you're not going to be an original

on hyper-individuality, inspiration, and inevitable mosaic living

Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re not like anyone else. Though I’m not sure why you’re obsessed with that, anyway. What do you have against being an amalgamation of the coolest and most inspiring people you know?

In the West, we live in a particularly individualized culture. Self-interest is flagrant, and selflessness is a luxury. And in some corners of society, it’s become popular to live as if we were the first people ever born, as if our originality is what saves us.

In my kitchen, I glance at my mug, black letters sprawled across its face: “WORLD’S MOST ESOTERIC GIRL.” It’s an obvious irony, but part of the irony is that it’s not fully ironic. Though I know I might not be all that esoteric, it’s fun to flirt with the idea that I could be so lofty, so above it all, so original.

Lately, I’ve begun to think that originality is a myth. I’ve tried to figure out if it’s possible to be wholly original, and I can’t find a way. We are not untouched people. We do not live or think in a vacuum. We cannot be part of a society and be inspired without some kind of submission, conscious or not, to what’s come before us and what stands before us. Whether you like it or not, you are an inspired person. We are all touched by the books we read, the films we devour, the outfits we admire. Everything is borrowed. And I find that kind of communal living beautiful.

Why is the older sister peeved when the younger one wears her exact outfit, even though part of her feels tender that her sibling wants to look like her? Why is the acclaimed author mildly irritated when an up-and-coming writer gushes, “fan girling” about how much their latest piece inspired their own? I wouldn’t say imitation is the highest form of flattery—but maybe inspiration is.

This is something the late Ralph Waldo Emerson pondered in Self-Reliance. While he championed individuality, he also insisted that the greatness we recognize in others involves absorbing their ideas and transforming them. Flat imitation can be passive, but inspiration that is unto transformation? That is the necessary work. In Self-Reliance, Emerson warns against blind conformity, yet he acknowledges the value of our “unoriginal” surroundings. He invites us to find our voices within the historical and intellectual environment we’re part of. Remix. Curate. Translate. That’s as close to originality as I think we’ll get. And I truly believe it’s enough.

I would even assert that a consistent pursuit of pure originality is a pursuit to become God. And believe that you will run yourself ragged trying to be Him. Sometimes I’ll watch a funny, relatable video and see a comment that reads, “I’ve never had an original thought in my life.” Honestly, haha. And honestly…true. In my reflections, I reckon that if I’ve ever had an original thought, it’s because I received it from the only Person I know capable of having one: God. And if He shared it with me, He probably shared it with one of the other eight billion people under His yellow sun, too.

The writer’s plight, really, the creative’s, is to avoid triteness, to pursue individuality, to discover “the new.” But it’ll never be truly new. We use varying levels of “newness” as a litmus test to measure how far we can get from triteness: from the overt ("roses are red") to the experimental (Rooney’s refusal to use quotation marks, “fresh”). But how much of it is actually new? Again, the best we can hope for is a conglomeration, a mosaic musing. New combinations of old materials, and even “new” is a generous word.

We don’t need to live unprecedented lives. There’s a mosaic way to live—a way that honors the communal. A kind of longing is fulfilled when a few writers gather at the local bookstore, dreaming together, borrowing each other’s language and forms. Or a group of girls standing in front of the mirror before they go out and seeing one put on a new gorgeous gloss, and suddenly this sisterhood is concreted in the sharing of it, all of them with the same shade on their pout. How miserable would it be to miss out on some collective experiences because you’re after going it alone and feel the need to be a pioneer on every front?

You’re not being robbed of your individuality. We get to choose what influences us. You’re the curator. You get to decide what shapes you, what goes in your museum of self. You can still be you without being “an original.”

And to be a living echo is nothing short of extraordinary.

With love,

Rebecca