Steven Pressfield
Have you ever noticed that addicts are often extremely interesting people? Addiction itself is excruciatingly boring, in that it’s so predictable. The lies, the evasions, the transparent self-justification and self-exoneration. But the addict himself is often a colorful and compelling person. His story reads like a novel, packed with drama, intrigue, conflict and heartbreak. If the addict’s drug of choice is alcohol, the narrative is frequently one of job loss, domestic abuse, divorce, abandonment of children, bankruptcy. If Class One narcotics are the culprit, the tale often includes crime, the law, violence, even death. Of course we fallible mortals can…
Read MoreBelow are some of the dusty tomes I studied in writing The Warrior Ethos. Does the word “arcane” ring a bell? Reading these is like getting beaten up with a bag of ball bearings. Trust me, if the library at Quantanamo Bay contained nothing but these books, there would be no need for “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The prisoners would sing like birds. “Please! No more! I’ll tell you anything you want!” I’m the opposite. I love this stuff. Unearthing Frontinus’ The Strategemata deep in the library stacks, I was as psyched as Quentin Tarantino when he first got his hands…
Read MoreThe Domino Project is a partnership between Seth Godin and amazon.com, in which together they find, commission, edit, design, print, advertise, market and distribute a specific type of book/audio/eBook that Seth calls a “manifesto.” The first such piece, published two months ago, was Seth’s Poke the Box; the second, two weeks ago, was my Do the Work. In last week’s post, I offered my own befogged take on what the Domino Project is, what it represents, and what were some of the possible implications of this model for all of us artists and entrepreneurs going into the future. Continuing that…
Read MoreChapter 28 The Warrior Archetype Jung was a student of myths and legend and of the unconscious. He discovered and named the Collective Unconscious, meaning that part of the psyche that is common to all cultures in all eras and at all times. The Collective Unconscious, Jung said, contains the stored wisdom of the human race, accumulated over thousands of generations. The Collective Unconscious is the software we’re born with. It’s our package of instincts and pre-verbal knowledge. Within this package, Jung discovered what he called the archetypes. Archetypes are the larger-than-life, mythic-scale personifications of the stages that we…
Read MoreFirst, I want to thank everyone who helped make last Wednesday’s launch of Do The Work such an overwhelming success. I sent pizza to the gang at Seth Godin’s Domino Project (thanks, Pizza Grill in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY)—but I also want to give a shout-out to everyone who downloaded the free Kindle version, ordered the hardback or audio, tweeted, Facebooked, blogged, retweeted or just told a friend and passed DTW along. Thanks, you guys! You helped make this thing a hit without any traditional media, advertising, testimonials, blurbs, reviews, the whole shooting match. Next week in this space I’ll talk with…
Read MoreChapter 25 The War Inside Ourselves The Bhagavad-Gita is the great warrior epic of India. For thousands of years, Indian caste structure has been dominated by two elite social orders—the Brahmins (poets and holy men) and the Kshatriyas (warriors and nobles). The Bhagavad-Gita is the story of the great warrior Arjuna, who receives spiritual instruction from his charioteer, who happens to be Krishna—i.e., God in human form. Krishna instructs Arjuna to slay his enemies without mercy. The warrior-god points across the battlefield to knights and archers and spearmen whom Arjuna knows personally and feels deep affection for—and commands him…
Read MoreToday, the 20th, is publication day for Do the Work in all three versions—hardback, electronic and audio—so please forgive me if I do a little marketing pitch for a sentence or two. Here’s how I described the book to a friend: Do The Work isn’t so much a “follow-up” to The War of Art as it is an action guide that gets down and dirty in the trenches. Say you’ve got a book, a screenplay or a startup in your head but you’re stuck or scared or just don’t know how to begin, how to break through or how to…
Read MoreChapter 23 Coming Home But what about us? What about the soldier or Marine who steps off the plane from overseas and finds himself in the scariest place he’s seen in years: Home. Has everything he knows suddenly become useless? What skill set can he employ in the civilian world? The returning warrior faces a dilemma not unlike that of the convict released from prison. Has he been away so long that he can never come back? Is the world he knows so alien to the “real world” that he can never fit in again? Who is he, if…
Read MoreLast week’s post, this week’s and next’s all come from Do The Work, our new book that comes out, on amazon.com only, a week from today. The e-version is available for free right now, though it won’t go “live” till pub day. At that time, a hardback and an audio version will go on sale, along with a collectible. By the way, you don’t need an e-reader to download an e-book; it’ll work on your iPad, your Mac or PC, your Android. Here’s a link to free apps that make this work. But enough salesmanship. Let’s get down to today’s…
Read MorePART THREE INNER WARS Chapter 21 Casualties of War All of us know brothers and sisters who have fought with incredible courage on the battlefield, only to fall apart when they came home. Why? Is it easier to be a soldier than to be a civilian? For the warrior, all choices have consequences. His decisions have meaning; every act he takes is significant. What he says and does can save (or cost) his own life or the lives of his brothers. The nineteen-year-old squad leader and the twenty-three-year-old lieutenant often exercise more power (and in spheres of greater and…
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