There are books which you read once, books which you cant complete and there are books like “Steal an artist” which you will read multiple times in your life which will provoke your thoughts, inspire you and make you keep going. Many ideas but there are some which resonated with me –
Nothing is original
Every idea is inspired from a thousand ideas before that.
Embrace influence, not run away from it.
Do not be arrogant to think that you need to come up with something original since there is no such thing as original. Original is just undetected plagiarism.
Garbage in, Garbage Out
You are the average of your tastes.
You job is to collect good ideas. The more you collect, the more you can choose to be influenced by it.
Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.
How to get good ideas
Study artists who inspire you. FInd out how they became great. What did they read, watch, do to become great. Repeat this as many times as you can.
Carry a notebook and pen. Jot down things you see, what you read out of books. Create a swipe file for ideas you have swiped from others
Make things, know yourself
The act of doing things makes us figure out who we are.
You are ready. Start making stuff.
No one knows when the good stuff comes. Keep doing and suddenly you are there.
Fake it till you make it
You have to start doing the work you want to be doing.Do not wait for permission.
Pretend to be making something until you make something.
You start out as a phony and become real.
Start Copying
No one starts off as a genius. Everyone starts by imitating there heroes. We learn by copying.
Copying the practise, not the art. Copying is not plagiarism.
Copy the process, not the art. Copy the methodology , learn to reverse engineer.
Copy. Imitate.Rinse.Repeat.
Write the book you want to read
Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run , build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.
Practice productive procrastination
Do the work that looks like play. Have multiple side projects. When you get sick of one, move to the other. When you get sick of the other, come back to the first one. Practice productive procrastination
Enjoy obscurity while it lasts
Obscurity gives you the pressure to experiment, gives you permission to fail because no one is looking at you. So, enjoy it while it lasts.
Validation is for parking
Realize that external validation for your work might come late or never. So, relying on validation is futile. You have to keep doing the work you love and not what others love about you.
Creativity is Subtraction
Nothing paralysis more than limitless possibilities. Create constraints for yourself in order to bring out the creativity in you.
Telling yourself you have all the time in the world , all the money in the world , all the colors in the palette,anything you want – it just kills creativity.
Things to do to get creative right away
Take a walk
Staart a swipe file
Library
Notebook
Calendar
Logbook
Start a blog
take a nap
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