On being an Academic (Part 3) ... and stealing ideas.

This is my 3rd Post about the Academic Career path I've chosen to follow.

I do not know how come I've been recently coming across discussions about:
Cheating, Remix & Stealing.

They all say the same thing. That there is a good thing about all these things.

yeah yeah.. I believe it already okay? ...

I think this is one of the signs that life wants to teach me something.

I could think of 2 things. Two lessons I can pick up from these "coincidences".

#1 I have to move on with my denied undergraduate thesis proposal and embrace the thesis I ended up coming up with. I have to move on the fact that a future PhD student would have thought of the same idea I had 4 years before him. I also have to accept that yeah, he had done it better than how I would have done it anyway. He was a PhD student, and I was an undergrad. Thus, he had made a better "remix".

Now that acceptance is there, I now have to embrace the instrument I ended up developing as my undergraduate thesis. Our methods was well established and implemented. It was a different challenge and I accepted the challenge. And as people kept bringing up my undergraduate thesis (even up to now 6 years after), I am starting to believe that it was actually better that we were able to develop an instrument instead. Because now, I can decide to validate it further. Build on what I have created and make it even better.

#2 The second lesson that I think life is trying to teach me is that, on the moment I decided to be an "academic", I have to start preparing myself that my ideas are not alone. That there are also other great minds thinking about the same thoughts that I have. Patents and copyrights kill the creativity and the remix culture. Now that I have chosen an "academic" career path, I have to take it as a compliment or as a good thing if my ideas have been "stolen". It is a new form of flattery and we have to let it go.. move on... and think of how to make one idea get better.

Because everything happens for a reason.

We work towards exchanging ideas and coming up with things how to make it better.

That's how society should work right?

Making things better?

I read this comment from my Rhizo14 facebook group.


"Don't ask what you want to be. Ask what problem do you want to solve?"

"Solve the problem that annoys you the most."

I guess with those statements, we'll hear less complaints and more solutions.

Indeed, a better world.

I know what problem I want to solve, and it lies among filling in the gaps of education.




Post inspired by article "Why I want you to steal my ideas"  by Seth Godin