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Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.

Steven Pressfield

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Steven Pressfield
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 1
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Port-of-Spain
Long
Socrates
Demonstrated
Mastery
Extent
Truly
Free
Individual
Self

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Seeking support from friends and and family is like having people gathered around at your deathbed. It's nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.
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The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
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The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey.
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Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.
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The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.
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Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The opposite of love isn’t hate it’s indifference.
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Resistance really takes the shape, for me, in voices in my head telling me why I can't do something or why I should put it off for another day, procrastinate for another day.
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Don't wait for someone else to validate you. Validate yourself.
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We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we're stuck with it.
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We show up. We do our best. Good things happen.
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When we are succeeding - that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level - that's when panic strikes. When we experience panic, it means that we're about to cross a threshold. We're poised on the doorstep of a higher plane.
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The last thing we want is to remain as we are.
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When we sit down to work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
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Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
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Resistance in my experience always kicks in when you're trying to move from a lower level to a higher level or to identify with a braver part of yourself or your higher nature. So it's that negative repelling force. It's kind of the dragon that we have to slay every day if we're artists or entrepreneurs.
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When a novelist or screenwriter is looking for a subject, the element he's seeking is conflict. Conflict makes drama. Conflict produces great characters and memorable scenes. So war is a natural topic.
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The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.
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Always attack. Even in defense, attack. The attacking arm possesses the initiative and thus commands the action. To attack makes men brave to defend makes them timorous.
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Making a judgment, taking a stand and then acting against an injustice or acting to support excellence is the stuff of the everyman hero. If you are an aspiring artist and you wish to avoid “judgments,” you'll find that you have nothing to say.
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The song we’re composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it.
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