The War of Art is full of contradictions, too. If you don’t believe in God, how useful is this statement at all? If you believe in God, this is not a healthy message. I can’t think of any statement better equipped to paralyse a writer with shame other than to tell them they are spiting God by not writing. If you have a desire to write, this does not necessarily mean you have been given a gift or purpose by God. And if you think this way, you’re going to be disappointed. Thinking we’re special sets us up to believe special things are destined to happen to us – or that with enough hard work, we deserve something special to happen to us. The sooner we can all get over this idea, the better we’ll be able to deal with reality.

Hmm, where do I start? First of all, we are not all special snowflakes. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gift, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God. Pressfield is adamant that we have a creative duty to God and that divine forces act through us to create art. Pressfield has some shocking claims that I believe are fundamentally false and potentially psychologically damaging. Unfortunately, I struggled to interpret what’s laid out in The War of Art in a metaphorical way, and because of this I found the ideas inaccessible and not very transferable to my own belief system.īut that’s not why I hate this book. Robert McKee offers a more atheistic stance on this in the foreword, clearly anticipating that not everyone has these beliefs, and suggests that we should take these ideas as ‘poetic fire’ and think instead in terms of talent and creativity coming from the genetics we received from our ancestors. Pressfield suggests muses and angels are real beings that act through us. If you’re more inclined to think about the universe this way, I can see how this book could appeal to you. I’m also not the kind of person who believes much in fate, destiny or pre-determined purpose – and a lot of the book’s ideas hinge on this outlook. There are heavy religious themes in the book, and I’m not a religious person. The War of Art has a lot of fans and had been recommended to me by several people. I don’t think anyone can disagree with this statement, but the few useful insights this book offers are not new ideas and are few and far between. The main idea presented in this book is that procrastination is harmful to our long-term success. The way the book is written is deeply, deeply flawed and insanely egotistical. I hate The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

The war of art resistance