The war of art

Let’s consider these two statements:

1. I want to go to the moon.
2. I want to visit a friend in the neighbourhood.

These statements have something in common; they both express a desire to exert effort to achieve a particular end goal. However, statement 1 comes with a gargantuan amount of resistance from our own mental dialogue. The greater the vision the greater the resistance. All individuals who have contributed anything useful to society have in one way or another won hundreds of battles against their own inner resistance.

Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us, our self-proclaimed ‘best life’. Between the two stands the resistance.

The resistance

You see, resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when he endowed each of us with our own unique genius.

Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; an athlete exerts from him; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul’s seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star’s beacon, and Polaris.

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, and cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form if that’s what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit

Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher one. It kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a higher station morally, ethically, or spiritually.

Sometimes Resistance takes the form of sex or an obsessive preoccupation with sex. Why sex? Because sex provides immediate and powerful gratification. When someone sleeps with us, we feel validated and approved of, even loved. Resistance gets a big kick out of that. It knows it has distracted us with a cheap, easy fix and kept us from doing our work

Aspiring artists defeated by Resistance share one trait. They all think like amateurs. They have not yet turned pro. The moment an artist turns pro is as epochal as the birth of his first child. With one stroke, everything changes. I can state absolutely that the term of my life can be divided into two parts: before turning pro, and after. To be clear: When I say professional, I don’t mean doctors and lawyers, those of “the professions.” I mean the Professional as an ideal. The professional in contrast to the amateur. Consider the differences. The amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps. To the amateur, the game is his avocation. To the pro it’s his vocation. The amateur plays part-time, the professional full-time. The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week. The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning “to love.” The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation.

The battle

The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. That’s what I mean when I say turning pro. Resistance hates it when we turn pro.

All of us are pros in one area: our jobs. We get a paycheck. We work for money. We are professionals. Now: Are there principles we can take from what we’re already successfully doing in our workday lives and apply to our artistic aspirations? What exactly are the qualities that define us as professionals?

1. We show up every day. We might do it only because we have to, to keep from getting fired. But we do it. We show up every day.
2. We show up no matter what. In sickness and in health, come hell or high water, we stagger into the factory. We might do it only so as not to let down our co-workers, or for other, less noble reasons. But we do it. We show up no matter what.
3. We stay on the job all day. Our minds may wander, but our bodies remain at the wheel. We pick up the phone when it rings, we assist the customer when he seeks our help. We don’t go home till the whistle blows.
4. We are committed over the long haul. Next year we may go to another job, another company, or another country. But we’ll still be working. Until we hit the lottery, we are part of the labour force.
5. The stakes for us are high and real. This is about survival, feeding our families, and educating our children. It’s about eating.
6. We accept remuneration for our labour. We’re not here for fun. We work for money.
7. We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and over-terrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.
8. We master the techniques of our jobs.
9. We have a sense of humour about our jobs.
10. We receive praise or blame in the real world. Now consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue his calling? One, he doesn’t show up every day. Two, he doesn’t show up no matter what. Three, he doesn’t stay on the job all day. He is not committed over the long haul; the stakes for him are illusory and fake. He does not get money. And he overidentifies with his art. He does not have a sense of humor about failure. You don’t hear him bitching, “This fucking trilogy is killing me!” Instead, he doesn’t write his trilogy at all.

To clarify a point about professionalism: The professional, though he accepts money, does his work out of love. He has to love it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t devote his life to it of free will.

The muses

Cistine Chilling

Angels work for God. It’s their job to help us. Wake us up. Bump us along. Angels are agents of evolution. The Kabbalah describes angels as bundles of light, meaning intelligence, and consciousness. Kabbalists believe that above every blade of grass is an angel crying “Grow! Grow!” I’ll go further. I believe that above the entire human race is one super-angel, crying “Evolve! Evolve!” Angels are like muses. They know stuff we don’t. They want to help us. They’re on the other side of a pane of glass, shouting to get our attention. But we can’t hear them. We’re too distracted by our own nonsense. Ah, but when we begin. When we make a start. When we conceive an enterprise and commit to it in the face of our fears, something wonderful happens. A crack appears in the membrane. Like the first craze when a chick pecks at the inside of its shell. Angel midwives congregate around us; they assist as we give birth to ourselves, to that person we were born to be, to the one whose destiny was encoded in our soul, our daimon, our genius. When we make a beginning, we get out of our own way and allow the angels to come in and do their job. They can speak to us now and it makes them happy. It makes God happy. eternity, has opened a portal into time. And we’re it.

The Muses appear in different forms in cultures around the world, in greek mythology, they were nine sisters, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, which means “memory.” Their names are Clio, Erato, Thalia, Terpsichore, Calliope, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Melpomene, and Urania. Their job is to inspire artists. Each Muse is responsible for a different art. In Tibetan Buddhism, she appears as Tara ‘the mother of all buddhas’.

Put your ass where your heart wants to be

He really wanted the cookies. Period.

This idea emphasizes the importance of taking concrete steps towards pursuing one’s dreams, rather than merely wishing for them. By aligning one’s actions with their heartfelt aspirations, individuals can experience a more fulfilling and purposeful life. The phrase underscores the significance of commitment, determination, and resilience in achieving personal goals. It serves as a reminder that following one’s heart and actively working towards one’s aspirations can lead to a more rewarding and authentic life journey.

Theology of making

Art as a Spiritual Journey: Fujimura emphasizes that creating art can be a spiritual journey, a form of prayer and meditation. The act of creating art allows the artist to connect with the divine and explore their own spirituality.

Creativity as a Divine Gift: Fujimura highlights that creativity is a gift from God and encourages artists to see their creative process as a form of stewardship, a way of honoring and cultivating their talents.

Beauty and Redemption: The book explores the role of art in conveying beauty and hope, even in the midst of brokenness and suffering. Art can be a means of pointing to redemption and healing.

Art as Communication: Art is seen as a language that can communicate spiritual truths and ideas in ways that words alone cannot. It transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries to touch the human spirit.

Theology of Making: Fujimura introduces the concept of “theology of making,” which is an exploration of how God’s creative act informs and inspires the creative process of artists.

The Incarnational Nature of Art: The book touches on how art, like Christ’s incarnation, bridges the gap between the spiritual and the material, and it has the potential to bring the sacred into the secular.

Artistic Community: Fujimura discusses the importance of artistic community and collaboration, encouraging artists to learn from one another and fostering an environment where creativity and faith can flourish.

Cultural Engagement: The book advocates for artists to engage with and influence culture, offering a Christian perspective that can be a positive force in shaping the world.

These key learnings reflect the book’s central message that art and faith are deeply intertwined and can be a source of inspiration, meaning, and connection with the divine.

The artist and his temple

In the end, I arrived at a model of the artist’s world, and that model is that there exist other, higher planes of reality, about which we can prove nothing, but from which arise our lives, our work, and our art. These spheres are trying to communicate with ours.

The artist is the servant of that intention, those angels, that Muse. The enemy of the artist is the small-time Ego, which begets Resistance, which is the dragon that guards the gold.

That’s why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with the work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve.