Centuries ago, Seneca sat in his Roman villa, eyes closed, conjuring every imaginable catastrophe. Not because he was a masochist, but because he was a realist. Seneca knew life’s pendulum swings between bliss and disaster, and those who prepare for the fall land gracefully. The same applies to us, the modern creatives, juggling deadlines and existential dread.
Picture your latest project, a manuscript or a mural, like a fledgling bird perched on the windowsill. You nurture it, protect it, but always, there’s that looming hawk in the sky – failure. Premeditatio Malorum demands you face this hawk head-on. Imagine it swooping down, talons extended. Feel the fear, the tension, the potential for ruin. Embrace it. Now, with every possible disaster laid bare, move forward.
Every blank page is a battlefield. Steven Pressfield whispers of Resistance, that shadowy saboteur inside us all.
Premeditatio Malorum is our preemptive strike. It’s expecting the blank stares, the scathing critiques, the soul-crushing rejections, and writing anyway. It’s visualizing the worst – your novel as toilet paper, your painting as a tablecloth – and realizing yosu’ll survive.