Shane Shennan’s Neighborhood

gather round, children

Pogues- fairytale of new york

Pogues (feat. Kirsty MacColl)

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(25 December, 2009)

      In talking about procrastination, the author says, “it can become a habit.” (p. 22) He continues, to say, “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 second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.” (p. 22)

      Pressfield even says that having sex can be a form of resistance. He says that it's a quick fix that can distract us from getting down to work. He says that not all sex is a form resistance takes, but, “The more empty you feel [after sex], the more certain you can be that your true motivation was not love or even lust but Resistance.” (p. 23)

      Acting like a victim is also a form of resistance, too, Pressfield says. He says it's “a form of passive aggression.” (p. 27) He says, “[being a victim] seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or by a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat.” (p. 27)

      One very interesting form of Resistance is the choice of a mate who “has or is successfully overcoming Resistance.” (p. 29) Pressfield questions, however, if this is really love or just a need to be with someone who has done something we have not yet done (ie. conquer Resistance). He says that when we are with a partner because they have conquered Resistance and we have not, love is disfigured.

      Pressfield asks, “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.” He talks about how companies have realized this feeling that we have when we face this form of Resistance. He indicates that they market products to us to make money off our misery with ourselves. Pressfield says, “We unplug ourselves from the grid [of consumer culture] by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.” (p. 32)

      In a more scholarly discussion, Pressfield talks about Resistance and fundamentalism. He talks about the difference between the fundamentalist and the humanist/artist. He says, “The artist is grounded in freedom.” (p. 34) He says, “The difference is that while the one [the artist] looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other [the fundamentalist] looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen.” (p. 36) He says, “Fundamentalism is the philosophy of the powerless, the conquered, the displaced and the dispossessed.” (p. 34) A bit later, he talks about how fundamentalism is rooted in despair. He says, “It is the despair of freedom.” (p. 34) “The fundamentalist...cannot stand freedom. He cannot find his way into the future, so he retreats into the past.” (p. 35)

(24 December, 2009)

      This evening, I just started reading The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. I read about it in Donald Miller's book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Miller says, “[The War of Art] is about writing, about the process of getting words onto an empty page.” (p. 115) I just thought I'd share some quotations from The War of Art that might help other people.

      In the beginning of his book, in a section called “What I Do,” Pressfield discusses what he does as a writer. He writes for as long as he can before he starts making typos (a sign that he's tired). He doesn't care how many pages he's written or if they are even any good. He says, “All that matters is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.” He says that resistance is the force that tries to prevent an author from sitting down and writing.

      In a section called “The Unlived Life,” Pressfield talks about how resistance is not something that only writers experience. He indicates that if we have some kind of dream we would like to achieve, whether it's becoming a mother, reaching spiritual goals, reaching artistic goals such as writing or painting—whatever it is that we want to achieve, we are all vulnerable to being attacked by resistance.

      In book one of The War of Art, Pressfield lists some actions that bring about resistance. In short, doing “any action that rejects immediate gratification in favour of long-term growth, health, or integrity” will cause us to feel resistance. (p. 6)

      In the section entitled, “Resistance is Infallible,” Pressfield says, “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.” (p. 12)

      “Resistance's goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. It's target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.” (p. 15)

      “The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it's got.” (p. 18)

      Pressfield says that when a writer starts working, he will be subjected to resistance from other people...mostly from the people to whom he is closest. “They may become moody or sullen, they may get sick; they may accuse the awakening writer of 'changing,' of 'not being the person she was.” (p. 19) Pressfield says about this resistance from other people,“The reason is that they are struggling, consciously or unconsciously, against their own Resistance. The awakening writer's success becomes a reproach to them. If she can beat those demons, why can't they?” (p. 19) He continues, indicating that the writer cannot join another author or friend when that author or friend has gotten detained by resistance. He says, “The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.” (p. 20)

I thought I'd get Christmassy with my silly little game of the week. I haven't done one for a while. Apologies about that.

Anyhow, to make up for it, I bring you Santa, haplessly brought down in mid flight into zombie land.

Help him save the reindeer!!!

Santa christmas nightmare

To my adorable friends:  always sing without fear.

Happy Holidays and may you have a New Year that embraces you with all the good things you desire.

     How are we forced to do something to make life a better story for us? It takes an “inciting incident.” Miller's friend Jordan said, “The inciting incident is how you get [the character] to do something...It's the doorway through which they can't return, you know. The story takes care of the rest.” (p. 104)

      Donald Miller talks about how a person can meet with opposition when trying to create a better story for himself. He refers to what Steven Pressfield, the author of a book called The War of Art, says about writers having to write even when they don't feel like it. Miller paraphrases Pressfield, when he says that “resistance, a kind of feeling that comes against you when you point toward a distant horizon, is a sure sign that you are supposed to do the thing in the first place. The harder the resistance, the more important the task must be...” (p. 115)

      Later in the book, Miller talks about how, when you do something in life, you become like the character you're trying to be (p. 155) Basically, he's saying that you are what you do. He says, “The truth is, we are all living out the character of the roles we have played in our stories.” (p 167)

      Miller talks about what he learned from a lecture on story. The speaker, Robert McKee, said, “it's conflict that changes a person.” (p. 180) He said, “You put your characters through hell. You put them through hell. That's the only way we change.” (p. 180)

      Later, the author talks about what happens when we don't have a story in our lives. He says, “You can't go on without a story any longer than you can read a book about nothing.” (p. 192)

      Miller talks about what perspective to take in living out our own stories. He indicates that each of us are trees in a forest, and that “the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.” (p. 198)

Miller says, “A good movie has memorable scenes, and so does a good life.” (p. 212) He talks about building “altars” in our lives...memorable scenes that “punctuate the existing rise and fall of a narrative.” (He talks about how a story has “both positive and negative turns” (p. 119) in a previous chapter, and that a character in a story “doesn't give up when he encounters a setback” (p. 119) because he knows this fact.)