Comments on: Depth of Work, Part Two

By: Samantha Brightwell

Samantha Brightwell — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:38:14 +0000

I’m trying really hard to understand this because I feel it’s so important. Immersion, possession by the Muses, craziness. I get that.

Writing makes me crazy, and yet I am more crazy if I don’t get to do it. It becomes the thing that is often even more important to me than spending time with people I care about. I feel obsessed, possessed and driven towards this goal that I’ve cherished since I was a child. To write. It doesn’t make sense at times but here I am, still writing, still trying to go deeper into the art–never satisfied.

But the paradoxes of blogging really make me question whether to continue with this kind of writing on the web. I can’t keep myself out of the tangle of writing for popularity, of looking for validation through comments and feedback and checking my stats. Yet I want my writing to be above the shallow seeking of applause.

So much blogging is just empty words. Style without content, or reams of advice about using Twitter to increase your authority, Search Engine Optimization, and all that. It’s completely depressing. It seems no one cares about going deep and writing something that really matters. Something that can change people’s lives one day.

How can I pursue depth of work on the web without getting affected by all the dross? Or would I be better to quit blogging now and work towards publication in other ways?

By: p-dawg

p-dawg — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:33:44 +0000

Could Mr. Pressfield subconsciously have meant “Junah” in the whale? (I prefer to think that is so, even if it isn’t.) For those who haven’t read The Legend of Bagger Vance, Junah is the character who got inhaled into the belly of his particular whale, World War I, and subsequently was expunged and redeemed with the help of his mystical caddie, Bagger Vance. Of course, Junah’s counterpart is Arjuna and Bagger’s is Bhagvan Krishna, principal characters of the Bhagavad Gita who engaged in similar transitions. And Noah, another key figure in another mysterious tradition with an “ah” suffix to his name, is somewhere in between. All in the family, but so many significant kindred names can be hard to keep track of sometimes.

By: Tony Lewis

Tony Lewis — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:20:04 +0000

ON “Depth of Work”, Part 2 . Your take on acheiving “depth of work” is very accurate and its true that very few humans ever get close to reaching this point in their profession due to the pain it takes to get to this place! I am a retired Army Ranger of 21 years and reaching my goals of becoming a warrior was the hardest thing I had never imagined! Spin on words but so true. Alas, anything of that value(being a Ranger in my case) is worth every second of effort and can only be achieved by the most insane! By the way, Noah didnt get eaten by a whale, Jonah did!

By: A reader

A reader — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:45:36 +0000

Hi, I have read your book on writing, and I specifically remember you writing something about Resistance upping the level of drama in your life. I am having a full blown attack of Resistance right now; no sooner have I fixed (or survived) one episode, another episode of high drama begins. Can you please help me here? I’d like to place the blame on a certain individual here, but I know that if I could do away with the Resistance, I could probably rediscover life as a source for happiness.

By: Andrew Lubin

Andrew Lubin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:16:20 +0000

Steve:

You’ve got it. It’s what makes the writer re-read, re-edit, and scrap those last 30 pages and start fresh, or when the runner does yet another 440 repeat, and the Marine hauls his buddy out of the line of fire. How hard does the really good writer work? Harder than all the others.

By: Sanford

Sanford — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:05:13 +0000

Thank you!
I’ve been going deep on what started out as a general idea for over a month now. People don’t understand how I can sit around chasing through blogs and taking notes and not “doing something”. It is crazy. It is divine madness. But as long as I keep finding those little bits of ore down there I will keep digging.
Thanks for being one of the major veins in my goldmine.

By: VM

VM — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:33:34 +0000

You got that too? otherwise great article

By: Walt K

Walt K — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:55:42 +0000

Going deep about going deep. I like this.

By: S.J.B

S.J.B — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:31:01 +0000

I was over at Betsy Lerner’s blog, and someone quoted John Irving, “you have to get obsessed, and stay obsessed”. I think you need to be in this state to go deep, but staying obsessed circles back to resistance.

By: Annette Mencke

Annette Mencke — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:24:06 +0000

Genius Steven,
You’ve done it again. H C Anderson once said: you’ve got to go in the gutter to find the pearls. I agree. It hurts, you don’t know how much deeper you still have to go, you keep going and then when you got it, its such a beautiful feeling. That’s why I keep doing it. It helps to be nuts though.
Thanks again,
annette