A friend asked me the other day how I experienced Resistance. What did the phenomenon feel like to me? I told him it was like wrestling an alligator.
"And I haven't even got a pen knife."
That’s not always bad. Sometimes the beast is a cute little cayman. I can clamp his jaws shut with my left hand, grab him by the tail with my right. It’s no problem to wrap him up and get him into the trunk of the car.
But sometimes that gator gets a little bigger. Right now, in the project I’m working on, he outweighs me by eighty pounds and he’s kicking my ass.
How Bob Dylan does it
Have you read Bob Dylan’s book, Chronicles? A significant section covers his struggles trying to put together one specific album. I don’t know if Mr. Dylan would say he was dueling Resistance or just the challenges of the work, but his style of combat, if memory serves, included impulsive cross-country airline flights, massive music listening, employment of controlled substances, midnight forays into weird parts of town, crazy phone calls, collaboration with strangers and a general instinct-driven voodoo-thrashing that somehow all came together and produced the answer he was looking for.
Resistance: 100 million years B.C.
My own struggles are a lot more reptilian. Maybe it’s because the medium I labor in is an essentially-solitary enterprise that requires hours of focused concentration daily (or nearly daily) over a sustained period of time. It’s not aerial combat, it’s foot-slogging. It’s infantry work. But back to that alligator.
Here’s why the gator-wrestling metaphor rings true to my experience as a writer battling Resistance:
1) The enemy is as big as I am. Bigger sometimes. And he’s all muscle. By no means is it a foregone conclusion that I’m gonna beat him.
2) He’s sneaky-fast. The bastard is cunning; he’ll sneak up on you underwater and strike out of nowhere. And he can cover ground like a racehorse.
3) He’s invulnerable. His hide is two inches thick–and I don’t even have a pen knife.
4) I have to grapple with him belly-to-belly. There’s no other way. This is not a rapier duel or an archery match; it’s up close and personal–two bodies, head-to-head, tail-to-tail, rassling in the mud.
5) The gator can get you from both ends. One blow from that tail will break your leg. And those jaws? If he gets them around you, fuggedaboutit.
6) The bastard is prehistoric. He’s got scales, man! And look at those eyes. He doesn’t even have warm blood. Seth Godin calls Resistance the “lizard brain.” There’s a lot to that. This foe is primordial; he was walking the earth with the dinosaurs. To him, I’m lunch–and he’s got a predator’s pedigree that goes back 100 million years.
7) There’s no negotiating with this sonofabitch. I can’t holler uncle or make a deal. And this sucker doesn’t just want to kill me, he wants to eat me.
The only way to win is outlast him. I can’t shoot him; I can’t drown him; I can’t punch him in the nose and make him quit. The only hope is to stay so close to him that he can’t get those jaws around me, while using my body weight to wear him down. His only weakness is those stubby little arms. If I can keep him off-balance long enough and keep him thrashing trying to get to me, I can tire him out. The fight will go out of him–at least till tomorrow, when he’ll be back.
An invitation to comment
That’s how I experience Resistance. How about you? How does this monster come after you? I’d like to know. Write in below under “Comments.” If we get some good stuff, we’ll run it in this space–and we can all compare notes.
Bob Dylan, we’ll be glad to hear from you too.
32 Comments
Steve,
An excellent and accurate post. Internal resistance is a beast, indeed. Your book, The War of Art and these post help to keep us ever vigilant. Many thanks!
Resistance always takes the form of warped time. Paul Graham has <a href=”http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html”an excellent article about “Makers Schedule’s vs. Manager’s Schedules and he basically talks about how, for a creator, a mid-morning meeting that might only take about an hour NEVER only takes an hours work away from one’s creative efforts. Because the specter of the interrupted work means the morning becomes psychologically ruined. Resistance at work, baby. And that’s exactly how resistance is for me.
If I have calls scheduled and “only” have an hour before a meeting or something, then resistance will convince me that I should do a bunch of unimportant busy work tasks with that time because it’s ONLY and hour. So I answer e-mails, check twitter, check for software updates, etc. And if I have all morning, or even all day, then resistance convinces me that there’s no rush, because I have “All morning,” I can afford to do a few fun things before settling down to work. Next thing you know, half the morning (or more) is gone.
This is where the notion of “looking resistance in the eye” comes into play. I have to recognize the siren calls when they come, look resistance in the eye, and say, STFU, and then get down to work.
When I get past that stage, resistance pulls the “you’re writing crap” crap. That’s when I have to ask one of two questions: 1) will it get any better if I procrastinate on it, or will having written a shitty first draft win me the attempt at a much better 2nd draft, and/or 2) if everything I wrote was destined to turn out as crap, would I still want to write for a living? Would it still be worth doing? The answers to those two questions can usually get me through. But I’ve got to win a few battles with resistance before even getting to that stage, and it’s in the early battles where my record is so spotty.
- Jeff
I’ve come to have a very different view of resistance in the years I’ve been studying and working with it. First, it may be prehistoric, but I’ve come to believe it really has my best interests at heart. It truly believes I’m in danger when I’m about to rock the boat on my blog or public speak and it’s tactics are meant to be a useful way to get me to “safety”.
Second, the single and only advantage I’ve been able to gain over it is awareness, or “enough space” for both it and me to sit together with a minimum of reaction. Like many of the commenters have said, being still and looking it straight in the eye and breathing with it has been the best way so far to maintain left brain function and logical decision making in the face of whatever it’s dishing. And anything that helps me deepen awareness has helped.
Third, I believe our metaphor for it makes a huge difference in it’s power over us. I think of it sometimes like a scared child that needs to be consoled and parented correctly this time, or I think of it like my memory bank for potential danger.
There’s a Sufi perspective on resistance that I’ve found hugely helpful, which is that our resistance is everything in us that needs to be transformed in our pursuit of what we love. And there’s a perfect alchemy in the way our calling leads us directly toward our inner and outer obstacles. So it can seem sometimes like we’re no farther ahead when we defeat resistance for one day, but I believe now that each win is one more step in the transformation process.
And finally, I want to say to the fellow with no money to get music produced – that lack of time, money and energy are just other forms of resistance. = >
Hi Steven,
Resistance feels like a force that sucks every once of positive energy out of me. Yesterday, after reading your latest post, the monster must have gotten riled up and went on the offense because I watched a presentation that I knew would take the wind out of my latest venture. Ready to quit, again, I picked up the “War of Art” and opened to the “Resistance and This Book” page. Resistance must have thought it had me and momentarily looked the other way. The voice you decided to ignore sounded remarkably like the voice I had been listening to. Back on track until the next bout, I want to thank you for going ahead with the book, writing this blog, and sharing your battles. Your voice gives me strength.
Kathleen
The way I see resistance is that it is universal justice. If you can be taken down you will be. I see every living organism having all the essential elements necessary to be a complete expression of whatever that organism is. Resistance, from my perspective is always there to assure that every expression is earned and not given a free pass. Just think of all the crap that would be produced if there were no resistance. Funny, how much time this society spends on trying to eliminate resistance of any sort when we should be honoring and saluting it for being one element of life that keeps things real. Just think of any sporting event with only one player. How much fun would it be to watch the Super Bowl if only one team were playing. Without resistance there is nothing gained. The tougher the opponent the greater the victory. Thanks Stephen for bringing to light this very essential element of life and for giving it it’s due.
One of the most profound things I ever read about the craft of writing appeared on this website. It was, “Nobody wants to read your shit.” On one hand, I wish I had learned that 40 years ago. Writing on certain subjects or in a articular way may be therapeutic for me but that doesn’t necessarily mean that anybody else will think it’s a good read. After stumbling on that advice, (actually, my husband emailed me the article) I looked over my shoulder at vast expanses of drivel I have produced and thought, “Ugh!” I need to stop doing that right now and go straight to the part where it’s not cleverly camouflaged therapy. That worked for about a page. However, once I sat down to write something other than therapeutic s–t, somehow, all my stories had degenerated into that category. Resistance has taken an entirely new form. It’s all just therapy. But somebody told me that the word Satan is Sanskrit for “I resist.” I took that as my absolution and wrote another page. It was flat as a pancake but they were actual words on a page.
Resistance is “Alien”, hibernating in a seemingly friendly human body and suddenly burst out of the body destroying all in its wake. Big resistance catches me before I have time to run, to defend myself. It drags me into never-never land, and I can’t return. Little resistance is what I can stand and fight, beat it back, think I finally destroyed it. But we know … it only found a new body.
A quote comes to mind and I can’t quite remember the author. “If you live in a world without pressure you wouldn’t be good at anything.” I want the monster to show his head, I want him to chase me down, I want to be aware that he is lurking. That prospect keeps me honest and keeps me moving and changing and watching and searching and curious. The monster is always present but so am I.
Steven,
The only way I fight the Resistance is by reminding myself that I am here for a specific purpose, and that living up to that purpose is not optional, it’s mandatory. Before I knew that resistance was named Resistance, I was no match for it. I was the 98-pound self-esteem weakling, and Resistance was kicking sand in my face. There really wasn’t much of a fight. Eventually I got to a place where I began to see myself differently, in a far more positive light. It was only when I began to view my talents, gifts, and abilities as gifts that I needed to offer to the world that I was able to fend off Resistance. Living up to that which I was created to become is my obligation and responsibility. When resistance rears it’s ugly head, the larger-than-myself me is able to move forward, stronger and more determined out of respect and obligation to God and to the world I am here to serve.
I am thrilled that I discovered your artistry. Thank you for sharing the gift of you with the world!
I’m in its belly! It’s dark in here. Cut me out, quick.