Why You ShoulD Trace Your Creative Lineage - AnD How To Do It

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." 

- Sir Isaac Newton {Letter to Robert Hooke, 1676}

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There's an old saying: 'Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.' No one is quite sure who first coined the saying, although many artists have mouthed similar sentiments throughout the last two centuries, seeming to prove its spirit. 

But while it's true that some people copy others, there is a profound difference between creating something and taking it. Steve Jobs is not Al Capone. Where Jobs created revolutionary devices, including one that could fit 'a thousand songs in your pocket', Al Capone simply picked people's pockets, sometimes after he shot them. 

So, with that in mind, the old saying desperately needs a rewrite. I'd phrase it like this: Good creators understand today. Great creators understand today, tomorrow, and yesterday. 

Great creators may not always be the most commercially successful, but their work often endures beyond their time and transcends cultures, races, and religions. In large part this is due to the creator's ability to rise above their limited context by surveying history and scrutinizing its various inter-related creative legacies {technical and aesthetic styles, scientific paradigm-shifts, cultural-wide social movements, and even political revolutions}.

The benefit to studying yesterday's creative legacies is that a creator can then trace his own creative lineage. 

What foundations does your work rest on? Are they really foundations or mere assumptions?

Are you saying something new or trying to champion a set of established ideas? 

Great creators know their creative lineage. They stand independent because they understand what their work is dependent upon, and so the coats-of-arms they create are ones worth buying and remembering. 

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How to Trace Your Creative Lineage

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1. Seek Your Favorites' Favorites

1. List your favorite books {fiction and nonfiction}. It doesn't matter how many. As a starting point, aim for ten, but if you don't think that's enough try twenty. They don't have to be about just one subject or written by one author. Diverse subjects is okay, in fact it might be better.
   
   
2. Do the same for anything related to your career or hobbies {People: architects, athletes, financial investors, doctors, comedians, authors / Art: paintings, music albums, movies, cars, buildings}
   
   

These lists are like your family members and best friends. You've probably spent hours in their company in some form or another, talking about them, re-experiencing certain elements of them, seeking out new undiscovered bits of details. This is great and shows you value what's on your lists. Now it's time to go deeper. 

1. Build a new list for each for your original 'Family/Best Friends Lists'. Fill it this time with one of the favorites of your favorites. For instance, Ayn Rand is one one my favorite authors. Her second novel, The Fountainhead, is my favorite book and therefore #1 on my Favorite Books list. For this new list, I would add one of Ayn Rand's favorite authors to it. In this case, that's Victor Hugo, who wrote Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and many other novels, plays, and poems.
   
   
2. Repeat this process again, after reading a favorite's favorite in order to build a Great Great Favorites list. 

Good resources for finding your favorites' favorites include interviews and their bibliographies. Take note of who they quote or reference often in support of their own work. Look into who they apprenticed under. Often times, their bosses, mentors, or masters, had a profound affect on their work, for better or worse. 

And this leads to the last point: don't rule out enemies. Your "Favorites' Enemies Lists" can be helpful too. If one of your favorites devotes significant time and energy to disagreeing with certain creators, writers, politicians, businessmen, or doctors, chances are you can glean even more information about your favorites by understanding what they don't like or even hate. 

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Stay tuned for more How-To's on tracing your Creative Lineage.