Resistance is the Dragon

From the top:

• Welcome back, friends.

• Happy Sunday. Happy Succession eve.

• Read time: depends on your speed of read

• Meme theme: Soul Train dancing

See you out there.

I’ve long caved to the Dragon of Resistance.

I’ve written here before about making a commitment to fix the radio in our minivan before the next week’s post. These small fixes or adjustments seem to take a lot of energy. Understandably, there are more than a few factors that have my attention.

Here are a few:

• Work

• Children

• Laziness

• Dinner with friends

• Watching the Premier League

Well, this week there were two major wins over the Dragon of Resistance in the Ginn household.

Win #1

Early in the week, our washing machine wouldn’t drain. After sitting there for a few hours and my doing minimal searching online to see why, Sadie just springs into action and goes over to see about it.

After a few minutes of YouTube troubleshooting, she discovers that things can get stuck in the drain (pipe?). You know, things like tiny socks.

This little piece of fabric (an external force) was only as powerful to our washing process as the strength of our own resistance (internal force).

Sadie the knight, laundered the dragon.

Win #2

“Your refrigerator is running… You better go and catch it.”

That joke became true one night this week. A sea of water fled from the fridge and the choice hit us:

After pulling the fridge out from the wall, we discovered that the hose from the water connection to the fridge had simply come undone.

We reconnected it, tightened the small brass donut that keeps it on, mopped the water up, and put the fridge back in.

Milk saved. Dragon slayed.

Steven Pressfield didn’t make any money as a writer until he was in his 50s. Most of his adult life - all the time he spent fighting the dragon - was spent in relative obscurity. He’s not alone: there are examples of this kind of ‘delayed’ recognition, or ‘success’ all around.

Walt Whitman went into his 30s before he became Walt Whitman. Sturgill Simpson managed a railyard until his wife and friends persuaded him to pursue music. Toni Morrison was 40 when she published her first novel.

Importantly, what they all have in common is pushing past the resistance that Pressfield says is all throughout the creative journey. But, resistance, more than any external forces, is an inner voice. It’s the formless, nameless, confusing muttering that makes us play small, second guess ourselves, and convince ourselves that we can’t or shouldn’t do something.

I don’t know about you, but I like to blame or point to external forces as the reason I’m not doing something or ‘can’t’ do something. That’s just not how it works, though.

Pressfield mostly fleshes this out as it relates to Creative pursuits, and he’s written books about it that you can find here.

But, today I mean to press into the Resistance that is a part of all of our lives:

• Delayed oil changes

• Unloaded dishwashers

• Expired license plates

• A job we’ve stayed in too long

• A job we’re afraid to do

• The honest thing we need to tell a friend

• Engaging with life in a way that gets down to the living of it

You’ve got your list. I’ve got mine.

Resistance is the dragon that keeps the list long and the shame, anger, or fear very real.

What are you resisting that you can take a small action on this week? I’d love to hear about it. Shoot me an email.

Seriously, it’s a dream of mine for any one of you to send me back an email and start a conversation. _{Not in a sad way.}

The lingering question…

If the water had been a few drops instead of a puddle, would I have explored fixing it right then? If the washing machine mostly drained, would Sadie have mobilized so quickly to fix it?

How much resistance we live with is an important calculation. It can’t be none. It’s always present. The inner voice - the Dragon - has influence every day.

But:

Stuff I’ve Been Into

Readies

This week I re-read this Kevin Kelly piece. It’s an idea that can be useful, widely, I think. Namely, things can be made smaller and more approachable than we maybe scheme them up initially. A creator doesn’t need a billion fans, but only 1,000 True ones.

A mechanic doesn’t need every car in the city, only to do good work on the few that bring to them.

Watching

Martjin Doolaard’s series on YouTube about his restoration of two small cabins in the Italian Alps. I’m on episode 3. There are 60+. I can’t wait.

Cool thing to check out

I love resources that package ideas or lists of good things. This website curates book lists based on suggestions from all kinds of notable people. You can search by lists by topic too, like “Best Books on Coffee”

Doing

I mentioned last week that I was planning to uncover my garden this week. That happened and I got my first seeds in the ground: lettuce, bush beans, kale, and carrots. I’ll be adding squash, peppers, and tomato transplants this week.

Let’s see what grows!

Welp, have a great week. Thanks for reading.

Andre