The War Of Art by Pressfield

[tru]

Sloppy thinking

For JC, it’s only a book

....

I'd highly recommend the book to anyone who's looking for some inspiration...albeit with a twist.

Exactly the kind of sloppy thinking I'm refering to. I bet you feed yourself with McDonalds too - after all it's supposed to be healthy, all my friends eat it ... so it must be OK.

 

[tru]

Woof

Ah, the cognitivists may think they have it all figured out. BUT it's a funny thing -- animals procrastinate too, when the reward for performance is distant -- remarkably like humans do. Where's the cognition there?

So the neurobiologists think they are ahead on this one. When they manipulate a neurotransmitter (dopamine) in a certain brain area, monkeys no longer procrastinate as they used to and become little workaholics instead.

For one I don't have "it" figured out. But I've trained in hypnotherapy so I do recognise hypnosis when I read / hear / see it. For me cognition is just one way to raise awareness of thinking - nothing else.

Animals procrastinate too. Interesting belief. Do they? That's amazing! Have you spoken to one about the mental knots they tie themselves in Dr Dolittle :grin:

 

[tru]

avrum68

For JC sake you sound just like:

a) You’re my ex-wife
b) You’ve had work shunned by me
c) There’s something else going on internally for you, rather than the contents of my post

I'd highly recommend a McDonalds quarterpounder. I've eaten them along with my friends and we all felt the meal was healthy - so it must be so.

Fortunately it is only a meal - so like most meals I guess the ideas in it won't get implemented.

A musical Monday to you with my best wishes.

 

[GTDroadKill]

The Art of War

Funny play on words. I too have a copy of this book and have pledged a hundred times to read it. But I haven't yet! Why! Hmm.

Beats me. I'm terminally creative, and maybe inside me is a voice that doesn't want me to hear what this book has to read? Maybe it's that i don't want to risk that I may end up viewing art as some sort of violent drama?

I need my work to draw me to it, not keep me at bay as tho it were some sort of front of a formidble enemy-ic batallion force.

As such, does one whom read it sincerely recommend that I do read it? For a creative by profession and lifestyle, will it help me in my quest to get-TD in my inspired but chaotic world of work?

What, if I may ask, might be the one MOST compelling "take-away" one could get from this book?

g

 

[GTDroadKill]

Thanks, Coz... your description is GEFMe.

Well, i am glad that you found it helpful for you.

I myself also "create Art" for a living, and i found it totally useless and even very damaging, as i stated.
To me, making Art is not a War.
If you make it into a war, then you are going to suffer the consequences of that.

But to each their own, whatever works. Its their life, its their brain.

But as i stated, i think it is an extremely bad book for creative people.
My opinion.

Coz

g - Good enough for me. To the waste bin with it post-haste... ...swish, nothing but net, 2 points.

 

[GTDroadKill]

Yikes!

avrum68

For JC sake you sound just like:

a) You’re my ex-wife
b) You’ve had work shunned by me
c) There’s something else going on internally for you, rather than the contents of my post

I'd highly recommend a McDonalds quarterpounder. I've eaten them along with my friends and we all felt the meal was healthy - so it must be so.

Fortunately it is only a meal - so like most meals I guess the ideas in it won't get implemented.

A musical Monday to you with my best wishes.

g - ur post reminds me of last night when I turned the corner in this hotel room and stubbed my toe on this nasty kinG-sized bed. My best wishes to yer x. & altho it's a little greasy for my taste, a 1/4 lb'er is just fine for me, but keep the cheese, plz. chow'

 

[remyc88]

I just read the book and I have to mostly agree w/ Cosmo.

First of all for a 192 page book, realize that the author uses really big fonts and some pages only have a single word on them!

I felt a bit cheated by that.

And though I do feel that *some* of his points were interesting, he would repeat the same thing over and over again.

Perhaps if this were a shorter book, it might have been more effective.

 

[siddisoza]

The War of Art is essential reading, written by someone who was, and is “in the trenches” of that War – wounds and all. The seemingly pervasive mantra of claimed leaders of “fail your way to success” doesn’t resonate here, only the hard won truth.

 

[kissa]

The way I understand it the resistance is totally real and it is not set out to destroy us but to keep us safe, by making us blend in and stop us from doing anything exceptional at which we might fail, wants us to just plough through life unnoticed because it is safer for us and our egos, it makes excuses for us not to do things, justifies us when we do less than we could, sticking with a life we hate because it is safe, not daring to have bigger goals.

Seth Godin talks about it too in Linchpin only he calls it The Lizard Brain, it's the oldest part of our brain.

There is an interesting interview between Seth Godin and Merlin Mann where they discuss this and The War of Art.
I also read it because DA recommended it and I thought it was inspiring. If you want to do better the resistance/lizard brain or whatever you call it really is "the enemy" then to know the enemy surely must help defeating it?
If when you hear your brain self-justifying itself for watching one more youtube video instead of finishing that report, or stoping you from having "unattainable" dreams knowing and recognising the mechanism surely should help you snap out of it.

 

[bonobo]

Add me to the “Inspired by Pressfield” column. I want to add more; however, I'm in the middle of my Morning Pages and let myself get distracted by this site's RSS feed after changing my Pandora queue. The last thing I wrote before getting on the PC was, “What color is distraction?”

Next, I shall explore the color of Resistance. After all, it's breathing down my neck as I type this!