Lex Fridman Podcast: #102 – Steven Pressfield: The War of Art

Steven Pressfield is a historian and author of War of Art, a book that had a big impact on my life and the life of millions of whose passion is to create in art, science, business, sport, and everywhere else. I highly recommend it and others of his books on this topic, including Turning Pro, Do the Work, Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit, and the Warrior Ethos. Also his books Gates of Fire about the Spartans and the battle at Thermopylae, The Lion’s Gate, Tides of War, and others are some of the best historical fiction novels ever written.

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This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon.

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:

00:00 – Introduction

05:00 – Nature of war

11:43 – The struggle within

17:11 – Love and hate in a time of war

25:17 – Future of warfare

28:31 – Technology in war

30:10 – What it takes to kill a person

32:22 – Mortality

37:30 – The muse

46:09 – Editing

52:19 – Resistance

1:10:41 – Loneliness

1:12:24 – Is a warrior born or trained?

1:13:53 – Hard work and health

1:18:41 – Daily ritual