The War of Art

The War of Art (Steven Pressfield, 2002)
Here is the author’s website, where he blogs regularly.

Pressfield is primarily an author of fiction, especially historical military fiction – for example, “Gates of Fire,” which takes place among the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. He is an ex-Marine, and his books are popular among the military. Some of them are required reading – “Tides of War,” about the Peloponnesian War, is on the book list at the Naval War College.

This book, “The War of Art,” is about creative endeavor, and the struggle that faces the artist, musician, writer – or human being of any description. “Resistance,” he names it, with a capital R. It is our enemy. Pressfield writes:

Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its 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)

It takes many forms: procrastination, fear, self-medication, drugs/alcohol/junk food, cruelty to others and to self, wasting time with television/internet, criticism of others, the fear of criticism from others…

It is universal; everyone faces it, every day. Resistance especially abhors “the pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art… any diet or health regimen… any program of spiritual advancement… education of every kind… any act of political, moral, or ethical courage…” (p. 5 and 6, where Pressfield lists eleven such activities). Resistance hates these things, and will do anything to “shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”

It is spiritual warfare. I would call it the work of the Enemy, the Dragon who would devour us and all things living, and Pressfield would agree, at least to the extent of personifying it. That is why it is “Resistance,” with the capital R.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. (I Peter 5:8-9)

But, as fearsome as it is, Resistance is, in a way, so easy to overcome. “One little word will fell him,” as Luther’s hymn says. All we have to do is show up and do the work. Now. This moment, the thing that God has for us to do. And as soon as we make a beginning, we find that we have allies.

It is here that Pressfield’s book is at its best, for me, when he turns to discussion of the spiritual forces that stand at our side. He speaks of the Muses, and of Angels. He begins every day’s work with Prayer, and commends the practice to his readers: “I say it out loud, in absolute earnest. Only then do I get down to business” (p. 110). He writes:

As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels. (p. 107)

and in regard to the ideas that “come to us,” showing us how we should revise what we have written, or do differently in the next rehearsal:

Insights pop into our heads while we’re shaving or taking a shower or even, amazingly, while we’re actually working… If we forget something, [the angels/muses] remind us. If we veer off-course, they trim the tabs and steer us back… Clearly some intelligence is at work, independent of our conscious mind and yet in alliance with it, processing our material for us and alongside us. This is why artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation. (p. 126-7)

I have written elsewhere about the mysterious way in which, overnight, what I call the “lizard brain” comes up with better fingerings, and insists on trying them. I had written down the fingerings and played them in my First Workout, but there are always places where, in the Second Workout, my hands refuse to play what I had done only yesterday. I have learned to go with it, to at least try it the new way – and most often, it is right. It is an improvement, a more efficient way of playing the passage, and it had entirely eluded my conscious mind.

This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don’t even notice. But it’s a miracle. And its implications are staggering. Who’s doing this revising anyway? What force is yanking at our sleeves? (p. 125)

Pressfield writes of the artist’s Territory. “Stevie Wonder’s territory is the piano… When Bill Gates pulls into the parking lot at Microsoft, he’s on his territory. When I sit down to write, I’m on mine.” He lists five qualities of Territory:

A territory provides sustenance.
A territory sustains us without any external input.
A territory can only be claimed alone.
A territory can only be claimed by work.
A territory returns exactly what you put in. (p. 154-155)

I have a Territory. It is the bench of the little Pilcher pipe organ upstairs in the church. It is that Steinway across from it. It is the choir room, and my little office at its side. It is our kitchen at home, where I do most of the cooking and nearly all of the dishwashing and grocery-shopping. Pressfield is right: when I sit down at the Pilcher, or arrange chairs or file music in the choir room, or dry the dishes and pots and put them away, each one in its proper place, I find sustenance. I hope also that I am a channel for sustenance to others.

When the artist works territorially, she reveres heaven. She aligns herself with the mysterious forces that power the universe and that seek, through her, to bring forth new life. By doing her work for its own sake, she sets herself at the service of these forces. (p. 156)

This is a great deal of high-minded talk. But, as Pressfield says, we must not think overmuch in this manner. What we have to do instead is to “show up every day.” Sit down at the computer and start typing. Or climb onto the bench and start playing. Or set up the chairs and write the plan on the board for youth choir, even when I am tired and don’t think that I can get through the rehearsal. Or open the doors into the church on Sunday morning and turn on the lights and put on my organ shoes. Or decide what to fix for dinner, put the pot on the stove, and chop the vegetables.

None of these things are easy. I must face down Resistance every day, and sometimes I am an abject failure. I fritter away the hours when I should be practicing. Or I eat Chocolate instead of dealing with a troublesome e-mail and the forces behind it which could de-rail our work together in the choir and community. I am afraid. Or tired. Or wallowing in Sloth, or Acedia.

But if we can bring ourselves to overcome Resistance by simply making a start, if we somehow find the courage to do these things and keep doing them,

… it makes God happy. Eternity, as Blake might have told us, has opened a portal into time.

And we’re it. (p. 124)

When I took on a young piano student last fall, it made me consider what I must teach her. What is essential to the work?

The first thing is Prayer. I taught her the little prayer that JSB used to write at the top of his scores: J.J.

Jesu, juva (Jesus, help!)

She is to say this every time she sits at a piano, right before she starts playing. We begin our lessons with it. I say it too, every time I sit down at a piano or organ and am ready to play. As Pressfield wrote, I say it out loud, in absolute earnest (well, I whisper it instead of saying it in full voice when I’m in church, ready to begin the service. And for rehearsals, the Choristers' Prayer serves the same purpose. The “absolute earnest” part still applies.)

But it is not enough to pray, not enough to simply ask Jesus for help. We must then play some notes. They don’t have to be good, they don’t even have to be correct, or played with good hand position and technique. If we pay attention and stay with it, day after day, these things will improve. Jesus will indeed help us.