Quotes and thoughts on Creativity (Blaugust03)
*This was originally posted on my Patreon, here: https://www.patreon.com/StuartWatkinson/posts/quotes-and-on-166073061
The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day. - Stephen Pressfield, author.
Pressfield is talking about Resistance. That amorphous energy that puts itself in the way of the creative and stops them doing the thing they love. Or the thing they hate but must expel from their soul. Depending on how tortured an artist you want to be about it. Pressfield, in the book The War of Art, takes a spiritual approach to the creative life. By the end of the book he is talking about angels and God, and for an Australian atheist, that is all a bit much. Really, the most important thing that Pressfield argues is that you must sit down and do the work. The more you do the work, the less power Resistance has.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt, American President.
Ted is on the money here. Doing The Work is the most important thing, and it shouldn't matter where you are or what you have. Just get started, and with progress, the ideas, the motivation, and sometimes even The Muse will come to you. Write with a pencil on scrap paper. Take a notebook. Use an app on your phone (this was written in Obsidian synced to all my devices). What is that you really want to do? Waiting for the perfect conditions or when there is enough time, the things will never get done.
There are no perfect conditions, and there is never enough time.
You shall contemplate the fruits of your insolence on the Tree of Woe. - Thulsa Doom, snake cult leader.
Not fighting the battle only leads to the Tree of Woe, a desolate place where you spend your waking hours wishing you had done the thing you wanted to do.
And your nights filled with restless nightmares of what could have been.
Blaugust 2026
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Quotes and thoughts on Creativity (Blaugust03)