Imitate, then Innovate – a mantra that David Perell swears by. Unravel the essence of this philosophy, its profound impact on learning, and how it can be a game-changer in your personal and professional growth journey.
Imitate, then Innovate
The more we imitate others, the faster we can discover our unique style
- Originality is the highest virtue, even if it comes at the expense of quality
- In general, creators spend much less time imitating their heroes and more time trying to make something new
Writing guide
Four-step process for crafting high-quality writing even when you’re totally slammed
Quentin Tarantino
Tarantino’s originality begins with imitation
- He’s famous for replicating and building upon scenes from other movies, and he once said: “I steal from every single movie ever made.”
- In fact, imitation and innovation are not opposed
- Creators consume art differently than consumers
- They’re far more intentional in what they consume
The Two Kinds of Imitation
Near Imitation: When you imitate people who do similar work to you
- Far Imitations: Transferring ideas from one domain to another
- Much of the future originates in art before it becomes our reality
- Imitation doesn’t mean you should become just like everybody (or even somebody) else
- When people conflate copying for imitation, we end up with a homogeneity of style that robs society of dynamic individualism
Originality Disease
Three reasons why: misunderstanding inspiration, fetishizing originality, and self-obsession.
- Misunderstanding inspiration
- Focusing on originality and usefulness are not the same thing: originality can cause you to forget to make useful contributions to human knowledge, and vice-versa
- Influenced by Freud, we’ve turned originality into our cardinal virtue and turned it into our guiding light, turning it into a pursuit towards truth.
How to Pursue Originality
Originality is only useful insofar as it serves a higher end
- In business, a lack of originality hints that you don’t understand the problem you’re trying to solve well enough
- Writing is the same way
- The surest sign of an amateur writer is somebody who values originality as their ultimate goal
- Better to imitate, then innovate instead
What Happened to Imitation?
Throughout human history, most imitative learning happened through apprenticeships.
- Today, things have changed as we’ve dropped apprenticeships in the name of efficiency. Instead of doing an apprenticeship, wannabe Da Vincis are training at professional art schools.
- The decline of apprenticeships came the decline of Imitative learning because the printing press and mass schooling led us to disproportionately value knowledge that could be codified in textbooks.
- The transmission of technique and tacit knowledge was lost in translation.
Lessons from Painting
Imitation helps us discover our creative personalities
- It reveals our taste and which parts of the creative process come most naturally to us
- To write and to paint is to learn how to see
- Writing and painting have similar essential properties that manifest themselves in wildly different ways
