The addict is the amateur; the artist is the professional.

But there is a force operating in opposition to the neshama. This entity, the yetzer hara,

The amateur sees himself as the hero, not only of his own movie, but of the movies of others.

My worldview is pretty much that of the Masai. I believe in the shaman. I wish I had a shaman. If I had a shaman, I would have breakfast with him every morning, and whatever he told me to do that day, I would do it. Better yet, I wish I was a shaman. In truth, I practice my own form of shamanism every day. As an artist, I seek to access unseen

In my experience, when we project a quality or virtue onto another human being, we ourselves almost always already possess that quality, but we're afraid to embrace (and to live) that truth. The amateur is an acolyte, a groupie. The professional may seek instruction or wisdom from one who is further along in mastery than he, but he does so without

Resistance wants to keep us shallow and unfocused. So it makes the superficial and the vain intoxicating.

Sometimes the reason we choose these careers (consciously or unconsciously) is to produce incapacity.

(When I say "artist," I mean as well the lover, the holy man, the engineer, the mother, the warrior, the inventor, the singer, the sage, and the voyager. And remember, addict and artist can be one and the same and often are, moment to moment.)

What, then, is the connection between addiction and Resistance?