Don’t wait for someone else to validate you. Validate yourself.
To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls.
The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.
Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.
The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.
Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
What force is yanking at our sleeves? This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don’t even notice. But it’s a miracle.
Evolution has programmed us to feel rejection in our guts. This is how the tribe inforced obedience, by wielding the threat of expulsion. Fear of rejection isn’t just psychological; it’s biological. It’s in our cells.
Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it’s for failure.
These are not easy questions. Who am I? Why am I here? They’re not easy because the human being isn’t wired to function as an individual.
As artists and professionals, it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture.
A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.
Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn’t just skills like computer technology. It’s the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.
Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.
The principle of organization is built into nature. Chaos itself is self-organizing. Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbit; rivers make their way to the sea.
Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.
A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.
The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue, the mystery of their existence as individuals.
Artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation.
If you’re are paralyzed with fear it’s a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.