
Copy What You Like (2006) - Jimmy
http://paulgraham.com/copy.html
======
6stringmerc
It's kind of funny to see such a profound and important lesson distilled in to
such a kitsch cross-stitch type musing. That might sound harsh but look
closely - it took Graham 10+ years of following the wrong mental path before
finally finding the right one. It's not about "copying what you like" it's
about "finding yourself first" \- and, even then, there's no guarantee self-
actualization will put food on the table or pay medical bills.

All that in context, this would make a great inscription on a whisky flask:

> _A guilty pleasure is at least a pure one._

~~~
jasode
_> It's not about "copying what you like" it's about "finding yourself first"
_

That's not what I got from the essay. PG is actually saying that a lot of
works out there are blessed by the authoritative elites as good and worthwhile
but _what you actually like and enjoy is also authoritative as well._ Rather
than get sidetracked on what others think is important, what you truly like
can be a better guide to avoid wasting time.

Therefore, the things you like may not necessarily change over the years (e.g.
always liked Harry Potter) but your _self-confidence in holding that opinion_
is now solidified (e.g. I now know that liking JKR "Harry Potter" more than
Joyce's "Ulysses" doesn't mean there's something wrong with my brain. If I
choose to write my own novel, I won't feel inadequate just because my writing
style is closer to JK Rowling rather than James Joyce.)

~~~
Jimmy
>I now know that liking Harry Potter more than Joyce's "Ulysses" doesn't mean
there's something wrong with my brain.

Oh, I do wish people wouldn't bash on Ulysses as much... there's some nonsense
in the book to sift through, yes, but there's also some truly wonderful stuff
as well. One of my favorite passages:

>"and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to
sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the
posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the
wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the
boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that
awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and
the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the
queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the
rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a
girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair
like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me
under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I
asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to
say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going
like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

The novel's moments of beauty are worth working for, I think.

But you're still entitled to your opinion. :)

~~~
euyyn
Is this for real? The guy didn't grace the world with punctuation?

~~~
Jimmy
The final chapter is a lengthy stream-of-consciousness with almost no
punctuation. Other parts of the novel are structured more traditionally.

------
emtel
It's kind of sad that PG couldn't get anything more than that out of the short
stories he read in high school english. Sure, a lot of them are forgettable,
but if I think think of the stories I read that stuck with me, they all had a
heck of a lot more going on than just being a random slice of mundane
unhappiness. A few that really stuck with me: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
(James Thurber), The Open Boat (Stephen Crane), The Long Sheet (William
Sansom). If PG couldn't find anything funny, gripping, or worthwhile in
stories like these, well, his loss.

It wouldn't even be worth making this comment, except that PG seems to
consider himself some sort of authority on writing
([http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html)) -
and for him, the one and only rule of style seems to be simplicity. I'll
agree, simple beats overwrought, but c'mon. Great writers have a style that
makes you _want_ to copy it, which is something that PG doesn't seem aware of
even as an aspiration.

~~~
hashhar
I agree with you. I have been reading Stephen King's "The Body" which is a
short story/novella and there he describes the journey of 4 friends to see a
dead body somewhere in the middle of the desert out of town. There's a section
where the kids are walking on a railway bridge and a train comes up and they
have nowhere to go but to jump to a 50 feet drop into a river. That scene is
so beautifully written that I could feel myself watching the events right in
front of me.

He also talks about how his feelings towards storytelling changed after he
started doing it as his primary income source instead of a hobby he had during
childhood. Very interesting stuff.

~~~
lemonberry
A movie was made 1986 based on this called "Stand by Me". It was a favorite
when I was young. River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Wil Wheaton are in it. It
may seem dated and shallow compared to the story, but it's worth watching.

------
pascalxus
I happen to agree with him on this post. And, although it's excellent advice,
you have to understand, its not a popular view point, and that by taking this
advice to heart, you'll deviate significantly from social norms. The vast
majority of people value "impressive" things as he's defined them and won't
put up with your Objective analysis of what's good.

Case in point, They'll sneer and look down upon you for buying the 10$ jeans
(that are the same or better quality as 100$ jeans!), or a refurbished 2 year
old 150$ android phone, that works perfectly and has everything you could ever
need. They'll hate on you for buying 2nd hand excellent products at low
prices. I could care less what they think, but nevertheless, it still impacts
how they interact with you.

~~~
taurath
Which is funny, because being extremely frugal/minimalist in some circles I
know is seen as a status booster. But again, don't worry, there'll always be
some group that holds up your values. Just keep making sure that you're still
actually into it and not just trying to hold onto the group.

~~~
bittercynic
I think the values of the groups you're a member of influence your values, and
that's not necessarily a bad thing. A well-adjusted adult probably has to have
many values that they don't compromise on, but also many where there is some
flexibility, and where continuing good standing within the group is more
valuable that clinging to a value that conflicts with the group.

------
scandox
Assuming intellectual dishonesty across a whole group of people or discipline
is a mistake. Most things are bad but this approach actually blinds you to
what is good within the bad and it sets your views in stone and prevents
development.

------
notadoc
Fair advice. You see this frequently with art, startups, technology, and
business in general.

Reminds me of a quote told to me by a very successful entrepreneur: "The best
idea I ever had was someone else's"

------
dredmorbius
Bad advice.

At the very best, grosssly incomplete and misleading.

After rejecting what _other_ people like, the best pg can come up with is ...
to follow what _you_ like. That's an equally fraught heuristic, though it may
be more avaialble for observation and examination.

Realise that what works _does so regardless of appeal_. But that there's a
great deal which has (near-term) appeal which doesn't work (long-term).
Sometimes it's a false start, sometimes it's a fad, sometimes it's cargo-
culting, sometimes it's an establishment of common ground which facilitates
communication or understanding but not _effectiveness_.

I'd suggest instead:

Look at what is being practiced, and ask _why_?

In the case of the short story: the history of literacy, amusement,
entertainment, postal delivery, publishing and printing technology,
advertising, bundling concepts, and the lack of subsequent alternatives
(radio, television), increased literacy, and free time, made the short story a
popular format. Different dynamics brought forth the radio serial, soap operas
(first on radio, then television, now the White House), sit-coms, movie
serials, blockbuster movies, space operas, and comic-book franchise preboot
requels.

Funding environments can create entire classes of research or application --
surveillance capitalism, AI, national security, moon shots, abstract art
COINTELPRO.

I'm the last space alien cat to ask what you should do that leads to _success_
, though my own heuristic has been to look for fundamental questions, ask a
lot of _why_ , and question premises. Going back to roots and history can make
a lot of foundations look far less firm. There may or may not be opportunity
there.

I'd also focus very hard on being lucky.

------
voidhorse
Interesting. PG provides a thought provoking opinion, and he's a fine writer.
However, I think this idea is a bit naive.

Sure, maybe he came to realize depressing, moody short stories weren't his
thing, but I damn near guarantee his imitation of said stories was crucial to
his learning how to write half-way decently. The vast majority of philosophers
are not good writers. A few stand out as fine men of letters, Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer, Cioran, and some others, but the vast majority of them are more
concerned with the clear step-wise elucidation of an argument which, while
important, rarely leads to an enjoyable or noteworthy result in the domain of
literary style and is frequently bland and dry. There is some special
enjoyment one derives out of the works of the like of Russell and Frege, but
it relates to the crystalline nature of their ideas, not the genius of their
literary style.

Take for instance the rhetorical technique Paul utilizes in the first graph--
the repetitions of Mistake n. x. Mistake n. x. Mistake n. x...etc. That sort
of structure, and indeed the casual tone, is pretty rare in academic
philosophy, and in academic computer science. Where is it more common? In the
efforts of short story writers, informal essayists and other such literary
folk.

I do agree that its natural to imitate what you like, and beneficial, but
there's something to be said for imitating things you are averse to as well--
they present more of a challenge because you have to _overcome_ your natural
dislike for the thing and _really_ evaluate it--you have to question your own
opinion of it, have to see if you can uncover any diamonds in the muck, have
to see if, even if you dislike it, you have the chops to pull it off. In
short, you _grow_ as a person. Sure, the same thing happens when you make an
easy picnic of your studies and imitations, but its silly to discount the
value of forcing yourself to engage with views opposite your own, or things
you are naturally disinclined toward.

I think Paul makes the mistake of assuming his conclusion in this essay before
reaching it. He seems to have decided that none of his history copying these
things he didn't like was valuable from the start, when, if he reflected a bit
more, I'm sure he'd be able to find that, in fact, those were important links
in the chain in some sense, and not total wastes of time.

That being said, he is correct that we need to determine value for ourselves
and to come up with our own metrics and schemes of judgement. However, there
is still value in the old pantheon--in the recommendations of all the men who
walked before us, in all those stuffy critics and analysts babblings. After
all, giants are giant for a _reason_. While it's important, as Paul says, to
get over blindly accepting as good or special what everyone else considers
good or special, it's just as important to be able to understand _why_ these
things are considered special in a particular domain. You have to learn your
own predilections--but you also have to learn the rules, the history, the
techniques, and the value scales coupled with a field of art--the master is he
who can bridge the two, he who engages in tradition while changing it, he who
plays by the rules while making his own.

~~~
Jimmy
>The vast majority of philosophers are not good writers.

I never understood this claim. I have to assume that people are letting their
judgement of the content affect the judgement of the writing style. Plenty of
canonical philosophers were absolutely beautiful writers - Plato, Hume,
Nietzsche. Modern analytic philosophers are almost fanatical in their
adherence to simple, straightforward language. The result might not be
beautiful, but I certainly don't think you can call it "bad" either. Some
philosophers may be bad writers (Hegel is a pain), but on the whole they seem
to be mostly good writers. It's all that they do, after all.

>After all, giants are giant for a reason.

Well... are they? All of them? I think you can make this claim with a good
deal of confidence about math and science, because we have a pretty strict set
of rules for evaluating good and bad work. But do you really think that
everyone in the artistic canon has a good reason to be there? What about all
the still-living artists who have only recently been "canonized" via a flurry
of academic attention (writers like DeLillo and Pynchon would be good
examples). Are we confident that we'll still be talking about those guys 200
years from now? If not, how far back in time do we have to go before we can
confidently say, "these giants have a reason to be giants?"

I'm not endorsing pure aesthetic relativism, nor am I saying that _none_ of
the canonical artists deserve to be there. I'm just saying that I've never
heard a convincing explanation of why the canon is a good judge of, well,
anything.

~~~
voidhorse
The three philosophers you cite are among those commonly cited as good
writers! I cited Nietzsche myself above. I suppose it depends on how you
define 'good' writing. In the case of literary style I think for most people
it boils down to there being some amount of creativity and play on the level
of language itself (i.e. see Nietzsche) which is disconnected from the
content. e.g. I'm sure Bertrand Russell was capable of comprehending
Nietzsche's ideas(though the actual Russell never would have) and could just
as easily have written a treatise on eternal recurrence or the history of
morality as Nietzsche conceived of it. Point is, Russell's rendering of these
ideas would have been _entirely_ different, even though they are employing the
same medium of communication. Another person could very well have formulated
the same ideas as Nietzsche, but probably wouldn't have conveyed them with as
much creativity and grace. There's writing that shines as writing and there's
writing that is in service to some goal, i.e. the clear work of modern
analytic philosophers--they'd hardly gain any attention for literary ingenuity
or clever turns of phrase, but you are correct that if our judgement is based
solely on the effectiveness of the communication of the idea, they are in fact
quite fine writers. And actually, in this sense Nietzsche would be pretty
poor, because as Analemma mentioned his loose play with metaphor, while
incredibly delicious on the level of style, does not communicate very well, if
the idea is that a 'good' piece of communication delivers a single idea all
the consumers of that communication can agree upon.

So perhaps I'd revise the claim to something like, most philosophers are not
good _stylists_ (that is, they don't frequently engage in play at the level of
language, as a skilled poet or essayist might)

As to your second point yes. There is always a reason. You can question that
reason--i.e. you may think the reason is simply that academics were bored and
decided to laud the first sap whose writing they came across that day--but
this is a pretty absurd claim. You'd essentially be stating that a whole
domain of tradition, practice, and procedure which organically grows and
evolves, and I might add, in almost logical progressions at times, was ousted
by the whims of one foppish professor who gamed everyone into liking something
he liked simply because he liked it and was impassioned enough about it. When
you plunge into a field of art, technique is often the criterion and leveling
factor. For instance, you say you have never heard a convincing argument as to
why Pynchon would be considered worthy of canon status--well, I'm not going to
be so absurd as to claim he'll still be there in 200 years, but if you have
knowledge of literary craft the reasons why he's there now are pretty clear--
his maximalism is both well crafted and unique and his style is a turn away
from the still dominant style of american literature (Hemmingway based
minimalism) which is positively refreshing (the same could be said for DFW,
who was consciously, I believe, rejecting the minimalistc style--I recall he
wanted to move away from his maximalism too around the time of his unfortunate
death). It's because he utilizes traditional structures and devices in a
unique way--but in a way that is importantly _still comprehensible_ under the
lens of this tradition. Take for example the dawn of the unreliable narrator--
it utilized a familiar technique in the field of literature, namely the
narrator, and modified it in such a way as to generate interest--as to who
gets the credit for such developments--well, it probably comes down to luck
and knowing the right people. Yes, all these aesthetic considerations are
ultimately conventional and wispy--as all human values tend to be--but they
nonetheless obtain, and traditions develop, evolve, die, or persist. There are
indeed plenty of 'rules' when it comes to art forms--that is how, at the most
basic level, for instance, I know that something is a painting and not a piece
of music--the medium and form follow particular restrictions (and then we have
great fun blending and challenging these notions).

That's why any critic worth his salt often delves into art history, the
artists personal development over a series of works, and analysis of form and
technique over simple and baseless value judgement. I may wretch at every
Jackson Pollock piece I come across, but if I am educated in the discipline of
painting, its history, and its techniques, I can understand where his pieces
_fit_ into the narrative of painting history, what they challenge, what they
change, and ultimately how unique his forms are and what they communicate
within this context. If I dislike it, if I find it shouldn't be considered art
--well I have to argue it from _this_ perspective, from within the _game_ of
homo sapiens art history. This is why anyone who makes a snap judgement
against such artistic efforts and says things like "anyone could do that, it's
not art" always comes off sounding dumb and uncultured--they are treating the
work entirely out of context and clearly lack an appreciation for the _medium_
as a whole--unless of course they provide _reasons_ which leverage knowledge
of this medium.

At root our aesthetic explanations and investigations ultimately boil down to
our base value judgements of simply "I like this thing or don't"\--but
artistic forms exist because there are elements of these traditions a large
number of people can generally agree they appreciate, can describe with a
common language, and can critique in comparative ways.

Thus the cannon isn't a good judge of anything other than what your precursors
believed should be appreciated. It's essentially the historical development of
a shared value judgement, or a shared human prejudice. So of course you can
repudiate the whole thing. But at that point you are no longer even _engaging_
in that art form--or at best you are engaging with blinders on, and any
aesthetic mastery you manage to pull off is largely lucky and unconscious. You
are starting from a different base. you are playing your own game. Thus you
shouldn't be too upset when other people don't appreciate what you do, or your
work isn't considered interesting. You're not even speaking their language.

It's funny to compare different advice on reading material in this context.
Faulkner suggested you ought to read everything. Schopenhauer suggested bad
books ought to be avoided like poison--the old garbage in garbage out
principle. Both work, but if you _forget_ your contexts and say, suggest to a
film critic that the marvel movies rival Citzen Kane, they won't even begin to
agree unless you layout a sophisticated argument that appeals to the criterion
generally recognized by adherents to the art form, elements of cinematography,
the quality of the script, etc. etc...

Wittgenstein's notion of language games, I think, is very informative when
applied to the realm of aesthetics.

Sorry for the lengthy reply. You got me on a role. Good stuff.

~~~
Jimmy
>You'd essentially be stating that a whole domain of tradition, practice, and
procedure which organically grows and evolves, and I might add, in almost
logical progressions at times, was ousted by the whims of one foppish
professor who gamed everyone into liking something he liked simply because he
liked it and was impassioned enough about it.

I mean, take this argument and apply it to something like theology. "Are you
_really_ going to say that an entire tradition, one which has produced
innumerable great thinkers and has proceeded on a logical progression towards
truth, is entirely mistaken in its most fundamental assumptions?" It turns out
that, yeah, I would say that. Sometimes people make mistake. Sometimes lots of
people make lots of mistakes and the mistakes go on for thousands of years.

>For instance, you say you have never heard a convincing argument as to why
Pynchon would be considered worthy of canon status--well, I'm not going to be
so absurd as to claim he'll still be there in 200 years, but if you have
knowledge of literary craft the reasons why he's there now are pretty clear--
his maximalism is both well crafted and unique and his style is a turn away
from the still dominant style of american literature (Hemmingway based
minimalism) which is positively refreshing

But this is exactly the issue. _What_ does it mean for writing to be "well
crafted", what does it mean for writing to be "positively refreshing"? If we
can't give rigorous, verifiable definitions for these concepts, then we're
just saying "he's good because he's good".

>It's because he utilizes traditional structures and devices in a unique way

Originality has at least the hope of being a more objective metric, although
originality is clearly a very slippery concept. If I take a famous novel and
change one word, the result may be a work that has never existed before, but
that's not originality. If I use a computer to generate a completely random
image, then again, that image may have never existed before, but that's not
originality. So it's very hard to define. But I at least see the hope of a
project there.

>I can understand where his pieces fit into the narrative of painting history,
what they challenge, what they change, and ultimately how unique his forms are
and what they communicate within this context. If I dislike it, if I find it
shouldn't be considered art--well I have to argue it from this perspective,
from within the game of homo sapiens art history.

I can certainly appreciate and enjoy playing games, since some games are very
beautiful. But this "game", the game of "make an original contribution to art
history and get academics to talk about it", seems to have no rules! What good
is a game if no one can tell you the rules? The judges of the game can gesture
towards criteria like "originality" that might conceivably give you some
guidelines on how to play, but no one can definitively prove that one person
deserved to win and another didn't.

>artistic forms exist because there are elements of these traditions a large
number of people can generally agree they appreciate

Yes, I agree. But if we tried to submit the works of the canon to an analysis
of this kind, to see how many of them contain "artistic forms that people
agree they can appreciate", how many of them would survive? Some would, I'm
sure. I think Shakespeare and Homer, for example, are still legitimately
appealing to people today, if they can work past the archaic language. But
exactly how many works of the canon would survive this analysis? Does
Schoenburg's music have "forms that people agree they can appreciate"? If not,
then what does that say about the validity of Schoenburg's status as a great
canonical composer? (I happen to enjoy a lot of Schoenburg's music, but I
don't think someone is stupid if they don't).

>Thus the cannon isn't a good judge of anything other than what your
precursors believed should be appreciated.

All that effort, and this is the conclusion we're left with!

>It's essentially the historical development of a shared value judgement, or a
shared human prejudice. So of course you can repudiate the whole thing. But at
that point you are no longer even engaging in that art form--or at best you
are engaging with blinders on, and any aesthetic mastery you manage to pull
off is largely lucky and unconscious. You are starting from a different base.
you are playing your own game. Thus you shouldn't be too upset when other
people don't appreciate what you do, or your work isn't considered
interesting. You're not even speaking their language.

Ok, this is a really interesting paragraph. You say it's the development of a
"shared value judgement", but who, exactly, shares this value judgement? We
have, on the one hand, a comparatively small community of academics who share
the value judgement that Proust and Melville are wonderfully nourishing
authors who deserve to be read again and again by new generations, and on the
other hand, we have hundreds of millions of people who would just as soon
throw Proust and Melville in the trash so they could go watch the latest
Marvel movie or listen to the newest Justin Bieber song. Taking your comment
about the "historical development of value judgement" seriously, what can we
say by looking at this concrete historical moment? What can we say about what
that value judgement has become? What authority can the university canon
possibly have in the face of this sheer numerical onslaught? You say that "you
shouldn't be too upset when other people don't appreciate what you do, or your
work isn't considered interesting. You're not even speaking their language,"
but who exactly are the artists who are being appreciated these days? Who is
speaking the language that most people find congenial? It's certainly not the
academics or the purveyors of "high culture", the defenders of the "artistic
tradition". MoMA exhibits of great theoretical sophistication are laughed at
while Jay-Z packs stadiums. Your warning applies much more to all those who
would play that slippery, ephemeral game known as "art history", rather than
those who would simply "copy what they like".

All that being said, I do think the notion of a "canon" could be saved, but it
has to be grounded in genuine, verifiable scholarship. With Shakespeare, for
example, we could do research on his influence on the English language, his
influence on other artists, his continuing popular appeal, etc, and come to
the conclusion that his plays constitute a major accomplishment. But this game
of "aesthetic criticism", or declaring this or that work to be beautiful or
enlightening or whatever, that doesn't need to be done in universities. People
can do that on their own time. Like I said above, a game where you can't even
know the rules can't hold your attention for very long. You're better off
playing Go or doing math. At least there you can know that you're winning.

~~~
voidhorse
Great stuff Jimmy. I appreciate your response, and your willingness to address
the lengthy post--most would give up! You've clearly got an intellect.

I know before you said you weren't totally advocating aesthetic relativism,
but I think you should go ahead and take the plunge! I think you're most of
the way there, and why not commit to the position? Why not elucidate it?
Examine it, explore it? I think you'd be a fine proponent.

Anyway, I'd love to continue this discussion, but I don't want to clog the
thread here since we are getting a bit far away from PGs essay at this point--
my email is in my profile. Shoot me one if you're interested. Otherwise, you
can be certain I'll be mulling over your reply for the next few days.

------
omginternets
Part of me agrees with this, but another part says "this is the best way to
avoid discovering anything new and profound".

I've often read things I haven't enjoyed (or even understood) until much
later.

------
samirillian
> It was so clearly a choice of doing good work xor being an insider that I
> was forced to see the distinction.

Not sure I get this. Doing good work would seem to go along with being an
outsider in a corrupt economy.

~~~
fenwick67
XOR meaning exclusively one or the other. He's saying it was apparent that if
you're an insider, you won't do good work. And if you're doing good work,
you're not an insider.

~~~
omilu
I didn't get this either even though I understand XOR. I get it now.

------
EGreg
I don't trust the authorities on HN for what's a good comment.

I am going to type something amazing that might get me downvoted.

Vive la difference!

