Never Stop Learning

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

Your education will not end with your graduation from your last academic institution, be it Graduate school, High school, boot camp or bartending academy. One of the keys to success in life is keeping an active, open mind. Keep learning, keep discovering new things. If need be create a journal where you catalog all that you learn each day.

This is not just academic learning that I am talking about. It can be emotional learning, or practical learning. It could be as simple as learning a new word, or as complex as a mathematical theorem or chemical formula. The important thing is to not stop learning.

pla·gia·rize

transitive verb : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source intransitive verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

You will hear me say this a number of times, and it is the current tag line on my blog: "I've been plagiarizing my whole life, it's called learning". This is a quote from one of my favorite writers, Hunter S. Thompson. And the meaning can be a little confusing. Because you will be taught in school that plagiarism is bad. And yes, it is bad to consciously steal another persons work and pass it off as your own. But, the quote that I used leads to what to me was the great problem of Academia. If I read, hear and absorb all of this learning, and I am then called upon to write something wholly original it is virtually impossible to not in some fashion plagiarize the work of all of those authors you have read on the subject. My philosophy is that no one in the business world ever really cares about plagiarism. And the second parent to use a 'time out' with their unruly child was not accused of plagiarizing the first parent's idea. Good ideas are good ideas. And closing your mind to learning means you stop hearing those good ideas.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun

In the artistic world: music, TV, movies etc. this practice is not called plagiarism it is called the remix or repackaging of ideas. And so long as people throw in a couple new ideas or twists they are not looked down on by most people. In the software world coders take bits and pieces of other code when compiling their own as a matter of course. Automotive ads talk of 'reinventing the luxury (or compact or sport etc.) car, but the reality is they are not reinventing anything. They are taking the basic invention of the automobile and applying a new twist or adding new features. Again this is not called plagiarism.

What is the point of all this? The point is all of these creative people: writers, musicians, movie makers, engineers, they never stop learning. And the way you can see that is the way they apply all of the new ideas and facts and concepts they learn every day to their work. And that life long learning process is what makes them successes.