GPOYW. Learning begins as imitation. That our society is brutally intolerant of mimesis is reflective of its preoccupation with ‘originality’ and ‘authenticity,’ a preoccupation -it has been noted- that the authentic rarely have. That is to say: only those worried about being imitative deride others for imitation. The authentic just live and do and make.
Of the things I’ve learned in life, what I’ve absorbed first through imitation and interiorization has stayed with me: instruments, language, etc. What I’ve attempted to learn through high-level systematic abstraction -“methodologies” and “programs” and “theories”- has not. I learned more music theory from playing piano than from years of studying “theory.” As my high school asserted in its motto, “We learn by doing.”
All of which is to say: I am aware that this image is imitative, derivative, hackneyed. I also liked making it, and learned something about light and exposure from making it that I could not have learned as deeply from my reading. So much of learning is this way; it can be exhausting and embarrassing if one makes a goal of originality.
But originality results accidentally from the chance combination of experience and ability; if it is willed, it is a contrivance. So I try to just imitate what fascinates me, do what I like, and hopefully stumble into something interesting; it doesn’t reliably work, but I know of no better path than the one always advised: make what you like to make.
(Note also: I wanted to superimpose a textual meaning on it, to say that it reminded me of the essential vacuity of the self and the way that personality forms a distracting show around one’s emptiness, but even I have my limits of pretension).
