Practice (from "Turning Pro")

     In Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro, he discusses what it means to "turn pro" and have "the professional mindset as a practice." This is the core of what he means by "turning pro." Here are some relevant excerpts:

"What is a practice anyway?

To "have a practice" in yoga, say, or tai chi, or calligraphy, is to follow a rigorous, prescribed regimen with the intention of elevating the mind and the spirit to a higher level.

A practice implies engagement in a ritual. A practice may be defined as the dedicated , daily exercise of commitment, will, and focused intention aimed, on one level, at the achievement of mastery in a field but, on a loftier level, intended to produce a communion with a power greater than ourselves — call it whatever you like: God, mind, soul, Self, the Muse, the superconscious.

The following are aspects of any practice:"
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 108). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]


A Practice Has A Space

"A practice has a space, and that space is sacred"


A Practice Has A Time

"The monks in their saffron robes mount the steps to the zendo at the same hour each morning. When the abbot strikes the chime, the monks place their palms together and sit.

You and I may have to operate in a more chaotic universe. But the object remains the same: to approach the mystery via order, commitment and passionate intention.

When we convene day upon day in the same space at the same time, a powerful energy builds up around us. This is the energy of our intention, of our dedication, of our commitment.

The goddess sees this energy and she rewards it."
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 110). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]


A Practice Has An Intention

"When Stevie Wonder sits down in his studio at the piano, he's not there to mess around.

Stevie has come to work.
. . .
"Our intention as artists is to get better, to go deeper, to work closer and closer to the bone."
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 111). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]


We Come To A Practice As Warriors

"The sword master stepping onto the fighting floor knows he will be facing powerful opponents. Not the physical adversaries whom he will fight ( though those indeed serve as stand-ins for the enemy). The real enemy is inside himself.

The monk in meditation knows this. So does the yogi. So do the film editor and the video-game creator and the software writer.

Each day we, as professionals, face the same monsters and chimeras as did Perseus or Bellerophon or St. George.

The sword master advancing into ritual combat has inwardly made peace with his own extinction. He is prepared to leave everything, including his life, there on the fighting floor."
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 112). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]


We Come To A Practice In Humility

"We may bring intention and intensity to our practice (in fact we must), but not ego. Dedication, even ferocity, yes. But never arrogance.

The space of the practice is sacred. It belongs to the goddess. We take our shoes off before we enter. We press our palms together and we bow.

Do you understand how the mystery can be approached via order?"
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 113). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]


We Come To  A Practice As Students

"Even the peerless sword master Miyamoto Musashi entered the fighting square to learn as much as to teach."
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 114). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]


A Practice Is Lifelong

"The Spartan king Agesilaus was still fighting in armor when he was eighty-two. Picasso was painting past ninety, and Henry Miller was chasing women (I'm sure Picasso was too) at eighty-nine.

Once we turn pro, we're like sharks who have tasted blood, or renunciants who have glimpsed the face of God. For us, there is no finish line. No bell ends the bout. Life is the pursuit. Life is the hunt. When our hearts burst... then we'll go out, and no sooner."
[Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 115). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.]

Shame is Good (from "Turning Pro")

From Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro:

"In the post-epiphanal moment, we have two things going for us that we didn't have ninety seconds earlier: we have reality and we have humility. These are powerful allies.

And we have a third force working in our favor: shame. Why is shame good? Because shame can produce the final element we need to change our lives: will.

Epiphanies hurt. There's no glory to them. They only make good stories at AA meetings or late at night among other foot soldiers in the trenches.

These soldiers know. Each has his own story , of that ghastly, hideous, excruciating moment when it all turned around for him."


Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 88). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

On the Nature of Epiphanies (from "Turning Pro")

From Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro, on the nature of epiphanies:

"We usually think of breakthroughs as ecstatic moments that elevate us from a lower level to a higher. And they do. But there's a paradox. In the moment , an epiphany feels like hell. . . . [A]n epiphany trashes us. It exposes us and leaves us naked. We see ourselves plain, and it's not a pretty picture.

The essence of epiphanies is the stripping away of self-delusion. We thought we were X. Now suddenly we see we're minus-X. We're X divided by infinity.

There is great power in this moment. We've lost something, yes. A cherished self-delusion must be abandoned, and this hurts.

But what we have gained is the truth. Our bullshit falls away. The scales drop from our eyes. In that moment we have two options:

We can reconstitute our bullshit.

Or we can turn pro."



Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 85). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

"How Your Mind Changes When You Turn Pro"

From Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro:

"Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It's a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day.

Twelve-step programs say "One Day at a Time." The professional says the same thing.

Each day, the professional understands, he will wake up facing the same demons, the same Resistance, the same self-sabotage, the same tendencies to shadow activities and amateurism that he has always faced.

The difference is that now he will not yield to those temptations. He will have mastered them, and he will continue to master them."

Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 74). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

Before and After Turning Pro

From Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro: 

"Before we turn pro, our life is dominated by fear and Resistance. We live in a state of denial. We're denying the voice in our heads. We're denying our calling. We're denying who we really are.

We're fleeing from our fear into an addiction or a shadow career. What changes when we turn pro is we stop fleeing.

Be brave, my heart [ wrote the poet and mercenary, Archilochus]. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. 

When we turn pro, we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them."
.


Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 71). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

What Happens When We "Turn Pro"

From Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro:

"What happens when we turn pro is, we finally listen to that still, small voice inside our heads. At last we find the courage to identify the secret dream or love or bliss that we have known all along was our passion, our calling, our destiny."

Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 70). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

"The Pain of Being Human" (from "Turning Pro")

     Today's bit of wisdom from Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro:

"The Gnostics believed that exile was the essential condition of man. Do you agree? I do.

The artist and the addict both wrestle with this experience of exile. They share an acute, even excruciating sensitivity to the state of separation and isolation, and both actively seek a way to overcome it, to transcend it, or at least to make the pain go away.

What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds and being unable to fully enter into either.

 As mortal flesh, you and I cannot ascend to the upper realm. That sphere belongs to the gods. But we can't put it out of our minds either. We can't escape intimations and half-memories of... what? Some prior sojourn, before birth perhaps, among the immortals or the stars.

Our lot, instead, is to dwell here in the lower realm, the sphere of the temporal and the material — the time-bound dimension of instincts and animal passions, of hate and desire, aspiration and fear.

You and I are called to the upper realm (and it is calling to us), but we're having a pretty good time (sometimes ) down here in the sphere of the senses. Bottom line: we're marooned in the middle, stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again."

Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 45). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

On Habits, Part 2 - from "Turning Pro"

     Steven Pressfield gives us a pretty clear vision of what it means when you fall into bad habits instead of building positive ones. When one gives in to Resistance, "addiction replaces aspiration" . . . and one's calling is lost:

     "The pre-addictive individual — i.e., you and I when we're young — experiences a calling. To art, to service, to honorable sacrifice. In other words, we experience positive aspiration. A vision of the higher, realized self we might become. The intimation of this calling is followed immediately by the apparition of Resistance.

Fear.

Self-doubt.

Self-sabotage.

     What makes this moment so soul-precarious is that most of us are unconscious, in the event, of both our aspirations and our Resistance. We're asleep. We know only that something is wrong and we don't know how to fix it. We're restless. We're bored. We're angry. We burn to accomplish something great, but we don't know where to begin and, even if we did, we 'd be so terrified that we still couldn't take a step. Enter: a drink, a lover, a habit. Addiction replaces aspiration. The quick fix wins out over the long, slow haul."

Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (p. 25). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

On Habits, Part 1, from "Turning Pro"

I am trying to get back to reading things that I find spiritually uplifting and blogging about what I am reading. It is a habit I had that I have let fall by the wayside. It is therefore somewhat ironic, I suppose, that my first such post in a long while is about habits, from Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro:

"We can never free ourselves from habits. The human being is a creature of habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones. We can trade in the habits of the amateur and the addict for the practice of the professional and the committed artist or entrepreneur."

Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (Kindle Locations 301-303). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.