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ME's avatar

I remember situations where I have sort of given away things for free that I could have taken credit for. I didn't want credit for them, so I thought I didn't care about the credit. But then someone else took credit for it, and it bothered me. I was puzzled why I was bothered by it, since I didn't even want the credit. And if I really didn't care about it, it shouldn't matter to me if someone else took the credit.

I thought about it and realized something embarassing. When someone else took the credit, they also took away the potential extra credit I could have been given in the future for being this cool guy who had something valueable to give, but who didn't even want credit for it. I wasn't even aware of this myself, but it was signal burying. Since then, I have always thought twice before saying or doing things I don't want to take credit for, just to know that I do it for the right reasons.

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mintcho badev's avatar

A nice example of doing things the right way seems to be the introduction to "The Real Frank Zappa Book" :

Book?

What Book?

I don't want to write a book, but I'm going to do it anyway, because Peter Occhiogrosso is going to help me. He is a writer. He likes books -- he even reads them. I think it is good that books still exist, but they make me sleepy.

The way we're going to do it is, Peter will come to California and spend a few weeks recording answers to 'fascinating questions,' then the tapes will be transcribed. Peter will edit them, put them on floppy discs, send them back to me, I will edit them again, and that result will be sent to Ann Patty at Poseidon Press, and she will make it come out to be 'A BOOK.'

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