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The professional prepares mentally to absorb blows and to deliver them. His aim is to take what the day gives him.
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.
The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back.
It would never occur to him, as it would to an amateur, that he knows everything, or can figure everything out on his own. On the contrary, he seeks out the most knowledgeable teacher and listens with both ears.
A PROFESSIONAL DOES NOT TAKE FAILURE (OR SUCCESS) PERSONALLY
The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance. Editors are not the enemy; critics are not the enemy. Resistance is the enemy. The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.
The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality.
a gun recognizes another gun.
If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves. We’re less subjective. We don’t take blows as personally. We’re more cold-blooded; we can price our wares more realistically. Sometimes, as Joe Blow himself, I’m too mild-mannered to go out and sell. But as Joe Blow, Inc., I can pimp the hell out of myself. I’m not me anymore. I’m Me, Inc. I’m a pro.
There’s no mystery to turning pro. It’s a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.
The first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant you the thoughts, words, and deeds
As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be,
the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
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.
The closer I got, the more different ways I’d find to screw it up.
The third type of possession and madness is possession by the Muses. When this seizes upon a gentle and virgin soul it rouses it to inspired expression in lyric and other sorts of poetry, and glorifies countless deeds of the heroes of old for the instruction of posterity.
But if a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances
I’ll take a minute and show respect to this unseen Power who can make or break me.
There is magic to effacing our human arrogance and humbly entreating help from a source we cannot see, hear, touch, or smell.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”
When we conceive an enterprise and commit to it in the face of our fears, something wonderful happens.
What exactly is it doing? It’s organizing. The principle of organization is built into nature. Chaos itself is self-organizing.
Clearly some intelligence is at work, independent of our conscious mind and yet in alliance with it, processing our material for us and alongside us. This is why artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation. It’s also why “noncreative people” hate “creative people.” Because they’re jealous. They sense that artists and writers are tapped into some grid of energy and inspiration that they themselves cannot connect with.
You’re supposed to learn that things that you think are nothing, as weightless as air, are actually powerful substantial forces, as real and as solid as earth.
The eagle was telling me that dreams, visions, meditations such as this very one–things that I had till now disdained as fantasy and illusion–were as real and as solid as anything in my waking life.
angels make their home in the Self, while Resistance has its seat in the Ego.
The Self wishes to create, to evolve. The Ego likes things just the way they are.
God is all there is. Everything that is, is God in one form or another. God, the divine ground, is that in which we live and move and have our being. Infinite planes of reality exist, all created by, sustained by and infused by the spirit of God.
The Ego hates artists because they are the pathfinders and bearers of the future, because each one dares,
The Ego produces Resistance and attacks the awakening artist.
We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are.
We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. 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.
The artist must operate territorially. He must do his work for its own sake.
To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.
In the hierarchy, the artist looks up and looks down. The one place he can’t look is that place he must: within.
your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.
We humans have territories too. Ours are psychological.
A territory provides sustenance.
A territory sustains us without any external input. A territory is a closed feedback loop. Our role is to put in effort and love; the territory absorbs this and gives it back to us in the form of well-being.
A territory can only be claimed alone.
A territory can only be claimed by work.
A territory doesn’t give, it gives back.
A territory returns exactly what you put in. Territories are fair.
The mother and the artist are watched over by heaven.
The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don’t create the new life, they only bear it.
How can we tell if our orientation is territorial or hierarchical? One way is to ask ourselves, If I were feeling really anxious, what would I do? If we would pick up the phone and call six friends, one after the other, with the aim of hearing their voices and reassuring ourselves that they still love us, we’re operating hierarchically. We’re seeking the good opinion of others. What would Arnold Schwarzenegger do on a freaky day? He wouldn’t phone his buddies; he’d head for the gym. He wouldn’t care if the place was empty, if he didn’t say a word to a soul. He knows that working out, all
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The sustenance they get comes from the act itself, not from the impression it makes on others.
When Krishna instructed Arjuna that we have a right to our labor but not to the fruits of our labor, he was counseling the warrior to act territorially, not hierarchically. We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility.
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.
