Inspiration

If nothing is original, what is originality?

Even before I chose to write the opening sentence, I searched it on google with quotations to see if someone had said it first. I realized that the concept of nothing being original has given me doubts in my own work. Should we give up before we start? What's the chance of being original when there's over a billion people in the world thinking billions of ideas?

This is comforting for some. If it's all been done, then it's everyones obstacle and nobody faces it alone. You make a case that you took from and give credit appropriately. If you didn't know and someone tells you where they've seen it before you don't feel like you're completely screwed. You know this already, you've known it from the start that someone out there has done it first and it wasn't you.

It can stagger creativity. I won't think outside the box if the box is in a bigger box. So I end up overthinking, overanalyzing, and editing the moment I write down a sentence. Eventually I get fed up and don't finish. Fewer and fewer I write, more ideas go unfinished, and progress becomes static.

But, has worrying about originality helped me become more original? I don't think so. Originality can have two interpretations. What came first and what came with it. People get tied up with striving to be the first person to do this and that and they miss it completely. You can be the first when you put your own personality into something. It can be different and unique. You can be influenced and those influences can become something more. You don't have to be the one that started the first fire. All you need to be is the one that keeps the fire going.

Sam