Unoriginality

Unoriginality

By LeAnn Jones (Modesty)

     In reading Louis H. Sullivan's essay entitled Thought, we are given an interesting view on creativity using words or other forms of expression.  He tells us that beyond words are the fine arts, that which lies beyond man But in so much as we would like to believe that we are all capable of understanding this vast structure of creativity, we simply cannot even begin to grasp the concept itself.  We then have to ask ourselves, does originality come from inside a person, or does it stem from creative concepts inside another persons originality?  Although most of what we deem original by our own standards is, our originality, like a chain reaction, comes from ideas and thoughts expressed by others.

     Our creativity comes from influence.  What we see and read everyday influences us in some way.  When we are influenced we start thinking, and with this thinking come ideas that we bring forth and put into action.  When this is done we have something original.  Or is it?  We were influenced, we got an idea, and we acted on it.  But this creative spark was done somewhere else.  We created something that was already created.  We added to someone else's originality.  Changing functions or words until it becomes our own is not originality, but is for lack of a better term, borrowed originality.

     If a group of people are in the mountains sitting under a tree, no one speaking to each other, they will all in some way have some kind of thought pertaining to that tree.  Maybe the tree inspired them to write a story, or a music piece, or something.  Now imagine these people back at their everyday jobs using this new idea.  If one of these people happens to be a teacher that uses this idea as an assignment and this inspires one of the kids to write about something pertaining to a tree, then that is the chain reaction I am talking about.  The child was inspired to write about a tree in which the teacher was inspired to make the assignment because they were inspired by a tree in the mountains.  The very essence of nature itself can spark ideas in our heads, and every individual on this planet, though they may say different, thinks exactly the same way at some point in their life.  What we think of as original already exists in some way.  It could have been done one hundred or even one thousand years before we existed or it could be happening at this very same time to someone else.  The thoughts we are having now could be thoughts that others are thinking at the same time, or our thoughts could be manifesting into someone else's reality as we think them.  Whatever the case is, it is hard to say that our thoughts are our own.  Thoughts lead to creativity; creativity to originality; but originality is not original if it was influenced by someone or something else.

     The only originality we have is creativity.  There can never be any originality in the world because originality is something unique and uniqueness does not exist in a world where thoughts form from other peoples thoughts and ideas.  Creativity is something that everyone is capable of, but calling your creative endeavors original is like calling buttered popcorn original when popcorn already existed because of a thought that someone else had which in turn is a thought that was influenced by the ideas and thoughts of another person.