Steven Pressfield (who also wrote The Legend Of Bagger Vance) begins this book with  words like these:

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance…have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust?… are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is”.

Pressfield drives home some very important points in a witty, funny and easy-to-read way. Whatever your calling is, you MUST follow through and do it kid. And you need to be aware of anything that will try to stop you. For Steven Pressfield that thing is Resistance.

He goes on to give examples of what Resistance looks like:

• a repelling force whose aim is to distract us from doing our life’s work.
• it doesn’t come from the outside – it is internal, self generated and self-perpetuated.
• it never sleeps (the battle against resistance must be fought anew each day).
• it’s fuelled by fear and commonly manifests as procrastination. Self doubt is another of its allies.
• one of its favourite tricks is criticism (“when we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived our own”)
• grandiose ideas of your fame and fortune are also symptoms of Resistance (and the mark of an amateur). A pro, according to Pressfield, concentrates on the work.

Resistance however can be beaten, and Pressfield offers some tips on how. First of all – you have to start thinking and behaving like a Pro (and not like an amateur). He gives the example of the writer Somerset Maugham who said “I write only when inspiration strikes, fortunately it strikes every morning at 9 o’clock sharp”. According to Pressfield “That’s a Pro”.

Among other things, the Pro:

• is patient (an amateur dives in with over-ambition and unrealistic timetables for when things will be achieved).
• is scared to death but forges ahead anyway. The “counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident”
• “plays it as it lays” i.e takes it all as it comes and does not wait for the terrain to look good before taking action.
• seeks order. After all, the Muse that every pro calls on before embarking on the work must not “soil her gown” in your messy physical environment.
• “distances herself from her instrument” i.e the pro understands that she/he has a gift and she/he must work with it, not get caught up in it (as Pressfield humorously points out – Madonna doesn’t walk around her house in cone bras. She does not identify with “Madonna”. Madonna employs “Madonna”)

The War Of Art is not just another manual of dos and don’ts.

In the final section of the book Pressfield discusses higher realms (he writes, “I plan on using terms like angels and muses, does that make you uncomfortable?”). Pressfield understands that any labour of love involves not just your hard work and determination but other unseen forces – and you can call those forces whatever you want. “When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication”. So say your prayers, meditate, whatever, and then sit down and do your work. When you set out to truly create something (anything!) an intelligence steps in and begins to work with you and through you.

We all know that the process of being true to ourselves is not easy but you have to take the plunge. “The Knights of the Round Table were chaste and self-effacing…[but] they dueled dragons. We’re facing dragons too.” And by “dragons” Pressfield is simply referring to all those things within us that stop us from living to our highest potential.

Pressfield also says that anyone who has children will tell you that babies don’t pop out “tabula rasa” (a blank slate). Children are born with distinct and unique personalities. You came into this world with a specific personal destiny. You have a job to do.

Perhaps the best part of this book is that Pressfield is honest about his own journey. It was years before the success of The Legend of Bagger Vance. But even before the glory, when no one knew and no one cared, that moment when he finished the book was  profound. “I felt like a dragon I’d been fighting all my life had just dropped dead at my feet and gasped its last sulfuric breath”.

So:

For all of us out there who are on the fence, or scared about taking the plunge, I encourage you to go ahead and do it. And grab a copy of “The War Of Art” so that on those days when you’re down and out, you can flip open a page and remember why you’re in the game to begin with.

A version of this review first appeared in The Australian newspaper. You can read it here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/estranged-in-strange-land/story-fn9n8gph-1226644462159

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s third novel offers an unvarnished look at contemporary race and inter-cultural relations. It uncovers the less-told narrative of the compromises made by some émigrés, who are not fleeing dire circumstances in their home country, but leave anyway, certain that life for them will be better in the West.

Ifemelu and Obinze are two young Nigerians, in love and aspiring to create a future together. But everyday political and economic uncertainties in Nigeria begin to take a toll. Strikes at their university for example mean classes stop abruptly and you can never be sure for how long. Leaving the country to pursue opportunities elsewhere becomes imperative. Ifemelu moves to the US for postgraduate study. The plan is Obinze will follow her, but fate leads him to London instead and their connection is eventually severed. Before either of them leave, his mother sadly observes that “Nigeria is chasing away its best resources.”

When Ifemelu first arrives in Flatlands, Brooklyn, she is struck by how “disappointingly matte” the landscape is. She had imagined that even ordinary things in America would be glossy. In time her world becomes one where interactions that could have been unremarkable, suddenly become encumbered with identity. Simply saying how hot it is can elicit the response “You’re hot? But you’re from Africa!”. She must explain to her boyfriend, Curt, why magazines like Essence that target black women exist. What’s a girl to do when other publications advise to “pinch your cheeks for colour”? At university she joins the African Students Association because she needs a haven where “she…[does] not have to explain herself”. Eventually Ifemelu starts a provocative race relations blog. Her personal experiences and the ensuing introspection are its content. In one post she postulates that one of the reasons dark skinned women like Barack Obama is because he has a dark skinned wife, a refreshing change from the mainly light skinned black women that you see in mainstream media. In another post about hair she says that her afro is not a political statement (“No, I’m not a…poet…or earth mother”), she has simply stopped using carcinogenic hair straightening chemicals.

But droll musings on an anonymous online forum do not really change how challenging life for an immigrant like her can be. She must attend one job interview after another even to find casual work. At one point Ifemelu retreats from the world for too long, no longer going to class, “her days…stilled by silence and snow”. When her friend Ginika suggests that she may be suffering from depression, she finds this difficult to accept. It is not vocabulary she grew up with. “Depression was what happened to Americans…”

Halfway through the novel we are in London where Obinze is facing obstacles of his own. As he cleans toilets in an office building one evening, he recalls with irony the jokes in Nigeria about how some people went overseas and ended up as toilet cleaners. He acknowledges that he is “soft”, he grew up quite comfortable, and some might find it difficult to understand that people like him leave their home country just to escape “the ominous lethargy of choicelessness”.

One of this novel’s striking features is how it covers issues that may not be discussed openly, but are relevant in many lives today. There are people whose intimate relationships are burdened because one person does not have a green card, can’t find a regular job and may have to leave the country. Reluctantly adjusting your full name for the discomfiting reason of making it easier to pronounce by locals in the country you move to  – Obinze’s workmate Duerdinhito has resorted to calling himself “Dee” for this reason. At the novel’s opening we are privy to the romanticism with which Ifemelu regards returning back to her country of birth, an expression of that desire to feel anchored somewhere.

It goes without saying that this novel is thought-provoking too. One man’s response to Ifemelu and her blog is: “race is totally over-hyped these days…it’s all about class now, the haves and the have-nots.” Throughout the story you are also always wondering whether she and Obinze will reunite, and there are humorous incidents scattered along the way, like when she chooses to return to Nigeria but then starts complaining about the pollution. “I can’t breathe!” her friend Ranyinudo mocks, mimicking her. “Haba! Americanah!”. That word, especially created to denote those who do decide to return home.