Interesting. I guess if Ernest Hemingway used an eraser and inserted a new phrase, then he wasn't a writer; at least, not in the purest sense. When Harper Lee submitted her drafts to "To Kill a Mockingbird", it was overweight and it was only after heavy but judicious editing that the classic we know to day emerged. As long as Hemingway wasn't inserting Faulkner in his work isn't it still his? This whole discussion soon gets into gray areas, but for me it ultimately means not lying. This does not mean not replacing a sky or cloning out a trash can, but about being truthful where it matters.

I don't buy into any of this bs and that is my opinion. I have heard this opinion before and to me it has nothing to do with reality.

First watching videos, even bad ones, is not a waste of time. Second, trying to emulate is a part of learning. As children emulation as an integrating principle for cognition. We emulate our parents, teachers and experts.

For success wisdom is needed. I like old sayings. My people die for lack of knowledge. Learn from the mistakes of others because you will never live long enough to make them all yourself. Wisdom is the combination of knowledge and experience.

You can gain knowledge through education, learning from others success and failures. Experience comes when you put knowledge to work for you and you gain knowledge this way as well, this produces wisdom. Wisdom is part of the recipe for success. I have heard photo educators who produced excellent images say. Rules are necessary for photography, others say there are no rules, other you must learn the rules so you know how to break them. If you are wise you will understand each comes from a perspective that helped them attain success and all three are correct because experience has show that each one can work.

So to me people who say, you cannot learn by emulating others, bs, that is what children do and it follows through life, or trying to learn how someone else does something is somehow a bad thing and restricts your creativity again, bs, only you can restrict your creativity.

But you must have experience as well, because we learn by doing and experimenting can take us on a road no own else has traveled. Building on the knowledge of others is the key ingredient to innovation, or you will be reinvent the wheel over an over again. I think this letter is idiotic, it suggests emulation does not work. But wisdom proves herself right when knowledge and experience come together motivated by passion and driven by hard work. IMHO of course.