Agentic and mimetic

Having agency, they say, is the only human characteristic that AI can’t replace.

Agentic humans do things. They get things done. I’ve written about the need to have more agentic people.

But do we need mimetic dudes and dudettes, too?

I think so. Mimicry isn’t always bad.

It reflects wisdom passed on from others. Sometimes, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You don’t have to do things that have already proven foolish. Learn vicariously, as Charlie Munger would advise. Books, for example, are great sources of hard-won wisdom that you can expropriate to improve your life.

It gives you the opportunity to improve on an idea. Nothing in this world is truly original. An idea, a vision, a creative work — they don’t come from a void. So yeah, steal like an artist, as author Austin Kleon, would say. It’s not a radically new idea, by the way. But Kleon improved on it, made it more engaging, and beautifully turned it into a book.

Mimicry also allows you to just start. Yeah, the agency to start. If you are stuck and don’t know where to begin, imitate something. That would get your creativity engine going so you can create something a little more, or perhaps radically, “original”.

So yeah, be agentic. But also be mimetic. Agentic and mimetic are good.