But come on, it's not so bad... is it? I mean, did not St. Anthony the Great say, “without temptation there is no spiritual progress”. That should count for something.
Any temptation that allows us to Resist our Creative nature belongs as an integral part to the exercise of human free will. How many people in power have fallen from Grace? It's not that Grace let them go, it's more like they gave in to Resistance. They got tempted by the fear that it brings on.
Pressfield acknowledges the only way is to beat “Resistance at its own game [is by] by being even more resolute and even more implacable than it is.”
The paradox is we can only become more resolute and implacable because there is Resistance.
(Soul Strength = Will/Grace × Resistance.)
I recall Nassim Taleb made the case for antifragility (or taking on Resistance), and why it's best never to get too comfortable. “The best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations. Remember that food would not have a taste if it weren’t for hunger; results are meaningless without effort, joy without sadness, convictions without uncertainty, and an ethical life isn’t so when stripped of personal risks. (Taleb)”
Or maybe you saw that great film The Third Man, where Orson Welles offers this insight from the scene on the ferris wheel:
“Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”Not that there's anything wrong with the cuckoo clock (except for the fact that Silicon Valley has digitally outdated it).
Despite the nature of Resistance, we can also sense “there are equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels”. They guide our creativity against these darker forces.
Yes, there is a mystery to all of this, because we know our Creativeness doesn't come solely from us. Pressfield acknowledges,
“We’re never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly. The act of courage calls forth infallibly that deeper part of ourselves that supports and sustains us. Have you seen interviews with the young John Lennon or Bob Dylan, when the reporter tries to ask about their personal selves? The boys deflect these queries with withering sarcasm. Why? Because Lennon and Dylan know that the part of them that writes the songs is not “them,” not the personal self that is of such surpassing fascination to their boneheaded interrogators. Lennon and Dylan also know that the part of themselves that does the writing is too sacred, too precious, too fragile to be redacted into sound bites for the titillation of would-be idolators (who are themselves caught up in their own Resistance). So they put them on and blow them off.”With that in mind, it may be best to end this here before I inquire to the point worthy of a blow-off.