with the facts that:
You want something
You are where you are in current reality, and
You are willing to take the necessary steps to bring it into being?
Answer – nothing. What do you have to believe to want what you want? Who do you have to be? What do you have to think about yourself? Your beliefs are irrelevant to the creative process. So instead of trying to change your beliefs, observe reality more accurately.
…The point is this: Do not spend any time trying to change your beliefs. Stop the self-manipulation. Instead, think in terms of what you want to create, not who you think you are. The question isn’t about you. It’s about what you want to create. Also, concepts cloud your ability to see reality more accurately. You need to see reality – the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful – as it is. – Pages 153-154
“We use concepts to guide ourselves through our world. They are like roadmaps, policies, rules, warnings, and controls. We feel more able to negotiate the world if we have a concept of how it all works. However, the more we rely on concepts, the less directly we embrace the world. We become less conscious of how reality truly is. We become a bit hypnotized by our concepts. We reexamine the world less and less. Concepts can lead to mindlessness because we assume we know what we might not actually know – we stop questioning and exploring.
Sometimes concepts begin with a real experience. But then, we crystallize the experience into a fixed idea. What was once real becomes artificial as concept replaces inquiry.
As we get older, we often take our experiences and turn them into concepts. As this happens, we live less and less in reality and more and more in our hypnotized mind. We view everything through the distorted lens of our past, and we can’t see aspects of reality that contradict our fixed view of the world.
…We have to learn to tell the difference between what we actually observe in reality, and the concepts we impose on reality. If we don’t, we may end up in oscillating structures that have profound impact on our ultimate success or failure in reaching our goals. It is critical to understand this insight if we are to create our life… - Pages 157-158
In Chapter 2 we talked about the extra-normal experiences that can happen when we are creating. Strange coincidences, magical and happy accidents, extraordinary events suddenly seem to help the cause. One of the most common of these miraculous developments is how people come into your life to join you in the creative process. Everyone who creates has many stories of the right person somehow showing up at just the right time, bringing with him or her just the piece that was needed to move the creation along. Many professional creators count on it after a while. They don’t know who it will be, how they will enter the picture, what role they will play, or how long they will be on the scene, but they know these right people will come at just the right time. And sure enough, they do. – Page 223
Let miracles happen to you. Allow for the possibility that there is more in play in the creative process and in life than meets the eye. But, realize that these miracles do not come from simply being passive and hoping something will happen. Miracles happen not by letting go but rather by broadening the creative process to include what you can control and what you can influence but cannot directly control. The phenomenon of synchronicity is not independent from your action, but it is an indirect outcome of your action. Had you not done your work, the miracle could not have been evoked. If you set your creative process in motion, dimensions beyond your control, but not beyond your influence, will begin to emerge with startling regularity. Our life will be filled with people with whom we unite for the moment of creation. They may continue to be life-long friends. Or they may drift out of our lives and on to their next mission.
People come and go through our lives. We come and go through their lives. Often, we may feel that we must stay in contact. We try. But, as time moves, we hopelessly and inevitably drift from each other. We can’t help it. The moment we were meant to be together is over. If we try to hold on past its own special moment, we find ourselves becoming artificial.
It’s okay to let it go. This is not our usual understanding. We think if we were so close, it must last. We can think that the closeness was an illusion if it doesn’t last. Our thoughts deceive us. The time we had together was real and true and great. That it had its own time, and that that time has past, doesn’t deny the depth of relationship that we savored in the moment. – Page 224
“In my Path of Least Resistance books, I have illustrated this principle by a diagram of a person between two walls. The person has two different rubber bands connected to him that represents two different tension-resolution systems within the same structure. One rubber band is tied to the wall in front of him; the other to the wall behind him. Each rubber band is a separate system, but systems are connected to each other within the same unified structure.
In reality, sometimes you are closer to one wall, and sometimes you are closer to the other.
The wall in front of him has VISION written on it. The wall behind him is marked CONCEPT: You can’t have what you want.
As the person begins to move towards his vision, the rubber band in front of him relaxes. But the rubber band behind him is stretching tighter and tighter.
Within this structure, the dominant tension-resolution system is the contrast between having the result you want, and the concept that its not okay to have it. The longer you live with the result, the more tension builds. Your mind is trying to resolve the growing trepidation that the current situation produces. The structure strives to resolve the non-equilibrium.
The phrase The Path of Least Resistance refers to the principle in nature that energy moves where it is easier for it to go. Looking at this diagram, we can see that the place where it’s easiest to go within this structure is away from the situation of having the result. And that’s what we find in the oscillating pattern. Having achieved a result, the person is unable to keep it. There will be a reversal.
The structure has been in a state of pronounced non-equilibrium. But now it is restoring equilibrium. And remember, that is its goal. We could say that in producing this reversal, the structure is just doing its job.
--------------------
As the person moves away from the accomplishment of his vision, there is a new shift of dominance within the two competing tension-resolution systems. As reality moves away from the desired result, and the desire doesn’t go away, the new dominant tension is once again the contrast between the desired state and the actual state.
The actual goal may no longer be desired. But the type of goal may still be very much in play. The person may no longer want a relationship with the person they just divorced, but they may still want a loving relationship.
In fact, this type of pattern often is filled with irony. I have known people who, at the end of a cycle of oscillation with a relationship, swore off any new involvement. Usually a day after making this pronouncement, they met a new love interest that knocks them off their feet. The day after that, they are back in the pattern. – Pages 143-145
If you tried to create your life by managing your beliefs, you would create a conflict between the beliefs, on the one hand, and the mind’s unreasonable insistence on sanity, on the other. As you tell yourself that the bird is a swimming pool, your mind automatically rejects the idea. The inner thought process might be a little like this:
You: That thing that looks like a bird is really a swimming pool.
Your Mind: Bullxxxx.
You: It really is.
Your Mind: Bullxxxx.
You: When I look at it I can picture it as a swimming pool, and therefore it must be a…
Your Mind: Bullxxxx.
The more we try to impose beliefs on ourselves that are contradicted by the reality we observe, the more the mind will fight against it. – Pages 150-151
Eliminating Beliefs as a factor.
What is the difference between an oscillating structure and an advancing structure? CONCEPT.
When I first discovered macrostructural patterns in the early eighties, I began to experiment with trying to help people change their beliefs. The breakthrough discovery came when we experimented with a different notion. Instead of trying to alter the belief, we eliminate it as part of the structure.
The belief hasn’t changed. It just was no longer an element of the structure. The change of structure led to a change of structural tendencies. If the concept is no longer part of the structure, we only have two elements left: our desired state and our actual state. In other words, we are left with structural tension, a structure that can resolve and reach equilibrium when we accomplish our goals.
How is this done?
The answer is to see the creative process more accurately. Let’s think through why we create. When we create to make a creation, to have something we want to exist, to bring into being something we care enough about to create, there is no room for concepts.
What do your beliefs have to do with the facts that:
You want something
You are where you are in current reality, and
You are willing to take the necessary steps to bring it into being?
Answer – nothing. What do you have to believe to want what you want? Who do you have to be? What do you have to think about yourself? Your beliefs are irrelevant to the creative process. So instead of trying to change your beliefs, observe reality more accurately.
…The point is this: Do not spend any time trying to change your beliefs. Stop the self-manipulation. Instead, think in terms of what you want to create, not who you think you are. The question isn’t about you. It’s about what you want to create. Also, concepts cloud your ability to see reality more accurately. You need to see reality – the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful – as it is. – Pages 153-154
“We use concepts to guide ourselves through our world. They are like roadmaps, policies, rules, warnings, and controls. We feel more able to negotiate the world if we have a concept of how it all works. However, the more we rely on concepts, the less directly we embrace the world. We become less conscious of how reality truly is. We become a bit hypnotized by our concepts. We reexamine the world less and less. Concepts can lead to mindlessness because we assume we know what we might not actually know – we stop questioning and exploring.
Sometimes concepts begin with a real experience. But then, we crystallize the experience into a fixed idea. What was once real becomes artificial as concept replaces inquiry.
As we get older, we often take our experiences and turn them into concepts. As this happens, we live less and less in reality and more and more in our hypnotized mind. We view everything through the distorted lens of our past, and we can’t see aspects of reality that contradict our fixed view of the world.
…We have to learn to tell the difference between what we actually observe in reality, and the concepts we impose on reality. If we don’t, we may end up in oscillating structures that have profound impact on our ultimate success or failure in reaching our goals. It is critical to understand this insight if we are to create our life… - Pages 157-158
In Chapter 2 we talked about the extra-normal experiences that can happen when we are creating. Strange coincidences, magical and happy accidents, extraordinary events suddenly seem to help the cause. One of the most common of these miraculous developments is how people come into your life to join you in the creative process. Everyone who creates has many stories of the right person somehow showing up at just the right time, bringing with him or her just the piece that was needed to move the creation along. Many professional creators count on it after a while. They don’t know who it will be, how they will enter the picture, what role they will play, or how long they will be on the scene, but they know these right people will come at just the right time. And sure enough, they do. – Page 223
Let miracles happen to you. Allow for the possibility that there is more in play in the creative process and in life than meets the eye. But, realize that these miracles do not come from simply being passive and hoping something will happen. Miracles happen not by letting go but rather by broadening the creative process to include what you can control and what you can influence but cannot directly control. The phenomenon of synchronicity is not independent from your action, but it is an indirect outcome of your action. Had you not done your work, the miracle could not have been evoked. If you set your creative process in motion, dimensions beyond your control, but not beyond your influence, will begin to emerge with startling regularity. Our life will be filled with people with whom we unite for the moment of creation. They may continue to be life-long friends. Or they may drift out of our lives and on to their next mission.
People come and go through our lives. We come and go through their lives. Often, we may feel that we must stay in contact. We try. But, as time moves, we hopelessly and inevitably drift from each other. We can’t help it. The moment we were meant to be together is over. If we try to hold on past its own special moment, we find ourselves becoming artificial.
It’s okay to let it go. This is not our usual understanding. We think if we were so close, it must last. We can think that the closeness was an illusion if it doesn’t last. Our thoughts deceive us. The time we had together was real and true and great. That it had its own time, and that that time has past, doesn’t deny the depth of relationship that we savored in the moment. – Page 224
November 15, 2018
I highly recommend this book to all of my friends.
If life had an owner's manual, it would be hard to improve on THIS one.
If life had an owner's manual, it would be hard to improve on THIS one.
October 26, 2019
This book came at a very poignant time in my life, something like a ‘happy accident’. I’ve been following another revered author’s work on mental models and cognitive frameworks for improved thinking and it was from there that I was introduced to ‘Your life as art’.
I found the positive tone of the book very engaging and even though it took me a chapter or two to calibrate myself to his frequency (I finished 'Meditations - Marcus Aurelius’ prior to reading this), I soon started paying attention.
Mr Fritz comes across as a revered, well educated and accomplished creative who has achieved much in his career as a composer and film maker. He debunks the myth of spontaneous creativity fueled by inspiration only. He very cleverly outlines the mental model required for the creative process to help achieve consistent progression from a current state to a desired state by explaining the concept of structural tension and its value of moving from A to B instead of pirouetting aimlessly in one place.
I found this mental model very helpful and relevant to my life. The negative oscillating that often takes place when the structural tension is unrealistic or non existing was an insightful eye opener. I also found the chapter on our beliefs that create concepts, spawned by our earliest manifestations of the ego and then crystalized in our worldview to our detriment, very interesting. He advocates that instead of neutralizing these inherent beliefs through religion, positive affirmation or whatever other methods, we should acknowledge them for what they are and in doing so we can be freed from their inhibitive weight in order to make meaningful advancement in our lives. How the belief (or concept) relates to the structure was really fascinating.
This book gives insight on how to make the changes where it matters. I find it intelligently written and remarkably descriptive. Highly recommended if you want to take it to the next level!
Reading was easy, applying it to real life will be the difficult part!
I found the positive tone of the book very engaging and even though it took me a chapter or two to calibrate myself to his frequency (I finished 'Meditations - Marcus Aurelius’ prior to reading this), I soon started paying attention.
Mr Fritz comes across as a revered, well educated and accomplished creative who has achieved much in his career as a composer and film maker. He debunks the myth of spontaneous creativity fueled by inspiration only. He very cleverly outlines the mental model required for the creative process to help achieve consistent progression from a current state to a desired state by explaining the concept of structural tension and its value of moving from A to B instead of pirouetting aimlessly in one place.
I found this mental model very helpful and relevant to my life. The negative oscillating that often takes place when the structural tension is unrealistic or non existing was an insightful eye opener. I also found the chapter on our beliefs that create concepts, spawned by our earliest manifestations of the ego and then crystalized in our worldview to our detriment, very interesting. He advocates that instead of neutralizing these inherent beliefs through religion, positive affirmation or whatever other methods, we should acknowledge them for what they are and in doing so we can be freed from their inhibitive weight in order to make meaningful advancement in our lives. How the belief (or concept) relates to the structure was really fascinating.
This book gives insight on how to make the changes where it matters. I find it intelligently written and remarkably descriptive. Highly recommended if you want to take it to the next level!
Reading was easy, applying it to real life will be the difficult part!
April 13, 2020
The first book (I can remember) I read that could be classified as 'self-help'. I am generally not a big fan of the idea of self help books. Maybe it is because I often find myself being too 'down to earth to really get something out of them' or maybe it is because I am a psychiatric nurse and have another idea of mental support. Whatever the reason, I got this book pressed into my hands by a man I really admire and whose work really inspires me. He told me this book was one of the pillars of one of his workshops and because I couldn't make this particular workshop ánd admire this man so much, I decided to give it a go. And I am very glad I did...
Although the book at times irked me as the 'sober North European' (Read: slightly over enthusiastic American focus on things like succes, meat and religion etc.)... that is all that I really can say against it. I found it to be a suprisingly helpful, pragmatic and syphatic guide to the creating of lifeaspects that at first sight seem to be complex and intricate. Not only does Fitz manages to guide the reader in a way that he/she gets a thorough understanding of who she is, what she wants (and how those two are not the same) and how to put this into practice, it also makes it more 'figurative', less daunting and more inspiring. I find that (although I was complaining about the American/self help focus before), Firtz in general strikes the right balance between dreaming and acting, innerlife and outerlife, succes and quality of life... often simply because he shows us that these things do not have to be opposites; if we are creating out lifes in the right way, they can go well together.
I am reading the book again at the moment, now following the steps Fitz set out and making notes i n the proces. I would highly recommend this book if you are - like me- slightly wary of self help books but can do with some sincere and activating advice- and actual movement/actions in your life. I am already 'on the move' as I am writing... what better recommendation can I give ;)
Although the book at times irked me as the 'sober North European' (Read: slightly over enthusiastic American focus on things like succes, meat and religion etc.)... that is all that I really can say against it. I found it to be a suprisingly helpful, pragmatic and syphatic guide to the creating of lifeaspects that at first sight seem to be complex and intricate. Not only does Fitz manages to guide the reader in a way that he/she gets a thorough understanding of who she is, what she wants (and how those two are not the same) and how to put this into practice, it also makes it more 'figurative', less daunting and more inspiring. I find that (although I was complaining about the American/self help focus before), Firtz in general strikes the right balance between dreaming and acting, innerlife and outerlife, succes and quality of life... often simply because he shows us that these things do not have to be opposites; if we are creating out lifes in the right way, they can go well together.
I am reading the book again at the moment, now following the steps Fitz set out and making notes i n the proces. I would highly recommend this book if you are - like me- slightly wary of self help books but can do with some sincere and activating advice- and actual movement/actions in your life. I am already 'on the move' as I am writing... what better recommendation can I give ;)
October 6, 2019
This book offers a simple, but powerful idea: treat your life as a work of art, and get started on creating a masterpiece. The real insight is in the next step. Fritz says that the way to make progress is to establish your end point, be honest about your current reality, and get to work on the gap. Ignore just about everything else. If you can take these steps with clarity, you'll let go of the usual blocks, hang-ups, concepts, and ideas that get in the way.
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April 4, 2012I didn't really read this but I couldn't remove it...
April 23, 2016
Very inspirational advice, eve if a bit heady and self righteous in places.
January 1, 2024
Una estructura interesante
Tiene elementos que me gustaron, pero siento que el libro podía dar más. Muy conceptual y con pocas cosas que se pueden trasladar fácil
Tiene elementos que me gustaron, pero siento que el libro podía dar más. Muy conceptual y con pocas cosas que se pueden trasladar fácil
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