Book review: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

I found out about this book from the Joe Rogan experience. It was a remarkable book because it speaks about the idea of being towards goals and not listening to naysayers. Frequently there is a lot of people promulgating towards us when we are writing and working towards our goals but listen to them but rather to keep on going and working towards her. The idea is that you shouldn’t just sit there and try to produce something that is absolutely perfect. Instead you should just try to sit and produce an overtime it will become perfect. Indeed overtime it should become what your soul intended it to be. There will be lots of naysayers out there who frequently criticize you on the smallest things. One thing that comes to mind personally is the idea of punctuation grammatical issues. But this author says that he would frequently sit down and write and produce what came to him and not worry what the quality was.

I think this is a really beautiful idea and recommendation that you just need to sit there and start getting things done. The author said that he starts every day with an indication to the Muse he starts by the time the Thomas Edward Lawrence is to say Lawrence of Arabia translation of the beginning of The Odyssey where the Muses are invoked and he seems to perhaps have a tongue-in-cheek way of thinking about this but he may really believe in it as an author that the muses are there. He sort of says whether they exist or not it’s a very beautiful invocation of the muse and people have been doing it for centuries so perhaps there’s something from a psychological subconscious perspective of inducing creativity.

See there’s something to be said about Thomas Edward Lawrence as a translator and there is something to be said about invoking the Muses. Overall I think that’s a very beautiful perception. He said he just goes for it as an author both in his self-help books and in the non-self-help books that he tries to produce such as novels. I think it’s simply incredible how much great work that this author can produce and I really respect it.

Granted I think one of the main things that people can become bogged down — that is to say that what they produce is not good and that it really reflects on other people criticizing that other person. Currently if someone says that the work that you’ve produced is not good it’s more of a reflection of them. Indeed it’s not much a reflection of you instead it’s a reflection of them saying how your work was not good and it really reflects their jealousy and egotism towards your work. So I think that’s something that is worthy of consideration because many people get nervous when they start presenting their work to others or what other people would feel. The idea is you shouldn’t care. You should just go for it do what’s best and see what can be done

It seems the Joe Rogan may have invited the author Steven Pressfield a number of times to discuss the book on his podcast. It also seems that Joe Rogan has given the book as a gift several times to go for training and working too overconfident and defeat the struggling process of producing creating. So I think it’s a really good book it’s really not that long and it’s not that much of investment of time. I think I will recommend it to others.

I have been thinking about this one video that I saw about productivity. I’m not sure where I found it from it may have been one of the various productivity YouTube channels that I had subscribed to and continue to subscribe to. I find those useful and encouraging. The story goes like this a productivity guru one who is going to have an hour of coffee with someone who is struggling with productivity. That person who is struggling I was nine minutes late to the meeting. And when the person who was like out there she apologized. But the productivity guru said that she was nine minutes late but she only indicated that to her to say how much progress he had by writing six sentences for his next project/book. That is productivity.

Thinking about my greater narrative of my reading journey in life and this year, I think this book fits in with the idea of overcoming the naysayers both external and internal. I think no matter what journey you’re on, such a book can help you. I think that’s why the podcast with Joe Rogan and Steven Pressfield made such an impression on me. Likewise, I think that is why I decided to read the book. Given how short and poignant the book was, I enjoyed reading it as well.

© Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln IV