Post: #1

This book had been sitting on my Amazon wish list for a few months, and I finally decided it was time to pick it up, in hopes of helping out my writing.

It cost a mere $11, but is also pretty short at 165 pages. The short length of the book was good because I don't usually enjoy self-help books enough to read one that is very long.

I'm going to break down the book and give a summary first, and then give my closing thoughts at the end of the post.



The central concept of the War of Art, is that by sitting yourself down everyday, and doing the work of writing, music, or whatever, you are setting the stage for inspiration. In other words, to fulfill your dreams you have to incorporate them into your daily life.

He wants to steer you away from the fantasy that you can keep living your life, going to your 9-5, then suddenly pull a hit album or best-selling novel out of your ass one weekend. Instead he is telling you that you have to sit down everyday and struggle with it.

More so, the book is about the creative process. It's divided into three parts. Book 1: Resistance. Book 2: Combating Resistance. Book 3: Beyond Resistance.

Resistance is the word Pressfield uses to describe what "stands between the lives we live, and the unlived lives within us."



The first "book" deals with identifying this "resistance" in our lives, which consists of things like procrastination, fear, fantasy, friends/family, etc. There are no chapters. Instead, each page identifies a different manifestation of resistance. For me this made it easier to read because you can stop anywhere, and pick up without missing anything.

Here are some of the phrases I tagged from the first book to add to my commonplace book.

"There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny... This second, we can sit down and do our work."

The above applies to procrastination.

"Self-Doubt can be an ally... because it serves as an indicator of aspiration... The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death."

This quote can also be helpful for those new to game. When they start approaching for the first time they are scared, but that fear indicates that what they are doing is worth-while.

"The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work."

The most important line in the book. If there is anything I will take away from this book it is the concept of doing the work.



The second book, Combating Resistance: Turning Pro, is focused on making the transition into a professional.

This quote sums it up nicely, "To the amateur, the game is his advocation. To the professional, the game is his vocation."

It's all about weening you off the fantasy and glamour of the creative life. He talks about how people get caught up in the fantasy too much, and are in turn unprepared to deal with reality. You have to understand that art is mythical, but at the same time treat art realistically, like a job. You have to act like a professional. You have to actually work. This book is where he talks about setting the stage for creativity.

Here's a line I wrote into my commonplace:

"The pro stands at one remove from her instrument."

The above is about distancing yourself from your art. He says you shouldn't identify with it. I've seen this a lot in the real world, where the people who fervently identify themselves as "writers" or "musicians" usually work the lunch shift at Starbucks, and do no actual writing at all. The real studs are usually laid back and don't see themselves as writers at all.



Finally, the third book: Beyond Resistance, is very abstract. It deals a lot with gods, angels, and "the muse." I burned through it just to finish the book, but it wasn't nearly as good as the first two parts.

I tagged one quote to add to my commonplace:

"When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid."

This basically serves to reinforce the concept of treating art as work. This is what the whole third book is about, that once you start on the grind that good things will eventually happen. I've seen similar stuff discussed on the forum, the whole concept of paying your dues. Once you start doing something everyday, once you have put in enough hours, you will eventually get to that point where the game slows down.




Closing thoughts:

Overall I would recommend the book to people who are just finally waking up.

Did it change my life? No. I've heard almost everything in here in one form or another, but I've been at this for a while now.

If you are more advanced as a person, you will still find things in here that can help you out. It just didn't give me a huge kick in the ass, but not many things do. Instead, it gave me a few good pieces of advice that I can take with me, which is really all I can ask of a book.

One thing I have noticed is that I have been writing a lot more frequently. I usually sit down to write everyday at 10AM, which is a concept that I used to fervently denounce. So I could say that $11 bought me some consistency.

Another thing I noticed is that this book could be applied to game. The concept of resistance could be replaced with approach anxiety. Turning professional could be where you treat game as a job. Etc.

I can't help but notice that most self-help books are the same content, but they all use different keywords. After you have read enough of them there is nothing that is going to rock your world, which is why I usually stick to biographies.

The bottom line is always that life is a struggle. You have to accept that you will always be pushing against something. You have to dump the fantasies and just start grinding, start working a little bit everyday.

That's all folks.

Post: #2

Found this sitting on a shelf at work last year and read it in one sitting.

Very easy read, almost too easy. Your mind has to do the work to get anything out of it.

The ideas he puts out are short and to the point, they get planted like seeds in your brain. Then you cultivate them.

I find myself picking the book back up every now and then for some fresh thoughts.

Post: #3

I agree, I honestly think that is all you can ask of this type of book. If you find yourself picking it back up for fresh thoughts the book has delivered in my opinion.

Post: #4

Great summary! I'm going to check this book out

Post: #5

Read this last week. Was a little bit of an emotional struggle to wade through all the annoying religious shit, but I'm glad I persevered. Good book with some important ideas. Also very short; it can easily be knocked out in a day

Post: #6

Exactly, that was my least favorite part. You just have to appreciate the book for what it is man.

Post: #7

I went through it a couple of times.

Nothing stayed. It takes one day to read it but I decided to take one month to see if it sticks on the third time : Nope. I didn't learn a thing from it. I almost forgot I've read it.

To each their own, but I didn't like the book when all is said and done.

Post: #8

I would definitely agree that it is a book not everyone can use, especially if you have already read a lot of self-help type stuff. I think we forget that these books are mostly motivational tools rather than clear cut guides to life.

Post: #9

I just finished it today and I really enjoyed it.

It is a very easy read, as others have said, but there have been many great thinkers who expressed profound thoughts simply.

I'm not religious and was afraid it would be overbearing and preachy with the messages based on the comments, but I didn't find it that distracting. Even the foreword offers a different perspective from which to approach the ideas presented.

The points about hierarchy and territory were especially interesting.

Post: #10

Awesome summary General Mayhem. I was going to write a summary but found yours through the search function.

I have wrote down my favorite passages, taken from my beat up and dog-eared paperback copy.

Quote:The Unlived Life
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 public 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.

One night I was layin' down,
I heard Papa talkin' to Mama.
I heard Papa say, to let that boy boogie-woogie.
'Cause it's in him and it's got to come out.
John Lee Hooker, "Boogie Children"

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius, an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon, and Polaris.

Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance. As powerful as is our soul's call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine. We are not alone if we've been mowed down by Resistance; millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us. And here's the biggest bitch: We don't even know what hit us. I never did. From age 24 to 32 Resistance kicked my ass from East Coast to West and back again 13 times and I never know it existed. I looked everywhere for the enemy and failed to see it right in front of my face.

Have you heard this story: Woman learns she has cancer, six months to live. Within days she quits her job, resumes the dream of writing Tex-Mex songs she gave up to raise a family ( or studying classical Greek, or moves to the inner city and devotes herself to tending babies with AIDS). Woman's friends think she's crazy; she herself has never been happier. There's a postscript. Woman's cancer goes into remission.
Is that what it takes? Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance? Does Resistance have to cripple and disfigure our lives before we wake up to its existence? How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell phone use, simply because we don't do that thing our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to do? Resistance defeats us. If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step towards pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business. Prisons would stand empty. The alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with junk food, cosmetic surgery, and infotainment businesses, not to mention pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and the medical profession from top to bottom. Domestic abuse would become extinct, as would addiction, obesity, migraine headaches, road rage and dandruff.

Look in your own heart. Uness 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.

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. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. 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.

Quote:Resistance Is Most Powerful at The Finish Line
Odysseus almost got home years before his actual homecoming. Ithaca was in sight, close enough that the sailors could see the smoke of their families' fires on shore. Odysseus was so certain he was safe, he actually lay down for a snooze. It was then his men, believing there was gold in an ox-hide sack among their commander's possessions, snatched this prize and cut it open. The bag contained the adverse winds, which King Aeolus had bottled up for Odysseys when the wanderer had touched earlier at his blessed isle. The winds burst forth now in one mad blow, driving Odysseus' ships back across every league of ocean they had with such difficulty traversed, making him endure further trials and sufferings before, at last and alone, he reached home for good.

The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it's got.

The professional must be alert for this counterattack. Be wary of the end. Don't open that bag of wind.

Quote:Resistance and Procrastination
Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it's 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 tomorrow."

Quote:Resistance and Unhappiness
What does Resistance feel like?

First, unhappiness. We feel like hell. A low-grade misery pervades everything. We're bored, we're restless. We can't get no satisfaction. There's guilt but we can't put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We're disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves.

Unalleviated, Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At this point vice kicks in. Dope, adultery, web surfing.

Beyond that, Resistance becomes clinical. Depression, aggression, dysfunction. Then the actual crime and self destruction.

Sounds like life, I know. It isn't. It's Resistance.

What makes it tricky is that we live in a consumer culture that's acutely aware of this unhappiness and has massed all its profit-seeking artillery to exploit it. By selling us a product, a drug, a distraction. John Lennon once wrote:

Well, you think you're so clever
and classless and free
But you're all fucking peasants
As far as I can see.

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. We overthrow the the programming of advertising, movies, videogames, magazines, TV, and MTV by which we have been hypnotized from the cradle. We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.

Quote:How to Be Miserable
In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful.

The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable.

That is invaluable for an artist.

Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chows, crappier equipment, and higher casualty rates than any outfit of dogfaces, swab jockeys, or flyboys, all of whom they despise. Why? Because these candy-asses don't know how to be miserable.

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 artist must be like the 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 swab jockey. Because this war, baby. And war is hell.

Quote:We're All Pros Already
All of us are pros in one area: our jobs.

We get a paycheck. We work for money. We are professionals.

Now: Are there principles we can take from what we're already successfully doing in our workaday life and apply to our artistic aspirations? What exactly are the qualities that define us as professionals?

1. We show up every day We might do it only because we have to, to keep from getting fired. But we do it. We show up every day.
2. We show up no matter what. In sickness and in health, come hell or highwater, we stagger into the factory. We might do it only so as not to let down our co-workers, or for other, less noble reasons. But we do it. We show up no matter what.
3. We stay on the job all day. Our minds may wander. But our bodies remain at the wheel. We pick up the phone when it rings, we assist the customer when he seeks our help. We don't go home until the whistle blows.
4. We are committed over the long haul. Next year we may go to another job, another company, another country. But we'll still be working. Until we hit the lottery, we are part of the labor force.
5. The stakes for us are high and real. This is about survival, feeding our families, educating our children.
6. We accept remuneration for our labor. We're not here for fun. We work for money.
7. We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, over-identifies himself with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, painter, playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and over-terrified by its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.
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.
    
    

Now consider the amateur. The aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling?

One, he doesn't show up every day. Two, he doesn't show up no matter what. Three, he doesn't stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he over-identifies with his art. He does not have a sense of humor about failure. You don't hear him bitching, "This fucking trilogy is killing me!" Instead, he doesn't write his trilogy at all.

The amateur has not mastered the technique of his art. Nor does he expose himself to judgment in the real world. If we show our poem to our friend our friend says "It's wonderful, I love it," that's not real-world feedback, that's our friend being nice to us. Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure

The first professional writing job I ever had, after 17 years of trying, was on the movie called King Kong Lives. I and my partner-at-the-time, Ron Schusett ( a brilliant writer and producer who also did Alien and Total Recall) hammered out the screenplay for Dino DeLaurentiis. We loved it; we were sure we had a hit. Even after we'd seen the finished film, we were certain it was a blockbuster. We invited everyone we knew to the premiere, even rented out the joint next door for a post-triumphant blowout. Get there early, we warned our friends, the place will be mobbed.

Nobody showed. There was only one guy in line beside our guests and he was muttering something about spare change. In the theatre, our friends endured the movie in mute stupefaction. When the lights came up, they fled like cockroaches into the night.

Next day came the review in Variety: "...Ronald Schusett and Steven Pressfield; we hope these are not their real names, for their partners' sake." When the first week's grosses came in, the flick barely registered. Still I clung to hope. Maybe it's only tanking in urban areas, maybe it's playing better in the burbs. I motored to an Edge City multiplex. A youth manned the popcorn booth. "How's King Kong Lives?" I asked. He flashed thumbs-down. "Miss it man, it sucks."

I was crushed. Here I was, forty-two years old, divorced, childless, having given up all normal human pursuits to chase the dream of being a writer; now I've finally got my name on a big time Hollywood production starring Linda Hamilton, and what happens? I'm a loser, a phony; my life is worthless, and so am I.

My friend Tony Keppelman snapped me out of it by asking if I was gonna quit. Hell, no! "Then be happy. You're where you want to be, aren't you? So you're taking a few blows. That's the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful."

That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.

Quote:A Professional is Patient
Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an over ambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash.

The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification. He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare. Have you heard the legend of Sylvester Stallone staying up three nights straight to churn out the screenplay for Rocky? I don't know, it may even be true. But it's the most pernicious species of myth to set before the awakening writer, because it seduces him into believing he can pull off the big score without pain and without persistence

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. He knows that any job, whether it's a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice a slong as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality.

The professional steels himself at the start of a project, reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the sixty-yard dash. He conserves his energy. He prepares his mind for the long haul. He sustains himself with the knowledge that if he can just keep those huskies mushing, sooner or later the sled will pull in to Nome.

Quote:A Professional Plays it as It Lays
My friend Hawk and I were playing the first hole at Prestwick in Scotland; the wind was howling out of the left. I started an eight-iron thirty yards to windward, but the gale caught it; I watched in dismay as the ball sailed hard right, hit the screen going sideways, and bounded off into the cabbage. "Sonofabitch!"I turned to our caddie. "Did you see the wind take that shot?"

He gave that look that only Scottish caddies can give. "Well, ye've got t' play th'wind, don't ye?"

The professional conducts his business in the real world. Adversity, injustice, bad hops and rotten calls, even good breaks and lucky bounces all comprise the ground over which the campaign must be waged. The field is level, the professional understands, only in heaven.

Quote:The Ego and The Self
Here's what I think. I think angels make their home in the Self, while Resistance has its seat in the Ego.

The fight is between the two.

The Self wishes to create, to evolve. The Ego likes things just the way they are,

What is the Ego anyway? Since this is my book, I'll define it my way.

The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.

The Ego's job is to take care of business in the real world. It's an important job. We couldn't last a day without it. But there are world other than the real world, and this is where the Ego runs into trouble.

Here's what the Ego believes:

1. Death is real. The Ego believes that our existence is defined by our physical flesh When the body dies, we die. There is no life beyond life.
2. Time and space are real. The Ego is analog. It believes that to get from A to Z we have to pass through B,C, and D. To get from breakfast to supper we have to live the whole day.
3. Every individual is different and separate from every other. The Ego believes that I am distinct from you. The twain cannot meet. I can hurt you and it won't hurt me.
4. The predominant impulse of life is self-preservation. Because our existence is physical and thus vulnerable to innumerable evils, we live and act out of fear in all we do. it is wise, he Ego believes, to have children carry on our line when we die, to achieve great things that will live after us, and to buckle our seat belts.
5. There is no God. No sphere exists except the physical and no rules apply except those of the material world.
   

These are the principles the Ego lives by. They are sound solid principles. Here's what the Self believes:

1. Death is an illusion. The soul endures and evolves through infinite manifestations.
2. Time and space are illusions. Time and space operate only in the physical sphere, and even here, don't apply to dreams, visions and transports. In other dimensions we move "swift as thought"and inhabit multiple planes simultaneously.
3. All beings are one. If I hurt you, I hurt myself.
   The supreme emotion is love. Union and mutual assistance are the imperatives of life. We are all in this together.
4. 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.
   

Quote:Fear
Resistance feeds on fear. We experience Resistance as fear. But fear of what?

Fear of the consequences of following our heart. Fear of bankruptcy, fear of poverty, fear of insolvency. Fear of groveling when we try to make it on our own, and of groveling when we give up and come crawling back to where we started. Fear of being selfish, of being rotten wives or disloyal husbands; fear of failing to support our families, of sacrificing their dreams for ours. Fear of betraying our race, our hood, our homies. Fear of failure. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of throwing away the education, the training, the preparation that those we loved sacrificed so much for, that we ourselves have worked our butts off for. fear of launching into the void, of hurtling too far out there; fear of passing some point of no return, beyond which we cannot recant, cannot reverse, cannot rescind, but must live with this cocked-up choice for the rest of our lives. fear of madness. Fear of death.

These are serious fears. But they're not the real fear. Not the Master Fear. the Mother of all Fears that's close to us that even when we verbalize it we don't believe it.

Fear that We Will Succeed.

That we can access powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are. That is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years.

We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents /children/teachers think we are. We fear 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 can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this, because if it's true, the weé become estranged from all we know. We pass through the membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.

We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove ourselves worthy of them.And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family , who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and noone to hold on to.
Of course that is exactly what happens. But here's the trick. We wind up in space but not alone. Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they're better friends, truer friends. And we're better and truer to them.

Do you believe me?

Quote:The Definition of a Hack
I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn't ask himself what's in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for.

The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he's superior to them. The truth is, he's scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really thinks and believes, what he himself thinks is interesting. He's afraid it won't sell. So he tries to anticipate what the market (a telling word) wants, the gives it to them.

In other words, the hack writes hierarchically. He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, What do I myself want to write? What do I think is important? Instead he asks, What's hot, what can I make a deal for?

The hack is like the politician who consuls the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders.

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out you Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

I was starving as a screenwriter when the idea for The Legend of Bagger Vance came to me. I met with my agent to give him the bad news. We both knew that first novels take forever and sell for nothing. Worse, a novel about golf, even if we could find a publisher, is a straight shot for the remainder bin.

But the Muse had me. I had to do it. To my amazement, the book succeeded critically and commercially better than anything I'd ever done, and others since have been lucky too. Why? My best guess is this: I trusted what I wanted, not what I thought would work. I did what I myself thought was interesting and left its reception to the Gods.

The artist can't do his work hierarchically. He has to work territorially.

Quote:The Difference Between Territory and Hierarchy
How can we tell if our orientation is territorial or hierarchical?

One way is to ask ourselves, If I were feeling really anxious, what should 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 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 by itself, is enough to bring him back to his center.

His orientation is territorial.

Here's another test. Of any activity you do ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?

If you're alone on the planet, a hierarchical orientation makes no sense. there's no one to impress. So, if you'd still pursue that activity, congratulations. You're doing it territorially.

If Arnold Schwarzenegger were the last man on earth, he'd still go to the gym. Stevie Wonder would still pound the piano. The sustenance they get comes from the act itself, not from the impression it makes on others. I have a friend who is nuts for clothes. If she were the last woman on earth, she would shoot straight to Givenchy or St. Laurent, smash her way in, and start pillaging. In her case, it wouldn't be to impress others. She just loves clothes. That's her territory.

Now: What about ourselves as artists?
How do we do our work? Hierarchically or territorially?
If we were freaked out, would we go there first?
If we were the last person on earth, would we still show up at the studio, the rehearsal hall, the laboratory?

Quote:The Fruits of Our Labor
When Krishna instructed Arjuna that we have a right to our labor but not 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.

Then there's the third way proffered by the Lord of Discipline, which is beyond both hierarchy and territory. That is to do the work and give it to Him. Do it as an offering to God

Give the act to me
Purged of hope and ego,
Fix your attention on the soul
Act and do for me.

The work comes from heaven anyway. Why not give it back?

To labor this way, The Bhagavad-Gita tells us, is a form of meditation and a supreme species of spiritual devotion. It also, I believe, conforms most closely to Higher Reality. In fact, we are servants of the Mystery. We were put here on this earth to act as agents of the Infinite,, to bring into existence that which is not yet, but which will be, through us.

Every breath we take, every heartbeat, every evolution of every cell comes from God and is sustained by God every second, just as every creation, invention, every bar of music or line of verse, every thought, vison, fantasy, every dumb-ass flop and stroke of genius comes from that infinite intelligence that created us and the universe in all its dimensions, out of the Void, the field of infinite potential, primal chaos, the Muse. To acknowledge that reality, to efface all ego, to let the work come through us and give it back freely to its source, that, in my opinion, is as true to reality as it gets.