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The Pervasive Low-Grade Misery of Neglecting your Dreams

By Anita Mathias

warofart_bookI am reading The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield about a demonic force called Resistance—which conspires to prevent writers writing, painters painting, composers composers, the overweight exercising… You get the picture.

And here’s another brilliant passage from The War of Art

 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, vices kick in. Dope, adultery, web surfing.

Beyond that, Resistance becomes clinical. Depression, aggression, dysfunction.

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.

As artists and professionals, it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. We unplug from the grid by recognising that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing to the bottom line of Bullshit Inc. but only by doing our work.

 

 

 

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Filed Under: In which I explore writing and blogging and creativity Tagged With: Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

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Comments

  1. Alison Hector says

    September 1, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    Pressfield sure knows how to lay bare our situation! In his book “Do the Work,” he does an equally stellar job of getting us off our duff and doing the necessary work to fulfill our dreams. Every time I’m leaning towards procrastination, the words “the Resistance” come to mind and spur me to action.

    • Anita Mathias says

      September 2, 2013 at 9:42 pm

      HI there, Alison. I’d love to read “Do the Work.” Next on the list though is “Turning Pro.”

      • Alison Hector says

        September 2, 2013 at 9:44 pm

        I hear that “Turning Pro” is very good too. All of his work is good. Have you read any of Seth Godin’s work?

        • Anita Mathias says

          September 2, 2013 at 9:48 pm

          I’ve seen his blog but I find the posts too short and open-ended to be satisfying. Haven’t read his book. I find Leo of Zen Habits quite inspiring.

          • Alison Hector says

            September 2, 2013 at 9:57 pm

            Leo’s was the first blog I ever read, even though at the time I didn’t know it was a blog! I was clueless about blogging at the time, but I loved what he wrote and connected with the lifestyle he espoused.

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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
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