You need to act exactly when you are most incapable of acting
That moment determines your genius
I am exhausted after working with laser focus for last few weeks. Not everything has shown a result. Not even promise. I want to throw in the towel tonight. I have been writing 3000+ words daily and today I am just not finding them. I can stop tonight. I can let it be. Who would notice anyway? Nothing is at stake.
I am lying curled up on the couch, about to start another episode of Breaking Bad. And I watch its opening credits. The beautiful periodic table shining up and Bromine and Barium forming the beautiful title:
“Genius,” my mind tells me. I don’t want to just watch this, I want to create this. I want to create awe inspiring work. I want to outdo whatever I have done so far.
And then, I realize what it must take to produce a TV series that is so good. You deliver transcendental stuff — not once, not twice but consistently, on time and everytime. God, that is tough.
Everything good is tough. That is what makes it so good because lesser mortals cannot do it.
Lesser mortals will lie curl up, waiting for another morning. But the genius will not. The genius will work exactly when it is hardest to, exactly when it is easiest to not do it.
There is no one to watch over you. So, go ahead, give it up. But you are not cheating anyone except yourself.
I cannot cheat myself. So, here, I am. I will write with no expectations, no hopes, no conditions. I will write because I can outlive this moment of resistance.
Kris Gage wrote in her article:
When I began writing on Medium in April of 2017, I had no idea how to start. I just did. I just started. And after that, I just kept going. I wrote whatever felt like it was “good.” And, perhaps most importantly, I wrote even when I didn’t feel like writing.
Her stickiness and utter refusal to surrender to resistance is a genius and its shows in her vibrant writing.
Steven Pressfield talked beautifully about resistance in his book, The War of Art. He professes how finding your muse is nothing but sitting down to work day after day.
You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study… Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas — Steven Pressfield
This moment of resistance is telling you how important this task is to your evolution.
The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you — and the more gratification you will fell when you finally do it — Steven Pressfield
The moment is fooling you by telling ‘there is nothing at stake’ but you know better. You know there is everything at stake here.
Your genius is at stake and only you can reclaim it.
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