Episode · The Daily Stoic · 2023-06-09
Ryan Holiday & Rick Rubin: books mentioned on The Daily Stoic (Jun 2023)
Rick Rubin on The Creative Act, Overcoming Ego, and Enjoying the Process
Ryan Holiday recommended Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and discussed Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston, and Meditations by Aurelius Marcus. Rick Rubin discussed On Writing by Stephen King, Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2, and The Odyssey.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Zen in the Art of Archery
Discussed“You've read Zen and the Art of Archery, I'm sure, right? I don't know if I've ever read that; I know I've had the book, but I don't know if I've ever read it.”
Where to get it
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The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time
Discussed“Then when it's done and there are no more creative decisions to be made, and the book is written, you may not have the final final version of it, but you know exactly what the book is. You've said what you want to say, and you feel good about it; that would be the first time to think about, okay,”
Where to get it
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On Writing
Discussed“You're not the same person who wrote your first book, so if you're using exactly the same methods that that guy was using, they might not be optimal. No, it's changed a ton.”
Where to get it
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The War of Art
Recommended“When somebody does something I guess—even the War of Art—but when somebody does something that is both timely but also has no place in time, that’s something incredible about what art can do. Where it can be everywhere and nowhere current and timeless at the same time.”
Where to get it
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Meditations
Discussed“I think about that obviously the book that's influenced my life the most is Marx realizes meditations”
Where to get it
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Tao Te Ching
Discussed“they just had uh the book that probably inspired me the most is um the dowdy Jing Lao TSU”
Where to get it
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Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2
Discussed“Shakespeare is stealing from the writings of Plutarch, who existed roughly around the time of Marcus Aurelius. He quotes other fables and stuff, but you can tell that Shakespeare is stealing from ancient stories—just as like the Renaissance was powered by them falling back in love with the Greeks and the Romans.”
Where to get it
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The Creative Act
Recommended“so thank you very much for this and I I I love the book I think the book is incredible”
Where to get it
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The Odyssey
Discussed“In the Odyssey, he talks about the 'wine-dark sea.' Who thinks the ocean looks like wine?”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (9) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Plugged The Creative Act
“You have to find some way to be present and both very committed and also, as you talk about in the book, kind of detached from all of that external stuff. Absolutely, and I recommend that artists engage or re-engage with why they wanted to do it in the first place and really find their love.”
“I would clarify—your book is full of paradoxes, I think much more Eastern than Western, your embrace of paradox instead of singular permanent truth. You tell the story about the man in Calcutta and then you have this wonderful little poem on page 104, and you say, beware of the assumption that the way you work is the best way”
Plugged The Creative Act
“If we put our—one of the things I recommend in the book is like creating the equivalent of creating office hours, having a schedule to work. Where you say I'm going to sit down for this could be 20 minutes, could be three hours; it's up to you what that window is and how you want to do it.”
Passing The War of Art
“like when somebody does something I guess even the war of art”
“That's when you can start thinking; we call that the crafting phase in the book. The first stage is the seed phase where we're gathering ideas; the second phase is the experimentation phase where we're watering those seeds, seeing what they want to be on their own.”
“But one of the things that I've learned from the book in working on the book is that that last phase, the editing and getting ready to share it, you can do that on a schedule. Whereas you can't really collect the seeds on a schedule, you can't really do the experimentation on a schedule.”
Plugged The Obstacle Is the Way
“And, um, I actually—I had to go back through and read some of my earlier books. I’d reread The Obstacle is the Way and what I was struck by, what I noticed there for the first time was that there was a tightness to the writing and the book is shorter.”
Plugged The Creative Act
“It’s the book I wanted to write; that’s one of the things about it is like—and I think when we did talk about it all those years ago, that was probably what you said. It’s like, why do you want to do that book?”
Plugged Ego Is the Enemy
“what I remember is that I was working on ego as the enemy when we talked and I was thinking about what that book would be”