Resolutions and Resistance

Resolutions and Resistance in the New Year

New year, new chance to talk about resolutions. And something else: resistance. It’s January, so if you’re into making resolutions, you’ve probably already done that. Or maybe you’ve set some reading or writing goals. I do tend to jump on that bandwagon, although I don’t really understand the need to quantify the number of books I read or number of words I write. I might not understand the urge, but I definitely set this type of number goal, especially for books I want to read. However, I noticed recently that if I used the number of books I acquire as some sort of metric and tied it to my reading goal, I would probably always be running at a deficit because there is no way I read all of the books I acquire each year. As an example, I estimate that I bought/found/received 120 books in 2023. Did I read that many? Not even close. I don’t know if the number of books I came into possession of last year is typical for me, but I’m going to say yes (this leads to a different issue, namely that getting books is some sort of compulsion, but that’s a topic for a different day).

Resolutions, though…hmm. At some point I must’ve realized setting a resolution = setting myself up for failure because somewhere along the way I stopped making them and instead started going with the flow, and not in any calendar-based way. In general, I feel like the need to get things done and “be productive” all the time has a lot to do with dopamine and cultural factors, along with how we’re personally wired. I know I feel good when I cross things off my to-do list, but I don’t know why (to-do list = good?). Just like I also know constantly keeping track of so many things in my life makes me feel bad (to-do list, step tracker, water tracker, book tracker, Duolingo streak = bad?). Regardless of whether you are more oriented towards reaching a finish line or more into the process, it’s interesting to look at another, related issue, which is resistance, especially resistance related to our creative pursuits.

The War of Art

On one of my visits to a local Santa Fe indie used bookstore over Christmas, I ran across a copy of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (I also found a paperback copy of the excellent Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass. Too bad for me I forgot I already had a hardback copy of it at home. See, even my inventory software doesn’t always help.). Intrigued, I took a chance on it. It’s a quick read, good for a few hours on the plane; inspirational in a brook-no-excuses sort of way, despite the fact that some of the language feels a bit dated. The third part of the book got a little bit wonky for me with all the talk about angels (I do agree that we can’t discount the presence of muses, maybe it’s just a matter of terminology), but overall the book does have some things that stick with you (obviously, or I wouldn’t be writing about it now).

The Legend of Bagger Vance

Pressfield’s anecdotes about his own struggle, prior to the highly successful The Legend of Bagger Vance, are interesting and relatable. For some inexplicable reason I always had it in my head that this story was a Western when it’s actually about golf (and other, bigger things).

The two main things I got out of the book were (1) how to recognize Resistance (Pressfield’s capitalization) and (2) what we can do about it.

The First Part – Recognizing Resistance

Pressfield, in the first part of the book, provides many, many examples of what he calls Resistance, which, as far as I can tell, includes any and all things that keep you from creating. Maybe walking the dog doesn’t count as Resistance, but walking the dog right this minute, when you know you only have these few minutes to create, probably is. So is having too much sex, drumming up drama in your life, and talking down to yourself about your skills or dreams. While he claims that “It’s not the writing part that’s hard…it’s the sitting down” part that’s hard (not sitting down is Resistance), I personally feel that sitting down isn’t that difficult, it’s actually working on what I want to work on, or what I profess to be the thing I want to work on while I instead sit around Googling what Cynthia Rhodes is up to these days. It’s oh-so-easy to say I want to work on the draft of my novel, but easier to fiddle with the settings on my website, get sucked down yet another rabbit hole on the internet…or even work on a blog post, in some cases. This Pressfield quote really resonated with me:

"The clock is running in my head; I know I can indulge in daily crap for a little while, but I must cut it off when the bell rings."

(p. 65)

How much time do you spend indulging in “daily crap” (ahem, crossing things off of your to-do list)? If this question makes you squirm, and not just for reasons of word choice, then maybe you’re facing Resistance in the form of that daily crap.

I have to mention the following quote, which aside from making me laugh, may explain why someone had turned the book in to the used bookstore in Santa Fe:

"Have you ever spent time in Santa Fe? There's a subculture of 'healing' there. The idea is that there's something therapeutic in the atmosphere. A safe place to go and get yourself together. There are other places (Santa Barbara and Ojai, California, come to mind), usually populated by upper-middle-class people with more time and money than they know what to do with, in which a culture of healing also obtains."

(pg. 48)

But keep reading past any urge to get offended (I’m not part of any upper-middle-class group with more time and money than I know what to do with, so it didn’t really hit a nerve), and the next thing he says is quite beneficial:

"The concept in all these environments seems to be that one needs to complete his healing before (emphasis mine) he is ready to do his work."

This way of thinking...is a form of Resistance."

(p. 48)

Ah. Did this strike a chord with you? When it comes down to it, he’s right. It’s like someone saying they need to get an MFA in creative writing before they can sit down and write a book. Of course, this isn’t true. It might help you do a better job, but not having an MFA doesn’t preclude you from writing, and that’s exactly Pressfield’s point. A lot of reasons we give are really just excuses, which is Resistance rearing its head to try to thwart us from creating. The crazy thing is that we are often acutely aware of the fact that we’re not focusing on our creative works. We just don’t know how to fix that. Pressfield talks about this in the second part of his book.

The Second Part – What We Can Do About It

In the second part of his book, Combating Resistance: Turning Pro, Pressfield says it’s as simple as making the decision to do it. In the section entitled “No Mystery” (p. 101), he lays it out succinctly: “There’s no mystery to turning pro. It’s a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our minds to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.” By the way, he defines a pro as someone who treats his or her creativity seriously, showing up for it every day, just like we would do with any other job.

I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, but I do concede that we overcome Resistance the moment we make that decision. Maybe not a resolution (there’s that word again), but just the simple act of moving the needle from not doing to doing. What follows from Pressfield is more of a pep talk than concrete suggestions for how to go about “turning pro,” but pep talks are always helpful.

Being Resolute and Having Fixity of Purpose

Thinking about Pressfield’s book and resolutions and my own experiences as a road map for myself, I have decided what I need, more than anything else, is to think of resolution in another form. It’s all well and good to give up resolutions, but it’s extremely useful to have something to fill in that gap. In all the talk of goals, focus, mindfulness, Resistance, and so on, what about just having resolve? Webster’s defines it as “fixity of purpose.” Fixity is my new favorite word. It’s the quality of being unwavering. We need to be unwavering in our purpose. If your purpose is to bake a new kind of cupcake every week, then you need to be unwavering about that (I can think of worse things to have fixity of purpose about).

Our time on Earth is limited, so naturally we need to make some hard choices about what we want to do, and especially what we don’t want to do with that time, and where our fixity of purpose is going to be. This might mean giving up the short-term dopamine you get from crossing things off your to-do list, but I’m willing to bet the overall dopamine gain you get from deciding to get in your chair and work on your creative projects is worth it.

How About You? Numbers-Oriented or Process-Oriented?

When it comes to setting goals, are you numbers-oriented? More process-oriented? What types of resistance do you feel pulling at you as we embark on a new year? Where are you going to apply your fixity of purpose? Let me know in the comments below.

Books Cited

Pressfield, Steven. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Creative Battles. New York: Warner Books, 2002.

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Another Update on My Pocketbook E-Reader

If you read my post in September, you know that I bought a new Pocketbook Color e-reader on a whim over my summer vacation. I go into detail (or at least as much detail as someone who is new to e-readers can manage) about what I did to set it up in that post. I have since worked out most of the issues but have two or three quick updates.

Customs Issue

First is that I finally got the stylus I had ordered from the U.S. delivered, after something like six weeks (note that I didn’t actually know that it was shipping from the U.S. or I never would have ordered it). The package got hung up in customs in Milan and I had to pay 10 Euros just to get it released to me when the postal worker delivered it. This is over and above the charge for the stylus itself and was not listed in the description as something that I would have to pay. I tried to get that customs charge refunded to me by the seller but, surprise, surprise, they had closed up shop and disappeared by the time I put in my request. I’m dealing with some disappointment over and above the customs issue (regarding customs, this has been a big bummer post-Brexit in terms of ordering books because anything coming from the UK is automatically flagged and charged a hefty customs fee and also postal service handling fee) because it turns out it’s what’s called a capacitive stylus, which means there’s no electronics in it. It’s supposed to work just like your finger.

Clumsy to Manage

That’s all fine and I did actually read the description and know in advance that there were no electronics involved. Cool, I don’t need another thing I have to charge. However, I didn’t realize that it would have this small clear disc attached to the end of the stylus tip. This does not come off and is, in fact, supposed to somehow enhance your writing and drawing experience. I find it clumsy to manage, but it’s probably me. I mostly wanted to use a stylus to underline passages in my e-books, not draw, and I either haven’t learned how to do this properly, or it isn’t possible with this type of stylus. If you have experience and can offer any tips (pardon the pun), please let me know in the comments below. I will say, though, that it works really well on my phone and tablet.

Washed Out – Retract that Statement

Second, I had mentioned that the colors in the Pocketbook Color e-reader seemed to be “washed out.” I’m going to retract that statement and say that in some cases, the pictures look really good. For example, I have an e-book that has color photos, and those actually look quite nice. I think anyone who is used to looking at graphic novels or photos on a tablet is going to be less than bowled over by the colors on an e-reader. However, I’m really pleased with mine. It was a worthwhile purchase.

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