So the point is to take the work seriously but you don’t take yourself too seriously. There’s a riff about this in Stephen Pressfield’s War of Art, where he talks about how amateurs are too precious with their work: “The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke. The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action.”

Visakan Veerasamy • Are You Serious?

Saved by sari and

RelatedCollections

A moodboard for people who hate self-promotion

nihana added

When I say serious I

don’t

mean solemn and tedious.

I mean something closer to ‘dynamic persistence’, and a sense of humor is often critical to that. It’s hard to persist for a long time if you ‘take yourself too seriously’. You become rigid, stiff, the opposite of dynamic, and eventually you bang up against something that breaks you one way or ano... See more

Visakan Veerasamy • Are You Serious?

Agalia Tan and added

Take the work seriously, but not yourself.

Sari Azout • A Moodboard for People Who Hate Self-Promotion

added

don’t care to be liked. care about the quality of the work and what it takes to get to that standard.

If your intention is to ‘make art’, then maybe you’ll get a couple of good paintings. You may even get a show or two.

But I think of it this way: I don’t make art. I make things . Framing it like that keeps what I’m doing from becoming precious. And that’s a good thing, because to be precious is to be timid—and that’s bad. Creativity requires attent

Kieran O‘Hare • Following the White- Hot Fire Inside of You

and added

“The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke. The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action.”

Visakan Veerasamy • Are You Serious?

Agalia Tan added

Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters? Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Steven Pressfield • The War of Art

Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters? Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Steven Pressfield • The War of Art

“All those artists and writers who bemoan how hard the work is, and oh, how tedious the creative process, and oh, what a tortured genius they are. Don’t buy into it…. As if difficulty and struggle and torture somehow confer seriousness upon your chosen work. Doing great work simply because you love it, sounds, in our culture, somehow flimsy, and th

A moodboard for people who hate self-promotion

Visakan Veerasamy • Are You Serious?

Sari Azout • A Moodboard for People Who Hate Self-Promotion

Kieran O‘Hare • Following the White- Hot Fire Inside of You

Visakan Veerasamy • Are You Serious?

Steven Pressfield • The War of Art

Steven Pressfield • The War of Art

Ferriss, Timothy • Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers