I have always been ashamed when I learn things; whether it is through reading or watching or whatever, I end up becoming ‘inspired’ by them. For me, it goes beyond simply drawing from broad concepts; more often than not, I find myself adopting the vast majority—if not the entirety—of the material itself.
The shame stems from my perception that it is wrong to steal someone’s work. But recently, as I have started documenting my thoughts, I realised that in the process of writing it down, I usually come up with my own ideas and opinions. I realised that simply processing it in my head normally allows very little room for me to fully digest the content and to interject it with my own thoughts based on my own knowledge. However, when you start taking your time to write it down, you realise that turns out you do have things to say about it, and you can synthesise knowledge from your working memory down into the piece you are currently writing about.
Thus when I learnt about this quote by Picasso, it really just clicked for me. I wasn’t blindly copying someone’s work and calling it a day; I was stealing it, sure, but I also inserted my own perspectives and opinions onto it as well. The question of setting the threshold for what counts as original work will then be reminiscent of the paradox of the Ship of Theseus, which is to say, as a non-philosopher, I really do not know but I also do not care. Why should I?
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
— Sir Isaac Newton
No one has ever come up with ideas independently of others. All the great intellectuals of the past have always used something that their predecessors have previously come up with. So really, my initial naive goal of producing original thought is an impossible task to do, for no matter how hard I try, I still produce ideas out of the total sum of my preexisting knowledge—one which is built on the shoulders of the giants before me.