Resistance / by Bikka Ora

Resistance.

Not so much as in fighting the good fight but more in a physics type sense. Forces working against us.

I have just finished reading Stephen Pressfield's The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. A kind of book that would usually make the lining of my skull break out in hives because it is reminiscent of the many business and self-help type books aimed at boosting motivation and success and there are so many. You know... those ones with zippy titles such as 'Be Obsessed or be Average', 'Rising Strong', 'Awaken the Giant Within" etc... (these are real titles!) However despite this, Pressfield's notion of resistance has resonated with me.

Pressfield says that resistance feels like unhappiness, boredom, restlessness, guilt and it comes in many forms and that most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. (This struck home, I have to say, when I have been unmotivated in my studio I am unhappy and the longer I am not working the worse it gets.) At this point I am finding that my unlived life is creating so much pressure that I have to do something about it. No regrets, right?

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity elicit Resistance. And perhaps then the more resistance you have against doing something the more important it is to break through and do it.

Basically you will be happier if you just get down and do the work.  As David Shrigley says "If you put the hours in the work will make itself. If you don't put the hours in the work is much more difficult."

Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. When you do that stuff starts to happen.

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." Andy Warhol