Imitation: Flattery, Laziness, or Low Self Esteem?

There are so many people I admire.

There are my professors, whom I admire for their various abilities -- mathematical grace, subtlety in dance, ability to communicate, recollection of historical fact, and passion for language and culture respectively, and there are people that I admire in the world outside as well.

Some, I admire for prowess in music - for example, Benny Goodman, KT Tunstall, Al Petteway, Tchaikovsky.
There are those I admire for their literary works - Philip Pullman, Emily Brontë, Shakespeare, Orson Scott-Card.

However, at the moment, the ones that are coming to mind most strongly are the people whom I admire due to their amazing use of language.

This comes in different flavors as well. For example, I greatly admire David Tennant. His skill with acting astounds me and he can enchant me with his speech when he's chilling my insides as Hamlet or when he's bringing tears of laughter to my eyes as the Doctor. I realize, however, that as an actor, the words are not always his own; but I maintain that delivery is half the battle.

The person whom I admire most (at this point in my life) for speech is Stephen Fry, as mentioned in several posts below. I've had somewhat of a revelation about him tonight that I need to get on paper, virtual as this may be.

Before, when I ever heard Stephen Fry speak (either being interviewed or by reading his book ((which I highly recommend)) or by watching any of the videos that exist on youtube such as the one mentioned before), I could only think of the inadequacies of my own speech. I often avoided many shows or programs that had particularly clever, witty, or intelligent speakers on board because I felt it illuminated the chasm between us.

What's one way to deal with this chasm-needing-a-bridge? Imitation. I could try to sound like Stephen Fry. I've often wished I could.

And here's where I believe admiration to do with speech differs from the kinds of admiration (and thus imitation) that I mentioned above.

If I find a dance choreographer particularly inspiring, I will try to incorporate some of his/her ideas into my own dance and use them to help me grow as a dancer. If I listen to Tchaikovsky and bemoan the brilliant musicianship of the orchestra, to help myself get over it, I'll get out my own instruments and practice. Then, with the new practice, I can further my own pursuits. And if I listen, for instance, to my French professor and sigh about her nuances with the language, when I'm in my room later, I can study those verb charts until I see them with my eyes closed and eventually understand them, and become proficient enough in the language to start being me when I speak. (That's the dream, folks.)

But with admiring someone for speech, I feel it's different. I - I've finally realized that I don't want to be able to talk like Stephen Fry. I can't. I'd sound silly if I did. I feel like I would sound like the chemistry teacher in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, if any of you remember him. Mr. Turpentine, I think his name was. He asked Charlie if Charlie knew what he was going to do in his experiment and when Charlie returned a negative answer, he replied "Well, of course you don't know! If you knew and I didn't know, then you'd be teaching me instead of me teaching you, and for a student to teach his teacher is presumptuous and rude; do I make myself clear?" -- A very silly man, I always thought. Too caught up in speech to make much sense.

But I digress. I think what I am trying to say is that in my admiration for Stephen Fry's speech, I can learn techniques from him, as I might from a famous composer or a math professor or a choreographer --- techniques that I can use to strengthen my own brand of art --- INSTEAD of trying to reproduce that which I admire.

Which is a good thing, too, 'cause I don't think I'd ever make it to that level. : )