The War of Art

professional does not fall for this. Her resolution, before all others, remains: No matter what, I will never let Resistance beat me.

 
    A PROFESSIONAL
    ENDURES ADVERSITY
    ----
     
    I had been in Tinseltown five years, had finished nine screenplays on spec, none of which had sold. Finally I got a meeting with a big producer. He kept taking phone calls, even as I pitched my stuff. He had one of those headset things, so he didn’t even have to pick up a receiver; the calls came in and he took them. Finally one came that was personal. “Would you mind?” he asked, indicating the door. “I need some privacy on this one.” I exited. The door closed behind me. Ten minutes passed. I was standing out by the secretaries. Twenty more minutes passed. Finally the producer’s door opened; he came out pulling on his jacket. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
     
    He had forgotten all about me.
     
    I’m human. This hurt. I wasn’t a kid either; I was in my forties, with a rap sheet of failure as long as your arm.
     
    The professional cannot let himself take humiliation personally. Humiliation, like rejection and criticism, is the external reflection of internal Resistance.
     
    The professional endures adversity. He lets the birdshit splash down on his slicker, remembering that it comes clean with a heavy-duty hosing. He himself, his creative center, cannot be buried, even beneath a mountain of guano. His core is bulletproof. Nothing can touch it unless he lets it.
     
    I saw a fat happy old guy once in his Cadillac on the freeway. He had the A / C going, Pointer Sisters on the CD, puffing on a stogie. His license plate:
     
    DUES PD
     
    The professional keeps his eye on the doughnut and not on the hole. He reminds himself it’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.

 
    A PROFESSIONAL SELF-VALIDATES
    ----
     
    An amateur lets the negative opinion of others unman him. He takes external criticism to heart, allowing it to trump his own belief in himself and his work. Resistance loves this.
     
    Can you stand another Tiger Woods story? With four holes to go on the final day of the 2001 Masters (which Tiger went on to win, completing the all-four-majors-at-one-time Slam), some chucklehead in the gallery snapped a camera shutter at the top of Tiger’s backswing. Incredibly, Tiger was able to pull up in mid-swing and back off the shot. But that wasn’t the amazing part. After looking daggers at the malefactor, Tiger recomposed himself, stepped back to the ball, and striped it 310 down the middle.
     
    That’s a professional. It is tough-mindedness at a level most of us can’t comprehend, let alone emulate. But let’s look more closely at what Tiger did, or rather what he didn’t do.
     
    First, he didn’t react reflexively. He didn’t allow an act that by all rights should have provoked an automatic response of rage to actually produce that rage. He controlled his reaction. He governed his emotion.
     
    Second, he didn’t take it personally. He could have perceived this shutterbug’s act as a deliberate blow aimed at him individually, with the intention of throwing him off his shot. He could have reacted with outrage or indignation or cast himself as a victim. He didn’t.
     
    Third, he didn’t take it as a sign of heaven’s malevolence. He could have experienced this bolt as the malice of the golfing gods, like a bad hop in baseball or a linesman’s miscall in tennis. He could have groaned or sulked or surrendered mentally to this injustice, this interference, and used it as an excuse to fail. He didn’t.
     
    What he did do was maintain his sovereignty over the moment. He understood that, no matter what blow had befallen him from an outside agency, he himself still had his job to do, the shot he needed to hit right here, right now. And he knew that it remained within his power to produce that shot. Nothing stood in his way except whatever emotional upset he himself chose to hold on to. Tiger’s mother, Kultida, is a Buddhist. Perhaps from her he had learned compassion, to let go of fury at the heedlessness of an overzealous shutter-clicker. In any event Tiger Woods, the ultimate professional, vented his anger quickly with a look, then recomposed himself and returned to the task at hand.
     
    The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there