Ego is the Enemy-Art Life and Lives
Added 2023-08-22 02:09:25 +0000 UTCThis is probably the most subjective and personal Art Life and Lives that I've done. Usually I try to alternate between an artist's biography and a book about the creative process, or art itself.
This book, Ego is the Enemy, isn't really either one of those things, but it's had such an influence on my personal life and art life that I felt like I had to do an Art Life and Lives on it.
I recently re read it, and it was like listening to an old song from my youth. I was bobbing my head as I listened to it.
Ego is the Enemy more of a self improvement book than a book about creativity. If you're skeptical of self improvement books, you're in good hands. I give a little disclaimer in the video about why I don't trust self improvement books. And I really think this book- and every Ryan Holiday book I've read-avoids many of the pitfalls of the self help genre.
I thought about combining it with a book that's more directly about art. But I just couldn't do it in a way that felt natural.
I spend more time in the video talking about and relating my own experiences as an artist to the principles outlined in this book, than I do talking about the content in the book itself.
If you like my Art Life and Lives videos, you might really enjoy Ryan Holiday's books. He has a really cool way of merging history and biographies with principles-usually related to Stoic Philosophy- in a way where you're both learning something and thinking about your own life.
In this video I talk about my skepticism of self help books, Stoic philosophy and how it differs from religion, my struggle with addiction, and the creative process/cycle of aspiration, success and failure, how ego is the enemy at every level of this cycle, and of course, the subject of this video Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday.
I hope you enjoy!
Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday is the second book in his 3 book series The Way, The Enemy, The Key
Ryan's website www.ryanholiday.net
I also recomend his podcast the Daily Stoic. He does a lot of great interviews with a wide variety of people.
