Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall

I wasn’t going to blog about this one, as my running habit is rather unrelated to performance (or it appears that way at first glance).

But I found this book to be one of the most inspirational reads I’ve had in recent memory, and it just reinforced my ever-present feeling knowledge that we really are all one, and Energy is Energy no matter how it is manifesting.

“I never really discussed this with anyone because it sounds pretentious, but I started running ultras to become a better person,” Jenn [Shelton] told me. “I thought if you could run one hundred miles, you’d be in this Zen state. You’d be the fucking Buddha, bringing peace and a smile to the world. It didn’t work in my case — I’m the same old punk-ass as before — but there’s always the hope that it will turn you into the person you want to be, a better, more peaceful person.
“When I’m out on a long run,” she continued, “the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run. For once, my brain isn’t going blehblehbleh all the time. Everything quiets down, and the only thing going on is pure flow. It’s just me and the movement and the motion. That’s what I love.

As I’m making the transition to the Vibram FiveFingers barefoot shoes, I am giving myself plenty of room to play. I’ll run through the park to an empty soccer field, take off the shoes and see what it actually feels like to run, barefoot. I have no attachment to being the Best Barefoot Runner or the Fastest or the Most Graceful (though I do look forward to some modicum of improvement!) and so I don’t get upset if my feet start to hurt or if I look, quite frankly, like a total fool romping around in an empty field. I let it be whatever it is, and consequently it all becomes rather enjoyable and easy.

Enjoying that ease so much, I am experimenting with applying these principles to my singing practice. What if I had no attachment to being a great singer or progressing in my career, or to making a pretty sound every time I opened my mouth — how much freer would I be to explore the physical and emotional range of my voice? What kinds of sounds could I make, using what natural, efficient technique? It takes constant reminding and re-focusing, but I can tell I’m on to something (hint: it’s fun).

When I told my teacher this last week, she smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Because you are born to sing, too.”

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield

An oft-like-minded friend, whom I would grace with a link but for his still-quite-under-construction-site, gave me his copy of this book to read. Bequeathed it, I should say. We wrote our names in the front cover, imagining this copy circling the globe, finding other similar artists in need of another perspective on ass-kicking.

Pressfield writes in little vignettes, some barely a paragraph in length, making it perfect train reading or while-the-water’s-boiling reading and even, ironically, a perfect trap for the Resistance he writes about to set in. Look, you’ve already finished six chapters, it will say. So what if you’re only 15 pages in? It’s a good breaking point. Don’t you have some facebook to check?

I won’t tell you how much time I’ve already spent reading Pressfield’s blog, and all the other brilliant people he links to, while instead of writing this post. *shakes fist at Resistance*

It’s like “Die Vampire Die,” the Susan Blackwell song in [title of show]. We’re all battling the same thing. As Pressfield says, “Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.”

But shoot, you didn’t need me to tell you that. Since you have a body too—- you already knew it.

What I like about his approach is that it is two-fold: first he outlines the life of the Professional, and the myriad habitual ways a Pro battles Resistance just by showing up and fighting another day. Showing up is requisite. But beyond that, he explores the Muse, the angels, the Genius (in the Roman sense) that Elizabeth Gilbert explores in this TED.com talk. (damn! where better to procrastinate than TED.com? it feels so edifying…) The greater Self, the other-worldly (perhaps) energy that flows through us and tells us we are artists in the first place. Professionals show up every day; yogis and surfers let the Spirit flow through them; but the great working artist relies on both.

For me, one of the most cunning ways Resistance gets under my skin is via self-deprecation — but not the kind you might think. My worst Resistance is the Never Enough kind: I’m never working hard enough, going to enough auditions, singing enough, learning enough new material, keeping up on enough industry news, seeing enough theater. I could be networking more, marketing more, blogging more, being more.

But I’m learning (and The War of Art has done much to remind me) that these thoughts are best fought by just showing up, every day, and doing even One Thing. A warm-up, an audition, a website update, a submission, an email. And then, I (am learning to) put it away, and let myself be a person.

Last night, I went to class and busted out a new song; today I woke up before the alarm and wrote this blog post before coffee. Have I changed the world, or even changed myself? Probably not. But for now (and even now, that “now” is gone) — it’s enough.