A Good Thief Doesn't Worry About Getting Caught

This insight certainly didn't originate with me nor is it one that is unfamiliar to most. Still, it bears repeating. Gems are like that. So here goes: Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Steve Jobs recited this quote which has been originally credited to Pablo Picasso though it may have been Picasso's rephrasing of an earlier similar quote by the composer Igor Stravinsky, which was: “Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal.”

I'd say this essence was noted eons before any of these by Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 9: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

Clearly, actually stealing something in the modern marketplace is called an infringement of Intellectual Property; in writing, plagiarism. Both are, let's say, greatly frowned on and to be avoided. It's also cowardly, dull and devoid of all that makes creativity...er, creativity. Lean into James Taylor's wisdom: "There's a symphony inside you, there's a thousand things you can do so come on..."

However, the point of the saying, of course, is not "Be a thief." Rather, it is an emphatic (think: Gold Framed) way to stress that great creations are built upon all that has come before. Great ideas, like all great things, are standing on the shoulders of earlier creations. Don't think you have to invent something that no one has ever seen anything even to close it like. That's a ridiculous and instantly paralyzing notion. Let's leave such monumental feats to, I don't know, God? For us humans, as a general rule, such accomplishments are "above our pay grade." So, chill out so you can savor all the creative juices that will inevitably flow as a consequence.

So yes, Virginia, there really is truth in the adage that imitation, good, sincere imitation, is truly the highest form of flattery. Turns out, its the wisest, too.