Making Art. Why are you telling me to look at someone else's?

Why do people keep insisting I look at other artists work?  Really I am not that interested in seeing other people's work when I am creating something myself.  The same with writing.  I will write in my own style. I don't need to read other books to see how I want to write!  Gah!   I realize people like to relate things to things.  Having something come out of the blue is unnerving.  ?   I'm reading my American Art History book right now, and the author is constantly saying "So & so must have been influenced by so & so because look at this painting."  That is fine except the author is presenting no evidence that this painter *was* influenced by whoever else.  It's fine when they are, but assuming they have been influenced when there is no evidence for such doesn't make sense to me.  Here is why.  In the sciences, it is a known phenomenon that sometimes several people come up with a similar discoveriy at around the same time.  It is as if the world thinking has gotten to a point where that discovery is going to be made.  All signs point to this, and so forth.  An example of this is the discovery of the Calculus by Leibnez & Newton.  

So why would this be any different with artistic styles?  It was coming.   

And.   I have a teacher who just told me "Art is like that.  It's a constant struggle."  And I disagree.  I had never had that issue until I started doing a project in her cllass, and nascent ideas were critiqued and corrected before they were executed.  Which is not the best way to support the creative process.  It was so frustrating for me....like a kind of torture.  I have an idea in my mind, and I know from experience that it will work itself out in the medium I am using...and it is constantly being interrupted by corrections before it is formed.

  I spoke about it and the instructor backed off some, which I appreciate.   Is this insistence to look at other people's artwork a lack of creativity?  Like I am supposed to be getting ideas from these other peple?   I fully believe in following the flow of my vision, have teh idea or dream, that inspiration, and mke it, impulse to action.  It's simple, and I love it.  It's exhilarating to make art this way.  I don't need external reference or early feedback.  I don't need to see what other people are doing (which to me is part of the "art kissing its own ass" problem in the artworld, and hollywood--"Oh my god!  An IDEA!").

I have my inspiration, I have my idea, and that is what I do (particularly with installations)  Or in the case of clay or drawing, I have a strong emotion and sometimes an image, and that is what my hands make.  Something appears in the clay, and that is what I make.  I don't know what it will look like beforehand unless I am doing an exercise for a class; even then I am often surprised.  And that is part of the joy of doing the work.  So why are you sending me off of my internal vision (which is influenced by many things in the world), to look at others?  It doesn't make any sense.