A couple of weeks ago, I covered a protest/rally for our paper, The Bar Harbor Story. I took a lot of photos, which meant a lot of moving around the town’s village green. I squatted. I stood near a gazebo. I sat in the grass. I circled the perimeter. I took a lot of photos from all different positions.
Along the same lines, I was reading a bit of Steven Pressfield (The War of Art, The Daily Pressfield, etc.) this morning. He suggested all of the traits that hold artists back are mostly mental. Traits like fear of failure and fear of success. Fear of the new, fear of pain, of loneliness, of exertion, of intensity. The constant need for third-party (external) validation. Feelings of self-doubt, arrogance, impatience, and an inability to defer gratification. Predisposed to distraction, shallowness of thought and purpose, conventionality, insularity, and the need to cling to the known.
Similarly, potential strengths are also mental. These include traits like courage, honesty (particularly with oneself), self-confidence, patience, humility, and compassion for oneself and others. They also include the ability to receive criticism objectively, curiosity, open-mindedness, and receptivity to the new. They include the ability to focus and defer gratification, a strong will and mental toughness, and the capacity to endure adversity, injustice, and indifference. These capacities are available to everyone.
From my view, I see these two mental approaches as pessimism vs. optimism.
Happily, I also choose the latter over the former – it’s a happier existence!
Oh! That's so timely that you were reading Pressfield. And what a brilliant summation, too, Jack! Your brain is amazing.
I love that you boil it down to pessimism vs. optimism and I am SO glad that you chose optimism! I sometimes feels like I get to these weird moments/places/transitions where I have to RE-choose optimism, too.
Along the same lines, I was reading a bit of Steven Pressfield (The War of Art, The Daily Pressfield, etc.) this morning. He suggested all of the traits that hold artists back are mostly mental. Traits like fear of failure and fear of success. Fear of the new, fear of pain, of loneliness, of exertion, of intensity. The constant need for third-party (external) validation. Feelings of self-doubt, arrogance, impatience, and an inability to defer gratification. Predisposed to distraction, shallowness of thought and purpose, conventionality, insularity, and the need to cling to the known.
Similarly, potential strengths are also mental. These include traits like courage, honesty (particularly with oneself), self-confidence, patience, humility, and compassion for oneself and others. They also include the ability to receive criticism objectively, curiosity, open-mindedness, and receptivity to the new. They include the ability to focus and defer gratification, a strong will and mental toughness, and the capacity to endure adversity, injustice, and indifference. These capacities are available to everyone.
From my view, I see these two mental approaches as pessimism vs. optimism.
Happily, I also choose the latter over the former – it’s a happier existence!
Oh! That's so timely that you were reading Pressfield. And what a brilliant summation, too, Jack! Your brain is amazing.
I love that you boil it down to pessimism vs. optimism and I am SO glad that you chose optimism! I sometimes feels like I get to these weird moments/places/transitions where I have to RE-choose optimism, too.
Maybe you have brought back an old trendy fashion?