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A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.
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soul
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Steven Pressfield |
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel
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Steven Pressfield |
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Remember, Resistance wants us to cede sovereignty to others. It wants us to stake our self-worth, our identity, our reason-for-being, on the response of others to our work. Resistance knows we can't take this. No one can.
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Steven Pressfield |
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fear doesn't go away.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.
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Steven Pressfield |
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7094eb6
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Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Have you seen interviews with the young John Lennon or Bob Dylan, when the reporter tries to ask about their personal selves? The boys deflect these queries with withering sarcasm. Why? Because Lennon and Dylan know that the part of them that writes the songs is not "them," not the personal self that is of such surpassing fascination to their boneheaded interrogators. Lennon and Dylan also know that the part of themselves that does the writ..
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Steven Pressfield |
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5b1e5ed
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I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now." --"
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Steven Pressfield |
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The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself.
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Steven Pressfield |
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His was not, I could see now, the heroism of an Achilles. He was not a superman who waded invulnerably into the slaughter, single-handedly slaying the foe by myriads. He was just a man doing a job. A job whose primary attribute was self-restraint and self-composure, not for his own sake, but for those whom he led by his example.
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Steven Pressfield |
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e4f4efa
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The hardest thing in the world is to be ourselves.
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Steven Pressfield |
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A youth loathes nothing more than his own callowness. Experience is his object. Experience, however ghastly, for the lad longs before all for the lined face and chiseled squint of the veteran. Even his submissions to terror, the very shit with which he paints his thighs under fire is trophy to him; he points it out to his comrades, laughing in the aftercourse of action as if it were a decoration for valour, for it makes him a salt, a vetera..
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Steven Pressfield |
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9e120ee
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Here is what you do, friends. Forget country. Forget king. Forget wife and children and freedom. Forget every concept, however noble, that you imagine you fight for here today. Act for this alone: for the man who stands at your shoulder. He is everything, and everything is contained within him. That is all I know. That is all I can tell you. --Dienekes at Thermopylae
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war
spartans
warfare
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Steven Pressfield |
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4ea4554
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Because a warrior carries helmet and breastplate for his own protection, but his shield for the safety of the whole line.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are. The last thing we want is to remain as we are.
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Steven Pressfield |
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7bd4974
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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 that 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 swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, bab..
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Steven Pressfield |
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4f65648
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When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us .
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Steven Pressfield |
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36a8d2a
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Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This
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Steven Pressfield |
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97870e7
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The will to victory may be demonstrated in places other than actual battle.
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Steven Pressfield |
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ffe8f74
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The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. 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.
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Steven Pressfield |
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4b4c3d5
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
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resistance
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Steven Pressfield |
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2ccc199
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Rooster was a bad slave. He had no use for anyone, not even the gods. Not that he was angry at the gods, like some I'd met. He just dismissed them entirely. There were no gods, and that was that.
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Steven Pressfield |
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ea1e6dd
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Is it healthy for a society to entrust its defense to one percent of its population, while the other 99 percent thanks its lucky stars that it doesn't have to do the dirty work?
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Steven Pressfield |
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094fd28
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Any support we get from persons of flesh and blood is like Monopoly money; it's not legal tender in that sphere where we have to do our work. In fact, the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.
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Steven Pressfield |
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316a1fa
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What we get when we turn pro is, we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and to live out.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Similarly the call to growth can be conceptualized as personal (a daimon or genius, an angel or a muse) or as impersonal, like the tides or the transiting of Venus. Either way works, as long as we're comfortable with it. Or if extra-dimensionality doesn't sit well with you in any form, think of it as "talent," programmed into our genes by evolution. The point, for the thesis I'm seeking to put forward, is that there are forces we can call o..
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Steven Pressfield |
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9e4ae63
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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,
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Steven Pressfield |
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48e2aef
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Doctors estimate that seventy to eighty percent of their business is non-health-related. People aren't sick, they're self-dramatizing. Sometimes the hardest part of a medical job is keeping a straight face.
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Steven Pressfield |
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The clash is epic and internal, between the ego and the Self, and the stakes are our lives.
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Steven Pressfield |
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bfd0beb
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The children who were able to sit for three minutes with a marshmallow on the table in front of them without eating it were rewarded with two marshmallows when the experimenter returned. But that's as crazy as inbox-watching. Krishna said we have the right to our labor, but not to the fruits of our labor. He meant that the piano is its own reward, as is the canvas, the barre, and the movieola. Fuck the marshmallows.
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Steven Pressfield |
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78d4692
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instill courage not by his words alone but by the calm and professional manner with which he spoke them. War is work, not mystery.
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Steven Pressfield |
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Sometimes on Wednesday I'll read something that I wrote on Tuesday and I'll think, "This is crap. I hate it and I hate myself." Then I'll re-read the identical passage on Thursday. To my astonishment, it has become brilliant overnight. Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance. Keep working."
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Steven Pressfield |
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0af1020
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Warrior cultures (and warrior leaders) enlist shame, not only as a counter to fear but as a goad to honor. The warrior advancing into battle (or simply resolving to keep up the fight) is more afraid of disgrace in the eyes of his brothers than he is of the spears and lances of the enemy.
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Steven Pressfield |
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0a85f8a
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The sword master stepping onto the fighting floor knows he will be facing powerful opponents. Not the physical adversaries whom he will fight (though those indeed serve as stand-ins for the enemy). The real enemy is inside himself. The monk in meditation knows this. So does the yogi. So do the film editor and the video-game creator and the software writer.
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Steven Pressfield |
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74c0819
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The Gnostics believed that exile was the essential condition of man. Do you agree? I do. The artist and the addict both wrestle with this experience of exile. They share an acute, even excruciating sensitivity to the state of separation and isolation, and both actively seek a way to overcome it, to transcend it, or at least to make the pain go away. What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds an..
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Steven Pressfield |
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bbd3ca9
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This is what I feared for Michael. That his generation, so strong, so well made, so bright and aware beyond its years, would compare itself to us in envy, envy of the clarity of our challenges and the brutish obviousness of our enemies.
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Steven Pressfield |
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ef207e7
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Sjecas li se,Dijanece,kad smo se borili s Tebancima kod Eritreje?Kad su se slomili i pobjegli?Bio je to prvi bijeg kojem sam svjedocio.Zaprepastio me je.Postoji li primitivniji i vise ponizavajuci prizor pod suncem nego kad se falanga slama zbog straha?Zbog njega se covjek srami sto je smrtnik,kad ugleda tkavu neplemenitost cak i kod neprijatelja.To krsi sve bozje zakone.Samoubojicino lice koje se pretvorilo u grimasu prijezira sada se razv..
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Steven Pressfield |
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dbf70ea
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You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you.
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Steven Pressfield |
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8945af7
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In short, if the Muse exists, she does not whisper to the untalented.
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Steven Pressfield |
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96b901a
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THE MAGIC OF MAKING A START Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meet..
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Steven Pressfield |