The War of Art

This post was published more than a few years ago (on 2011-03-05) and may contain inaccurate technical information, outmoded thoughts, or cringe takes. Proceed at your own risk.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At first I found the definition of Resistance (uppercase ‘R’) intriguing — a personification of the reasons you’re afraid to finish, why you procrastinate. As you progress through the book, though, the metaphors seem to get more and more religious in nature. While I appreciate their status as allegory, as an atheist, it just turned me off a bit, though the message itself is helpful. I did get a lot out of the segments of the book that were more about actionable advice and less about an unseen battle.

I felt the advice was useful and has helped me (to a degree) to mentally deal better with my procrastination, but lost a couple of stars in my eyes because of the dogmatic tone. It may have been more helpful to others who don’t mind such things, but as it was I never felt fully able to commit to the conceit of the “war” between Resistance and your “Better Angels.”

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1 thought on “The War of Art”

  1. Just kind of trying out this whole GoodReads review posting thing. Not bad, but… not sure if I totally like it. Too whorish?

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