Respect don’t revere.
Putting anyone on a pedestal is dangerous. It implies they’re better than everyone else. But they’re not. We’re all stepping-stones for the next generation.
Revere anyone or any one thing at your own risk. Doing so will over-influence your work and impede your creativity. It will lead to imitation, not creation.
Yes, it’s important to learn from those who’ve gone before. I’ve only just said that great work and great creators are the greatest of teachers. But it’s important that your admiration for others’ work doesn’t crowd out your own creativity.
I’ve subtitled this book There Are No Rules. And genuinely there are none. Experiences, practices, philosophies, whatever you want to call them? Yes. But rules? No.
To create great work you should be making up your own beliefs as you go along, changing them one day to the next, always pushing against the boundaries of current thinking, trying to escape the confines of conventional wisdom. Resist the pressure to conform and your work will be anything but imitative.
Every generation has to push the boundaries of creativity forward. And to do that, you must believe in yourself and your vision. You must dare to be different. Revering your predecessors will put a stop to that.
So, do respect what’s gone before. But revere it? Never.