The clash is epic and internal, between the ego and the Self, and the stakes are our lives.
The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.
The amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps. To the amateur, the game is his avocation. To the pro it's his vocation.
The amateur allows his worth and identity to be defined by others. The amateur craves third-party validation. The amateur is tyrannized by his imagined conception of what is expected of him. He is imp...
That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.
That fearsome emotion that animates the female in all-female groups (called outere in Amazon and gynekophoitos in Greek)
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 definit...
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, i...
Some heavy shit is coming down, brothers, and we’re going to go through it.
Sjećaš li se,Dijaneče,kad smo se borili s Tebancima kod Eritreje?Kad su se slomili i pobjegli?Bio je to prvi bijeg kojem sam svjedočio.Zaprepastio me je.Postoji li primitivniji i više ponižavajući pri...
Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there's tremendous love there too. If you didn't love the project that is terrifying you,...
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Our job, as souls on this mortal journey, is to shift the seat of our identity from the lower realm to the upper, from the ego to the Self. Art
Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. What will keep us from stopping? Plain old stubbornness. I like the idea of stubbornness because it’s less lofty than tenacity or persev...
Nothing fires the warrior’s heart more with courage than to find himself and his comrades at the point of annihilation, at the brink of being routed and overrun, and then to dredge not merely from one...
Many artists are addicts, and vice versa. Many are artists in one breath and addicts in another. What's the difference? The addict is the amateur; the artist is the professional.
Let us be, then, warriors of the heart, and enlist in our inner cause the virtues we have acquired through blood and sweat in the sphere of conflict—courage, patience, selflessness, loyalty, fidelity,...
In short, if the Muse exists, she does not whisper to the untalented.
If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it's our job to realize it and get down to business.
If the upper realm is, as Plato suggested, the sphere of perfect love, truth, justice, and beauty, then the artist seeks to call down the magic of this world and to create, by dint of labor and luck,...