https://perell.com/essay/imitate-then-innovate/
人们对研究先于他们的伟人犹豫不决。他们太看重原创了。但创新始于模仿。请记住，爱因斯坦对广义相对论的发明是通过对经典物理学家几十年的研究实现的，后来他建立了他们的想法。
People are too hesitant to study the greats who came before them. They value originality too much. But innovation begins with imitation. Remember, Einstein's invention of General Relativity was enabled by decades of studying classical physicists, whose ideas he later built upon. This is another example of my motto: Imitate, then Innovate. To improve your writing, binge-read your favorite writers and shamelessly copy their style. Whenever I find a writer I admire, I mimic them in my next article. The words change but I follow the rhythm of their sentences and the cadence of their words. In Teaching Like a State, I copied the structure of the park bench scene from Goodwill Hunting, and my description of Peter Thiel as an investor, student, and philosopher borrows from the first page of Shantaram. Even this article is inspired by Seth Godin’s punchy writing style. Other writers copy even more. Hunter S. Thompson once hand-wrote every word of the Great Gatsby so he could feel what it’s like to write a great novel. Robert Louis Stevenson copied paragraphs from memory. He read his favorite ones twice. Then, he threw them to the other side of the room and re-wrote them without looking. Despite their success, writing is a rare artistic medium where copying isn’t encouraged. Musicians practice their scales because the architecture of sound comes to life not when you listen to great music, but when you actually play it. Painters copy too. My favorite part of visiting art museums is watching visitors sketch the paintings in front of them. Sometimes, they’ll spend a week in the same place so they can feel how their hands run over the canvas and watch how watercolor flows over the scribble-scrabble of an earlier sketch. I know a painting coach who tells her students to listen for resistance in the copying process. “Do you hear that?” she asks. “It’s the echo of your unique style.” Those moments highlight the second benefit of copying: it reveals your voice. Ironically, the more we imitate others, the more we discover how we’re different. There’s a long lineage of comedians who tried to copy each other, failed, and became great themselves: Johnny Carson tried to copy Jack Benny, but failed and won six Emmy awards. Then, David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson, but failed and became one of America’s great television hosts. Reflecting on his own influences, Conan O’Brien said: “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.” All of them learned that imitation reveals our identity, especially when we fall short of those we admire. Instead of trying to be original, mirror others so intensely that the glitter of their brilliance shines upon your craft. It’s the closest you can get to a conversation with the artist. Aim for perfection but pay attention to your mistakes, for they hold the seeds of your individuality.
Imitate, then Innovate is my motto for improving at any skill.
It’s counterintuitive, but the more we imitate others, the faster we can discover our unique style. In the entertainment world, there’s a long lineage of comedians who tried to copy each other, failed, and became great themselves: Johnny Carson tried to copy Jack Benny, but failed and won six Emmy awards. Then, David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson, but failed and became one of America’s great television hosts.
Reflecting on his own influences, Conan O’Brien said: “It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.”
Modern creators do the opposite though. They refuse to imitate others and stubbornly insist on originality, which they hold as their highest virtue — even when it comes at the expense of quality. They might deny their ambition toward originality when you talk to them, but they reveal it in their actions. In general, creators spend much less time imitating their heroes than they do trying to make something new. I call it the Originality Disease — a pervasive plague that makes creators feel scared to imitate other people’s styles.
The problem may be worst among writers, who speak about their craft with levels of mystery that are usually reserved for the numinous. Writers would be smart to learn from other fields, though.
Hollywood film directors come to mind because they’re seen as the essence of what creative professionalism looks like. When people look at Quentin Tarantino, they see a mad creative with a singular talent for making original movies. But 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.”
Looking at Tarantino’s work, I revel in the paradox that imitation and innovation are not opposed, but operate in tandem.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a “sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the movie” kinda guy. Movies are pure entertainment for me. A chance to escape the world of responsibilities and enter the trance of a captivating story. I thought everybody was like this until I watched a film with a director who was the total opposite. He was attentive to all the tiny details, from the way the musical score enhanced the film’s emotional journey, to the way light moved across the actors faces, to the way camera movements foreshadowed upcoming plot developments.
Listening to him reflect on the film, I had to ask: “Did we even watch the same movie?” I felt like I was stuck in flatland, while he lived in four-dimensional space.1
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A director friend tells me that in Joker, the musical score helps us empathize with the Arthur Fleck who would eventually become the Joker. The composer Hildur Guðnadóttir used the cello in the opening scenes to create empathy with the protagonist. But then, as the Joker’s dark side and inner turmoil was revealed, the orchestra got louder and louder. The angrier he was, the bigger the orchestra became. Through it all, the music created the audience’s perception of him: simple, naive, and uncool.