en

Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield is an American author of historical fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays. His debut novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, became the 2000 sports film directed by Robert Redford and starring Will Smith, Matt Damon, and Charlize Theron.

Steven Pressfield was born to a Navy father and mother in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He graduated from Duke University in 1965. Then, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as an infantryman.

"In January of 1966, when I was on the bus leaving Parris Island as a freshly minted Marine, I looked back and thought there was at least one good thing about this departure. "No matter what happens to me for the rest of my life, no one can ever send me back to this freakin' place again," Steven said.

Pressfield worked 21 different jobs in eleven states, before becoming a full-time writer. He taught school, drove tractor-trailers, worked in advertising and as a screenwriter in Hollywood, etc.

His struggle to exist as an author, including a period, when he was homeless and living in the back of his car, is detailed in his 2002 book, The War of Art.

Before publishing his first original works of fiction, Pressfield wrote several Hollywood screenplays, including King Kong Lives (1986), Above the Law (1988), and others.

As Steven said, he wrote for 27 years before his first book, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was published in 1995.

His second novel, Gates of Fire (1998), is about the Spartans and the battle at Thermopylae. It is taught at the U.S. Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, and the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico.

Over one million copies of Gates of Fire are sold worldwide.

Steven Pressfield lives in Los Angeles.

Photo credit: stevenpressfield.com
years of life: 1 September 1943 present

Quotes

b6661601272has quoted2 years ago
Here’s what the Ego believes:

1) Death is real. The Ego believes that our existence is defined by our physical flesh. When the body dies, we die. There is no life beyond life.

2) Time and space are real. The Ego is analog. It believes that to get from A to Z we have to pass through B, C, and D. To get from breakfast to supper we have to live the whole day.

3) Every individual is different and separate from every other. The Ego believes that I am distinct from you. The twain cannot meet. I can hurt you and it won’t hurt me.

4) The predominant impulse of life is self-preservation. Because our existence is physical and thus vulnerable to innumerable evils, we live and act out of fear in all we do. It is wise, the Ego believes, to have children to carry on our line when we die, to achieve great things that will live after us, and to buckle our seat belts.

5) There is no God. No sphere exists except the physical and no rules apply except those of the material world.

These are the principles the Ego lives by. They are sound solid principles.

Here’s what the Self believes:

1) Death is an illusion. The soul endures and evolves through infinite manifestations.

2) Time and space are illusions. Time and space operate only in the physical sphere, and even here, don’t apply to dreams, visions, transports. In other dimensions we move “swift as thought” and inhabit multiple planes simultaneously.

3) All beings are one. If I hurt you, I hurt myself.

4) The supreme emotion is love. Union and mutual assistance are the imperatives of life. We are all in this together.

5) God is all there is. Everything that is, is God in one form or another. God, the divine ground, is that in which we live and move and have our being. Infinite planes of reality exist, all created by, sustained by and infused by the spirit of God.
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