“To fly, we have to have resistance.”
Maya Lin

Resistance: Some days, it just seems to be there waiting for us, doesn’t it? It can take the form of distraction or sluggishness or discouragement. That may sound strange, but when I say this, I’m thinking of resistance as anything that keeps us from our work — anything we have to fight against or fight through in order to keep our work moving forward.

The downside of resistance is that resisting it takes energy — valuable energy that we could be channeling into the work we want to do instead of having to squander it by pushing against something that’s in getting in the way of what we want to do — what we know we should be doing.

But there’s an upside to resistance as well. In pushing against something, we define ourselves and what we what or don’t want: we take shape, our edges are revealed. resistance can also spark creativity: without friction, there’s no fire. There’s no movement, no growth, we’d just stay in our comfort zones forever, toddling along toward mediocrity.

That’s why I believe Maya is right: To fly, we need resistance. Not all the time, but some of the time. Sometimes, we need a day where everything goes smoothly, a “go with the flow” day where we seem to float along, carried breathlessly forward by our words and ideas. And sometimes we need those rough, resistance, sandpapery days, where everything is a struggle and we have to be content with just moving forward an inch when we wanted a mile. Why is this true? Why do we need both flow and resistance? I guess it’s the yin and yang of writing. What do you think? Write on!