Whenever you hear that someone else has been successful, rejoice. Always practice rejoicing for others--whether your friend or your enemy. If you cannot practice rejoicing, no matter how long you live, you will not be happy.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "Transforming PProblems Into Happiness"

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.  So if you are a Star Trek fan you know how much fun it is to hate the Borg.  They're rascals.  They are so evil, or so we think.  With regards to creativity, the Borg's unyielding and unrelenting conquering objective is a perfect simile for our own resistance to that genius that lives within each of us if we could only hear it. 

The last few years for me, as an artist, have been almost non-existent.  I’m not whining, that’s just what has happened.  I help other people or work crew or help produce, it's been useful, I enjoy helping.  This summer I read Steven Pressfield's, The War of Art.  In three months of owning this book, I have highlighted it and bent pages over, made copies of it for friends who either couldn't afford it or may not have given themselves permission to consider purchasing it for themselves and to be clear, this book, now my inanimate Jiminy Cricket is getting the work-out of it's life.  

Pressfield's work is clear, unassuming, distinct and deliberate.  Pressfield speaks of the problem that all creative personalities consistently battle.  I should clue you in on the secret that everyone with a pulse is a creative personality.  Inside each of us is the dreamer, that part of us that longs for recognition that our presence is appreciated and wanted.  We all want to be heard, we all need validation and we all fear being invisible yet there are those spirits out there that don’t know how to move forward.  Pressfield calls this barrier, resistance and it is the idea of resistance; it is this idea, in it’s countless incarnations, that prevents each of us from listening to our inner voice or following our north star.  He speaks of resistance as a real thing, a tangible force to be reckoned with and the source of that force is within each of us at all times.  I have spoken to friends about this idea and my question now is how to reckon a life of service and the honest pursuit and expression of our own talents.  How do those two things meld?  This essay will explore this.

Let's talk about resistance again. I will paraphrase Pressfield as he makes the following points about resistance,

We experience it (resistance), as an energy field -- radiating from a work-in-potential.  It's a repelling force.  It's negative.  Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.  More.  It's protean, self-generated, self perpetuated.  It will perjure, fabricate, falsify, seduce and deceive you.  It will double cross, it understands nothing but power.  It’s indefatigable.  This is its nature.  However, like a magnetized needle, resistance will unfailingly point to true North -- meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.  And the more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.  Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration.  "I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied.  "Fortunately it strikes at nine o'clock sharp."  That's a pro.  Maugham reckoned another deeper truth: that by performing the mundane physical act of sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration, as surely if the goddess had synchronized her watch with his.  He knew that if he built it, she would come (69-70).

Resistance is huge.  I really like the idea that when you feel it, it will always point you to your true North just like a compass.  And how does it feel?  It feels like crap and it feels bad because you are literally not being yourself.  And the old joke, “Doctor, doctor…it hurts when I do this.”  “Then don’t do that!” is perhaps the best advice of all.  I’ve seen it happen to friends and I’ve seen it happen to myself.  Unfortunately, the culture we live in supports it by selling us or trying to sell us a cure that only alleviates the symptoms when the real cure lies within our own courageous hearts.  It’s not a one-time thing either.  You may be able to beat it for an hour or a day but it’s always there and it always wants to beat us.  Some days it will.

Tough stuff?  Too bad, you can have the afternoon off when you die. Until then, you manage, you learn, you give back and you do your stuff the best way you know how.  And if you’re doing something you love, even if it’s telemarketing, then do it with your whole heart.  Sell it baby.  Revolt.  You feel like a loser?  You’re not.  I was watching Oprah Winfrey receive the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award a few nights ago during the Emmys.  I was expecting a bland speech because she was so obviously moved by the award that I didn’t think she would get through the three minutes she was allotted.  But like the pro she is, she pulled it together and spoke about her father and Christmas dinners around her house when she was a child.  Her father, who refuses to retire, owns and runs a barbershop in the South where Oprah grew up.  She spoke about the “losers” that frequented her father’s establishment, who bummed money and free hair cuts.  These same individuals would inevitably show up at her home for Christmas dinner and she asked her father out of exasperation why the Winfrey family could not have a normal, Currier and Ives Christmas?  Why did these losers that took advantage of her father’s graciousness always show up at Christmas?  He father told her that they weren’t losers, they were just ordinary folk; ordinary folk that just needed to be fed.  She then went on to explain that at the time she didn’t understand how profound her father’s answer was until she grew up.  It was more of a spiritual feeding than a physical one and everyone deserves to be loved and his or her visibility as human beings acknowledged.  In essence, be kind because it’s easy to slam the door but take the higher road anyway and bring a snack because someone might need to be fed.

Don’t expect people to understand either.  Don’t expect your boss or your friends or your lovers or spouses to understand.  Make no judgments.  They have their own stuff to deal with and they may not like it very much when you start to change.  Don’t stop.  You’ll get scared; you’ll have self-doubt but don’t stop. 

Self-doubt can be an ally.  This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration.  It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing and desire, desire to do it.  If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a musician?  Am I really a writer?  Am I really a software designer?  Am I really an artist?"  Chances are you are.  It's the counterfeit innovator that is wildly self-confident.  The real one is scared to death. (39).

Blank pages scare the shite outah me.  There’s nothing quite as daunting as a blank piece of paper, even a virtual one.  What’s ironic is that I love to buy stationery.  Creepy?  No, actually quite telling.  If you’re afraid of it, if it zings you both good and bad then pay attention.  It’s probably important.  Repel and compel have, essentially, the same energy.  Ask boat captains, sailors and fisherman if they can swim.  Ask a racecar driver if he’s afraid of accidents.  Fear compels and repels.  If the balance of the energy is to scale, meaning about the same, look out.  It’s important.  Now, I don’t like bugs.  I’m never going to find a soft place in my heart for them.  Nor am I particularly interested in them either.  The balance goes in only one direction.  I’m, percentage wise, mostly repelled.  So my career as a bug wrangler is pretty much not in the cards.  Tornadoes, on the other hand, scare me witless.  However, I will watch every single Tornado show on television.  I own Twister and watch it fairly often.  I’ve spent springs and summers in a car chasing bits of the fluffy just to see if the devil comes out to play.  The balance on that energy is pretty much plumb.  That’s an excellent indicator that it might be something for me to pursue, no pun intended.  But I live in New York now and tornadoes are big on absenteeism around here.  Oh well.  

 

-to be continued-