The Art of Manliness - The Two Halves of the Warrior's Life

00:00:00.000 the art of manliness podcast the roman army hires a former legionnaire to hunt down a courier and

00:00:13.500 intercept a letter he's carrying from the apostle paul but when this mercenary overtakes the courier

00:00:17.580 something happens that neither he nor the empire could have ever predicted this is the plot of the

00:00:21.740 latest novel from writer stephen pressfield entitled a man at arms pressfield is the author

00:00:25.860 of numerous works of both fiction including gates of fire and the tides of war and non-fiction

00:00:30.200 including the war of art and the warrior ethos on today's show stephen explains why he decided to

00:00:34.840 return to writing a novel set in the ancient world after a 13-year hiatus from doing so and why he

00:00:39.660 chose to center around one of paul's epistles and the threat the roman empire perceived in the growing

00:00:44.120 movement of christianity we discuss how the protagonist of a man at arms named telamon

00:00:48.660 embodies the archetype of the warrior in a philosophy of dust and strife and yet has exhausted the

00:00:53.340 archetype and is ready to integrate something else into it a philosophy of love stephen explains how

00:00:58.180 the journey telamon is on applies to all artists entrepreneurs and individuals and the transition

00:01:02.440 we almost make from the first half of life in which we're discovering our gifts and honing our skills

00:01:06.620 to the second half of life in which we figure out what those gifts and skills are for after the show's

00:01:11.220 over check out our show notes at awim.is man at arms stephen joins you now via clearcast.io

00:01:17.440 all right stephen pressfield welcome back to the show hey brett it's a pleasure to be here thanks

00:01:27.860 for having me so you got a new novel out a man at arms and what makes this novel unique it's your

00:01:33.960 first novel set in the ancient world so we've you know i'm sure a lot of our listeners read like gates

00:01:39.780 of fire the virtues of war this is your first novel set in the ancient world in over 13 years so my first

00:01:45.540 question is why has it been so long since you've written a book set in ancient rome or ancient

00:01:49.860 greece and what was it about this story that made you decide this is it i gotta write another novel

00:01:54.460 set in the ancient world well it's it's uh i was having a coffee with a friend of mine like about 13

00:02:01.460 years ago whatever it was another writer and he was making fun of me or he was saying how are you

00:02:08.400 going to kill the next person in your book are you going home to worry is it a spear is it a sword is

00:02:13.600 it you know do you knife them whatever it is and i sort of got i said to myself you know maybe i've 0.99

00:02:18.920 been too long in this area and i should get into the modern world a little bit so i decided okay i'm

00:02:24.540 i'm gonna i'm gonna shift and write stuff that's more contemporary for a while because i didn't i also

00:02:30.820 didn't want to get sort of typecast as only being in the ancient world but i missed it you know and i

00:02:38.480 missed the uh the effects that you can produce when you use kind of let's say more noble language

00:02:45.840 that you can that you can do when you're writing in the ancient world and i wanted to tell the story

00:02:50.640 of this one character telamon it's a recurring character in three of my other books and i was

00:02:57.000 just you know it takes a long time brett to find a story sometimes you know you you try and you try and

00:03:02.200 try you don't you just can't find one and finally a couple years ago i did find it and it was

00:03:07.360 great fun to do a book that was only about this one character a favorite character of mine telamon

00:03:12.960 and also to get back into the ancient world well so how did i mean the basic story is that telamon

00:03:18.860 he's a former roman legionnaire and this is around the time when the early christian movement was

00:03:24.180 just starting right and he decides to team up i mean that's how it ends up but teaming up with

00:03:30.460 some christian messengers who were carrying epistles for the apostle paul how did where did that

00:03:35.300 come from that's just seems out of left field it's uh the the long backstory is my niece got

00:03:43.520 married a couple of years ago and she asked me to be the officiant at the ceremony actually my brother

00:03:49.820 had already secretly married them and i was going to be the public face of this so i went to the book

00:03:55.820 of common prayer to try to find put together my own little you know traditional type of whatever you

00:04:02.400 wanted to call it a service whatever and everything that i fell in love with came out of paul's letter

00:04:09.780 to the corinthians first corinthians you know through we see through a glass darkly and faith hope

00:04:15.700 and charity and all of all those wonderful great quotes and that just sort of stuck in my mind and

00:04:21.340 you know things percolate and you know as a writer you're always looking for some hook to hang a story

00:04:28.860 on and i thought this is a great thing this letter this that actually was a real letter that had to

00:04:35.520 be delivered and that the romans were trying to stop it and they made perfect bad guys for a kind of a

00:04:42.820 you know an action chase story that would have real depth to it that would really be about things on on

00:04:49.660 the soul level and not just on the action level so that's how the story came together red and i'm

00:04:56.460 curious how'd you go about researching the book because writing about christianity can be tricky

00:05:01.380 because it's you know it's something it's so part of our culture if you grew up in the west like

00:05:05.320 you know the story basically so it's hard to get at it in a different angle what but what i liked

00:05:11.680 about reading a man at arms is that oftentimes i felt like i wasn't reading a book about christianity

00:05:18.620 i was like reading like a work of political fiction where i was able to see how the romans or even the

00:05:25.500 jews looked at or viewed this this early movement so you know first like how did you research that

00:05:31.740 and like was that what you're trying to convey you're trying to like look at the christian movement

00:05:35.500 from a different perspective yes i mean i i certainly do not consider this a book about christianity by

00:05:42.300 any means if anything i would say it was a kind of a political thriller or an action story it really

00:05:48.600 is more about the movement of early christianity as seen through the eyes of rome of the empire of

00:05:55.880 rome and as as seen as a threat as something that they have to deal with which it really was and

00:06:02.320 rather than until the very end of the story which i don't want to give anything away only then does it

00:06:09.280 really get into kind of the spiritual aspects but i definitely felt like i was telling a kind of a

00:06:15.260 political story of a movement that was a threat to an empire and the empire's moves to crush that

00:06:21.540 movement and can you give us you know a taste of what that world looked like the way you describe

00:06:27.140 in your book well one of the things that i thought was really interesting was that early christianity

00:06:33.760 was a threat not just to the roman empire but to the jewish community to you know the the kingdom of 0.99

00:06:41.760 israel at the time judea because it threatened to split and weaken the jewish community under which

00:06:49.900 was under tremendous oppression from rome and needed to be as united as it possibly could so that there

00:06:58.280 were a number of elements bad guys trying to stop this growing faith and at that time the story is set

00:07:07.240 like maybe 20 years after the crucifixion so it's really about the primary engine of fledgling

00:07:14.140 christianity at this point was the apostle paul who was sort of the i don't know the paramount proselytizer

00:07:21.140 the paramount push behind expanding it into uh the various communities around the world and i like the

00:07:28.980 way you describe that from like the roman perspective oftentimes the the the generals when they talked about

00:07:34.680 the christians they didn't even like call them christians they just called them like the messianic

00:07:38.360 jews like they were just like a crazy branch of judaism yes because i think that's exactly what it 1.00

00:07:43.640 was it wasn't thought of as this new thing called christianity it was just sort of these crazy jews 1.00

00:07:48.680 this crazy offshoot of jews that believed in another another world and that had tremendous faith 1.00

00:07:55.780 and that you know really had a type of belief and the type of passion that could threaten an empire

00:08:03.280 like what what was threatening about it i mean you can they just be like well these are kind of

00:08:07.060 wackadoos just ignore them like what what do you think the threat was well the threat was that it was

00:08:12.920 a so expansionist that its home was really not in this world its home was in the kingdom of heaven

00:08:20.520 and so anybody that you can see it in passionate movements today too where someone uh where the the

00:08:29.680 group the collective kind of breaks mentally and emotionally breaks out of the the concerns of

00:08:36.160 the material world and is concerned with another world the world beyond this world and so is willing

00:08:42.200 to under undergo sacrifices and give up their lives and etc etc and also at at the time i think early

00:08:50.080 christianity among the people who were following it was an absolute sensation in terms of the passion

00:08:57.980 that it aroused and i think that rome felt and i say this in the book i put this in the mouths of

00:09:04.440 one of the tribunes that the emperor's sleep was not troubled by other armies but but rather a new

00:09:12.420 faith something that people could believe in beyond this world that was a real threat and in fact

00:09:17.700 that's what did bring down the roman empire so that the vatican is now in rome right i mean it became 0.99

00:09:25.040 the seat of christianity very heart of the empire and the other interesting thing about the christian

00:09:31.260 movement like they they were using the empire to further their their aims right like paul they were

00:09:36.820 able to be able to reason why paul's able to like connect with all these different groups because

00:09:40.440 like rome the empire built all these roads and shipping lines and they were using that to spread

00:09:45.540 their message yes that was a kind of a delicious irony of the thing that the very modern inventions that

00:09:54.400 rome had brought see you know the roads that they built the mail this was what the apostle used

00:10:01.040 to further his message and get it out there so rome was sort of you know complicit in its own demise

00:10:07.260 in that sense well let's talk about telamon so you mentioned this was a character from previous books what

00:10:12.040 other books did he make an appearance in he was in tides of war which was set during the peloponnesian

00:10:18.680 war then he came back unchanged and un unaged not a hundred years later as a mentor to alexander

00:10:26.780 in my book the virtues of war and then i even set him and gave him a cameo in a book called the

00:10:33.260 profession that's actually set in our contemporary future about 20 years in the future but that was a

00:10:38.100 tiny thing but he was in he was in two books where you know 70 80 years apart where he had not aged a

00:10:46.800 day and then in this new one in a man at arms it's another few hundred years later and he hasn't aged a

00:10:53.600 day either and what's going on like what do you i think that's interesting you'd have a character

00:10:58.580 who's the same guy but it just he shows up in different time periods i mean to me you know this

00:11:03.500 it brett it's kind of interesting because this is it's nothing i particularly planned you know i

00:11:09.700 didn't say oh i'm gonna have this character in one book and again and again but once i sort of

00:11:15.000 started doing that it seemed to really make great sense to me to me telamon is sort of the the supreme

00:11:21.900 archetype of the warrior but he is also the universal soldier in the sense that he appears in

00:11:29.440 century after century unchanged just like war is a universal constant in the human race and

00:11:37.320 warriors don't change either so he is one of these he's the universal soldier to me who appears over

00:11:45.180 and over again and of course the next question is why is it did he commit some terrible crime in the

00:11:51.920 past that he's have has to pay for by doing this and i don't even know the answer to that but i just i

00:11:58.420 just see him as stuck and in this archetype and sort of condemned to live it over and over

00:12:06.380 and what's interesting about telamon in this in a man at arms is that okay he's a former legionnaire

00:12:12.000 and in the roman army they're like a legionnaire you had a career like you you serve for a certain

00:12:16.700 amount of time then you got some land you basically were able to take it easy but he doesn't do that

00:12:21.460 once he his service is up he decides to become a mercenary what do you think's going on there why

00:12:26.860 didn't he fall is it just because he's that archetypical warrior he has to keep fighting

00:12:30.540 i think that's that's exactly it that his as he says in a man at arms he was in the legions but he

00:12:38.620 was not of them and that he never really he never embraced you know the eagle or the idea of roman

00:12:46.080 citizenship or the three-part name that romans always took or that you know people might volunteer

00:12:52.100 for the legions in spain let's say or in gaul and they would not be romans they would be natives of

00:12:57.260 that country and they would in essence take on a roman identity they would change their name kind of

00:13:03.260 like in the french foreign legion and they would take a roman name and they would achieve roman

00:13:08.520 citizenship and they would you know essentially be faux romans you know or artificial romans and in

00:13:15.280 their mind of course they were full-fledged romans and then they would go through their service and

00:13:19.200 as you said they'd get maybe some land or they would you know have various bounties that they

00:13:24.900 achieved over time and have some money but telamon is a guy who from the previous two books of mine

00:13:30.120 is beyond all that he doesn't care who he serves for he doesn't care what the flag is

00:13:35.980 he is a his goddess the only goddess he worships is eris the greek goddess of strife and he is one of

00:13:44.840 these guys who is a rare bird that he said as he says i fight for the fight alone i serve for the

00:13:52.400 serving alone i tramp for the tramping alone so he was definitely not a part of the legions in any

00:14:00.240 emotional way he was he was beyond that in his own mind so when he got out there was never a question

00:14:06.380 that he would settle down and have a farm he's continuing to serve the goddess strife and moving on

00:14:12.400 in his own way as a solitary individual to me he's kind of like a samurai that you see in the

00:14:18.120 ronin movies where they were masterless samurai that were cut loose from the collective and were

00:14:23.840 just on their own kind of like a a western gunslinger in an american western yeah or he's

00:14:30.060 like a private eye you know like a humphrey bogart type you know like he has his own code it's not the

00:14:35.720 code of the state but he's got his own code that he's going to follow no matter what exactly which

00:14:41.380 is what makes him so interesting to me and what makes him i think a very modern character he's like

00:14:47.740 a private eye he's like a clint eastwood man with no name type of gunslinger he's like the humphrey

00:14:54.900 bogart character in casablanca an individual who has cut himself free from any collective beliefs

00:15:02.020 any flag any cause any leader and is trying to navigate his way just as an individual

00:15:08.400 you know by his own code which is constantly evolving as he has his various adventures

00:15:15.820 and as you said it's primarily like he's just drawn to fighting like he calls it his philosophy

00:15:20.940 is dust and strife and i'm as i was reading this i mean it's hard not to bring in some of the other

00:15:27.560 stuff you've written about in your non-fiction about being an artist being a writer being a business

00:15:32.340 person entrepreneur do you see any connection there like what you've written about and say like the

00:15:36.380 war of art to telamon's dust and strife anti-hero philosophy yes absolutely i always i feel like

00:15:44.260 i have sort of two types of books that that i write one is a kind of a uh inner war type of book like the

00:15:52.840 war of art that's really about the mental and emotional world that an artist or an entrepreneur

00:15:58.660 deals with and the other are these novels that are usually set in the ancient world and they're about

00:16:04.300 the outer war where the warfare becomes a metaphor external warfare becomes a metaphor for the

00:16:10.300 internal war and one of the things that's really interesting to me about the character of telamon

00:16:14.300 is that he's fighting both he is a physical warrior for whom violence is a way of life but he's also

00:16:23.180 a philosopher and he's trying to fight his own internal war this as strong a character as he is as a warrior

00:16:31.300 he feels frustrated in that he's like up against a wall like he's exhausted that archetype and much

00:16:38.720 like you know say the humphrey bogart character in casablanca or the clint eastwood character in

00:16:44.560 various westerns or a lot of samurais they they can do their thing they can win these fights they can

00:16:51.040 endure adversity but they know in their hearts that something is missing that they're kind of stuck

00:16:55.880 and this story like like westerns or like samurai movies is about bringing the warrior beyond that

00:17:03.960 to the next level which you know involves a step into love and that's where the of the apostle paul's

00:17:12.820 letter comes into this whole story and tying this back into like your work with artists and

00:17:18.220 entrepreneurs like do you see a lot of artists and entrepreneurs like that's their philosophy they

00:17:22.160 take that sort of dust and strife philosophy when they first start out i i think absolutely and i

00:17:27.520 think you know that you almost have to right you're if you're an entrepreneur and you're and you're

00:17:33.180 launching a new business or startup or something or if you're an artist and you're writing a book or a

00:17:37.840 movie or you're a musician or whatever you're alone and the world is a hard cruel world and if you're

00:17:46.600 going to break through that world you kind of have to have an aggressive mindset a warrior mindset and

00:17:53.680 it's also very much of an eagle mindset it's really uh you know us against the world type of environment

00:17:59.880 just or mindset just to kind of break through but once you do break through once you do have you have

00:18:07.940 established yourself that we're somewhere then the next question becomes what am i going to do with

00:18:13.560 this identity that i have with this platform that i've achieved am i just is it just about my own

00:18:20.720 ego and pushing forward for more you know money or whatever or is it actually about something do i

00:18:27.680 really have some some gift that i want to give to the world or some message that i'd like to bring

00:18:33.740 we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:18:36.540 and now back to the show and one of the ways you flesh out the character of telamon is he has an

00:18:47.220 apprentice or and i'd say like i don't think telamon is the kind of guy like he's he's a lone he's a

00:18:52.380 lone gun so of course he wouldn't want an apprentice but so rather this kid basically decided telamon

00:18:58.300 you're gonna be my mentor whether you like it or not tell us about this boy and like what can we

00:19:03.500 learn about telamon because of the boys like attract like him wanting to be mentored by telamon

00:19:09.480 that that's a great question brett and i this was almost an instinctive choice as a writer i i had the

00:19:17.180 character of telamon and something made me say to myself he needs an apprentice he needs somebody

00:19:22.580 that idolizes him and also somebody that we can see the story through his through his eyes and uh i was

00:19:30.400 thinking have you seen the movie seven samurai yes you know the the um the lead samurai at the

00:19:37.880 very start of the movie has has a young samurai attach himself to him you remember that character

00:19:43.460 right right goes all the way through the knee you know he bows down to him he says please sir you

00:19:48.080 know make me your apprentice i want to learn from you and i thought that that was just a great way

00:19:53.620 of getting into telamon's character because the way he teaches the apprentice is he he never says

00:20:00.380 anything he just allows him to watch or he says very few things and of course what was clear to me

00:20:08.400 as a writer was that in the end it was going to be the apprentice who winds up teaching the master

00:20:14.400 and that things would would turn by the end so that was the reason for the character of david the young

00:20:21.100 boy who who follows telamon and give some context david you know he comes from a i guess a really

00:20:27.140 religious like his religious jewish family so what you know going the warrior path was like yeah that's

00:20:32.000 not what you're supposed to do but he still wanted to do that yeah he was definitely some he came from

00:20:38.240 like an impoverished family he's illiterate but very much felt the oppression of the roman empire on them 0.96

00:20:45.500 and very much felt that the jewish community as it stood at that time was not strong enough

00:20:53.980 to to resist this thing and so he himself just kind of seeking manhood seeking masculinity if you want

00:21:01.160 to use that word which i do sought out the most masculine character that he could find and attached

00:21:08.380 himself to them because he wanted to learn to stand up for himself and to stand up for the community 0.73

00:21:13.840 and you know telamon he could have just told this kid to take a hike or even killed him like you're 0.50

00:21:18.640 just annoying me but he doesn't why do you think that is have you figured that out or is it was like

00:21:24.200 telamon just opening himself up to to change or what do you think that's a great question brett it's

00:21:30.120 sort of like have you ever read a book called save the cat i have not by blake snyder it's a wonderful

00:21:36.840 book there's like three or four of these books it's about screenwriting it's about writing movies

00:21:41.260 and blake snyder is a screenwriter or was he died tragically at a young age but um one of the

00:21:48.560 things that the idea behind save the cat is that any hero in a story needs to do something early in

00:21:57.020 the story that makes us in the audience think that he's a good guy or a good gal and the save the cat is

00:22:04.500 is um blake snyder's way of doing that the hero should save a cat or something like that do something

00:22:10.420 nice because most heroes in stories if you think about gunslingers or samurais or private eyes or

00:22:17.480 any of these kind of classic hard-bitten heroes most of them are really tough hombres there's hard to

00:22:24.120 like and a lot of them violence is their first uh gesture in anything their first option so to let us

00:22:32.100 the viewer into the story you sort of need to have a little bit of a something that shows uh this guy has

00:22:37.960 a little bit of a soft spot anywhere but also more important than that i mean i knew with telemon

00:22:43.280 at the start of the story that he was going to seem to be the all-time hardcore badass guy but by the

00:22:51.660 end of the story he was going to switch and come all the way over to a position of love so i wanted

00:22:58.120 along the way for us to see that even beneath his crusty hard exterior he does have compassion

00:23:05.820 and he can feel feel for somebody and take on this young boy i mean to do that was really a

00:23:11.940 real gesture of empathy and and a real kind gesture and i think that made a lot of sense that that would

00:23:18.180 then come out later in the story as we got to know telemon completely i'm curious in your in your own

00:23:25.460 life have there been situations where you were david the boy looking for that that mentor or when you

00:23:32.620 were telemon and you've had a young person like show me the ways have you experienced that personally

00:23:37.840 uh that's another great question brett i mean i definitely have have had both and if i would say

00:23:43.420 one was more predominant it's that i've had mentors and i've had many mentors where i was in the position

00:23:50.500 of of being the apprentice and that have been absolutely invaluable to me could not have done

00:23:56.560 you know anything that i've done without them so yeah i think that's a huge part of our evolution

00:24:02.900 i'm sure it's true for you too you know that you find yourself taking people under your wing from time

00:24:09.340 to time and also reaching out to mentors that can that can guide you and and give you some feedback

00:24:14.800 along the journey that we're all on well did you have a mentor that stood out to you like that was

00:24:19.340 like really kind of that telemon like really crusty and grouchy but you learned a lot from them

00:24:23.580 i've had many but i'll tell you one in my 20s i drove trucks for a while and i had a mentor a guy

00:24:32.520 named hugh reeves who was a dispatcher at this trucking company in north carolina that i worked for

00:24:37.200 and he took me in when he had no real reason to do to do so i was really like clearly kind of lost and

00:24:45.840 you know in my own weird journey and there was one moment that he that was really made a big deep

00:24:52.420 impression on me i was on my own sort of um hero's journey my own odyssey i was lost whatever

00:24:59.560 and and i kept screwing up you know i would you know deliver loads late and i would you know get

00:25:07.280 into accidents and stuff like that and at one point hugh called me into his office and he you know sat

00:25:13.340 me down and he said he said son i don't know what sort of journey you're on in your own mind here

00:25:19.360 but this is a business we are in business here and you are a representative of this business

00:25:25.640 we are our job is to to deliver loads and deliver them on time and not to screw up and you cannot

00:25:32.760 afford to be going through whatever emotional stuff you are in your head you got to get it together

00:25:37.720 because this is a business designed to make money and that was like you know one of those moments of

00:25:43.860 you know a slap in a face you know thanks i needed that type of thing so he was a great mentor to me

00:25:49.880 and and i'm grateful to him to this day well yeah he taught you how to be professional yeah he certainly

00:25:56.920 gave me that idea anyway it took me a long long time to actually become a professional all right so

00:26:02.360 tell them on former legionnaire he gets basically voluntold by the roman army to hunt down a courier who's

00:26:10.760 carrying a letter from the apostle paul because again the romans are freaking out that this this

00:26:16.380 movement is going to spread and bring down the empire he meets the courier and instead of turning

00:26:21.820 the courier in he has some sort of conversion and we're not going to talk about what that conversion

00:26:26.240 looked like because that's that's the book that's that's the we don't want to we don't want to do that

00:26:29.880 but i mean i'd like to use that his conversion whatever that is as a starting off point to discuss

00:26:36.080 that what you're talking about that that switch from mercenary values that philosophy of strife and

00:26:42.440 dust to a philosophy guided by love like what is i mean for you what does that what does a philosophy

00:26:49.000 guided by love look like in an artist's life or a business person's life just a man's life and i'm

00:26:56.400 guessing does tell them on completely leave this philosophy of strife and dust behind and embrace this

00:27:02.340 love philosophy he doesn't really i think he integrates it and there's a character that is

00:27:08.000 central to this that we haven't mentioned and it's a young girl who is a nine-year-old mute feral girl

00:27:16.460 who is the daughter or at least we think she's the daughter of this this suspected courier that's

00:27:23.120 carrying the letter we don't know where the letter is we it's all a mystery and a bond begins to form

00:27:29.540 between telamon and this girl and it's sort of a mysterious bond that they just seem to be

00:27:36.260 simpatico with each other and that in essence she proves to be of all the warriors in this story and

00:27:44.140 there's a bunch of them she is the sort of the the supreme warrior of in terms of of dedication

00:27:51.280 and of ability to rise to an occasion and so what happens with him without giving away too much of the

00:27:59.200 story telamon is that he finds his heart opening to this girl sort of like it did to david to the

00:28:06.580 boy who he takes on as his apprentice and the story as it goes along this girl kind of proves herself

00:28:13.740 over and over to him in one way or another and he begins to not so much care for any message or any

00:28:24.260 spiritual doctrine as he cares for her and that's kind of what where love kind of enters the picture

00:28:32.340 but he remains a warrior throughout the whole thing and his warrior skills are set in the service

00:28:40.640 of this of this love and you know when the apostle paul talks about love in in his letter to the

00:28:49.260 corinthians he's not really talking about romantic love or the love that we feel for a brother or the

00:28:55.340 love that we feel for a wife or for a family he's talking about true christian love at the highest level

00:29:02.220 you know love for um the entire human race and for anyone who is suffering anyone who is vulnerable

00:29:10.820 and love for the kingdom of heaven the highest form of love agape really in greek all these elements

00:29:18.680 kind of come together as the story progresses the letter the girl the bad guys etc well let's tie it

00:29:26.080 back into your previous like non-fiction writing have you seen this sort of theme play out in your

00:29:30.480 non-fiction writing as well yes i mean i think that what if we ask ourselves let's say we want to be a

00:29:37.940 writer we want to be an entrepreneur we want to be a songwriter a filmmaker or whatever the first

00:29:44.520 step is to kind of learn how to do that to be a professional at that to acquire those those skills

00:29:51.400 but the next step sort of the second half of of our adventure is what are we going to use those skills

00:29:59.040 for what and in essence if we think about this is maybe getting a little too deep brett but what the

00:30:05.720 hell let's do it if you think about the hero's journey in the uh joseph campbell sense

00:30:10.760 which is kind of a self-initiation that an individual goes through through whatever suffering

00:30:17.380 they have whatever journeys they undergo it always ends kind of like odysseus coming back home to

00:30:23.180 ithaca it returned it always ends with a return home kind of like dorothy comes back to kansas or any

00:30:30.380 hero sort of returns to where they started but they return as a different person and they return this is

00:30:36.840 according to the legend with quote unquote a gift for the people which comes from what they've learned

00:30:43.980 on this journey what their solitary suffering has brought them to so the question then becomes if

00:30:50.760 you're an entrepreneur if you're an artist or whatever what is my gift that's the question that

00:30:56.120 we all have to ask ourselves what if if you're a writer you say well what kind of books was i put here to

00:31:02.460 to to produce and when when you get to that the question really is it's really a gift for the world

00:31:14.080 it's a gift for others whatever your whatever your the song you're writing is meant maybe to

00:31:21.120 bring somebody up from a depressed place maybe to to tell them that they're not alone in a in a

00:31:28.660 situation a broken heart or or frustrated life whatever but it is a gift and it's a gift that's

00:31:35.660 given out of love and that's i believe i believe that is the whole meaning of our existence on this

00:31:43.960 planet that we kind of start off as children as infants where it's all me me me give me my food you

00:31:50.620 know whatever and even as we become adults it's still a kind of a me me me thing right i want to

00:31:56.740 achieve my goals i want to make money i want to establish an identity i want to have a family

00:32:01.780 bump at a bump at bump but at some point the question becomes what am i doing all this for

00:32:07.480 and the answer if we're going to be if we're going to evolve and not be stuck in some case of arrested

00:32:13.760 development is that we're we're giving something from our heart to the rest of the world and if you're

00:32:20.700 if you're an artist that's your art that's your books that's your music whatever if you're an

00:32:25.180 entrepreneur it's whatever business that you're putting forward so i think that's how if we are

00:32:30.640 going to evolve we evolve from fear to love or from ego to love no i like this because this ties in

00:32:38.560 nicely with some other guests we've had on the podcast like david brooks has that book the second

00:32:43.280 mountain and then um and that's and then there's like richard roars is franciscan yeah yeah richard

00:32:48.900 roars yeah david brooks too you're absolutely right those are definitely guys that i am tuned into and

00:32:53.640 i read all their stuff right so this idea is like first you the first part of life is like you're

00:32:58.420 there to like construct a self and it's very practical hands-on so like what you're talking

00:33:02.840 about you have to learn your craft learn how to be a good writer be a professional and then at a

00:33:07.020 certain point you have to figure out well what's this for and i'm curious like what do you think

00:33:12.160 happens if you reverse those like what if you try to like get that more higher level idea first before

00:33:17.660 getting the practical level like what happens if you are telemon who's guided by love before you are

00:33:24.160 telemon the mercenary man at arms that's a great question i'm not sure i really have a real answer

00:33:30.020 i've never even thought about it um what were you going to say brett i don't know either that's what

00:33:35.760 i was thinking as i was as you're talking i was like what would happen if you flip the script

00:33:38.920 it seems to me unnatural to do that in that i i don't know if that actually would work i think

00:33:46.160 sometimes someone at a young age might think that they are doing something purely out of love

00:33:52.700 but i'm not so i would be skeptical if i met that person not to say that it doesn't happen or it isn't

00:33:59.940 true but um i i really don't know what the answer to that is it just doesn't seem like things work that

00:34:08.380 way yeah i mean i'm just ripping off the cuff here i mean they probably would be ineffective

00:34:13.100 right because you wouldn't have the skills like you have this idea of what you want and like what

00:34:16.980 but like you don't have any skills to make it come to pass to make it manifest itself

00:34:21.960 and so you just it's you're you're sort of impotent in a way or even i would say beyond the idea of skill

00:34:29.140 i mean i have a theory i'm one of my books one of my non-fiction books i'm sure you know about it's

00:34:34.160 called the artist's journey and the theory of the thesis of that book is that we have two it's kind

00:34:40.640 of like richard roar first half of life and second half of life where that we have kind of two two

00:34:45.780 lives the first is our hero's journey and when that's done we go to our artist's journey which is

00:34:51.280 just like what richard roar says uh first you you establish the vessel that is yourself and in the

00:34:58.260 second half you ask yourself well what do i fill the vessel with but going back what i meant to say

00:35:02.860 was in that first half of life in that hero's journey it's not just about the acquisition of

00:35:09.780 skills i don't think i think it's also about a a humbling a deep humbling that happens to us i think

00:35:16.760 almost always the uh the hero's journey ends with or hits a point of what they would call in hollywood

00:35:25.020 an all is lost moment a moment where we really hit bottom and and then turn around from there and it

00:35:31.040 seems to me if we going back to the apostle paul it's the moment of his conversion on the road to

00:35:36.260 damascus you know but i so in other words i think the first half of life is not just about acquisition of

00:35:42.340 skills but it's about being broken it's about coming to a place where we say from our ego

00:35:50.300 i can't handle it my ego is not enough living out of the rational mind out of the ego

00:35:57.380 is not enough and we sort of at that point and this becomes kind of religious or at least spiritual

00:36:04.400 we sort of surrender we give up if we are if the analogy would be to say an alcoholic

00:36:09.460 but they would say and that moment that i have no control over alcohol and i have to call on a higher

00:36:16.620 power i give up i can't do this but i'm by myself so that i think the key to that is that once

00:36:23.820 we're humbled in that way then we're truly capable of love then we have empathy not just for ourselves

00:36:32.880 because we've been broken and we've seen how broken we can be but it immediately applies to others and

00:36:39.040 we start to have compassion well if i can fall apart like i've fallen apart or if i've seen to my

00:36:44.120 deepest self and i see how broken i am then everybody else is on that same path and my only real

00:36:50.840 honorable way of dealing with others is with compassion and empathy and to try to help and

00:36:56.680 and that's love so i don't don't mean to get too deep here but i think that's what it's about

00:37:02.320 and that you see that play out with telemon like he he has a moment where he's broken that moment

00:37:07.640 yeah and and then also and what i liked about the way you just do with the book is you you show

00:37:13.580 how that figuring out that second half of life stuff typically happens and again don't want to give

00:37:19.700 you got to read read in the papers if you want to see how that happens but it it's not the way

00:37:24.120 people typically think it happens it's not intellectual it's not rational it's something else

00:37:29.100 no it's definitely not it's definitely happening on the soul level and not on the behavioral level or

00:37:35.000 the psychological level for all of us when we come to that change and if you think of a lot of stories

00:37:41.360 have that same pattern books or movies where the hero hits a a point of a dead end you know if i'm

00:37:52.380 thinking of a movie cool hand luke i don't know if you remember that with paul newman oh yeah of course

00:37:56.400 where he's on the chain gang right and you know they finally break him or he hits that moment where

00:38:02.560 things turn around for him so it's a common i think for all of us and i'm curious have you already

00:38:09.500 thought about like what's what happens to tell him on next did he escape this sort of uh eternal

00:38:13.860 recurrence of being a a warrior no i haven't in fact i know i've got to and i'm kind of scared to

00:38:20.200 death of it i i know i haven't taken it all the way yet so uh i'm waiting for the muse to uh touch

00:38:27.940 down and help me on that one well steven this has been a great conversation where can people go

00:38:32.480 to learn more about the book and your work just my my website which is just my name steven pressfield

00:38:38.400 with a steven with a v and that's got you know all of the various stuff about it but the book is

00:38:43.280 on sale at amazon barnes and noble bookstores indies everywhere all right well steven pressfield

00:38:48.460 thanks for your time it's been a pleasure hey brett thank you very much i'll do it again anytime on

00:38:53.160 any subject all right thank you my guest today was steven pressfield he's the author of the book

00:38:58.080 a man at arms available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about

00:39:02.280 his work at his website stevenpressfield.com also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:39:07.120 slash man at arms where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:39:10.840 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

00:39:21.360 art of manliness.com where you find our podcast archives well as thousands of articles written

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00:39:54.440 into action

00:39:55.140 you

The Art of Manliness - March 15, 2021

The Two Halves of the Warrior's Life

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