Originality- Does it Exist???

So, what's the most origional idea you ever had that you found out wasn't? I don't really know, but.. I did have this theory brewing in my head for like.. a few months.. which I wont share, but it was very specific, and used a certain analogy, and I thought it was pretty insightful/clever, and I hadn't yet gotten around to fully formulating/writing it down. And then I read it in a fucking Palahniuk novel (Rant). Summarized in like.. a paragraph. And it kind of broke my heart into a million tiny pieces of pretentious sadness. I still harbor the secret hope that my idea is more clever/can be better expressed but...now I can't reveal it because hipsters are going to think I copied Palahniuk. Which I'd never (intentionally) do.

And what do you wish no one had ever written about before so you could be the very first? Lots and lots of things.

Pretend you're a kid and everything's possible like it never really was but we didn't know it until when? I can't go back to that headspace, unfortunately. And actually I can't recall a time in my life where I actually felt anything was possible. I think I've been boringly realistic forever. Though I do definitely realize more of my limitations now. 

Are we better or worse for knowing? Uh- better I think insomuch as that it's more true- and I think truth is important. But worse in that it's less pleasant.

Well, Shan, I guess I'm not a hipster cuz I would have believed you. Can't you still use your amazing idea by changing it up just a little? It sucks to toss it in the bin just because Palanuik wrote something similiar. Maybe he's a mind-thief, trolling writer's sites. A simple voodoo ritual would reveal his sordid methods. Tee hee. Ummm, boringly realistic? Maybe you're realistic but I don't think for a second that you're boring. Calling Pepe le Peu a cat rapist is not boring. In fact, it rather alarmed me. I like it when people do stuff that shakes me up a bit. Otherwise I nod off....Catherine

My thoughts are similar; everything HAS been done before, but if somehow you bring a slightly different slant to the topic or reach a different audience with your words... you have done something that is originally you. People do not give up reading new books and poems because it has been done before... they wish to enjoy reading again and again, each time with a different setting or viewpoint or outcome...etc. The same is true for the writer...do not give up doing that which gives you so much pleasure just because it has been written about before... your unique life and circumstances contribute to what is uniquely your writing.

Brava!!! I totally agree with you, too, Laurie! Subtle nuance of all sorts may take one thing and alter it in literally a million differnt ways- and then you have subjectivity- why, no one sees the same thing the same way anyways, so go at it with gusto. Why should any writer assume any subject or genre is off limits because it's overdone, done better or better off avoided. says who? I say break all the rules with brilliance and creativity and make them love every minute of it!...Catherine

Why would complete originality be the goal?

When it comes to DNA, it turns out there's not that much difference between mice and men.

Mice and humans each have about 30,000 genes, yet only 300 are unique to either organism. Both even have genes for a tail, even though it's not "switched on" in humans.

"About 99 percent of genes in humans have counterparts in the mouse," said Eric Lander, Director of the Whitehead Institute Center for Genomic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Eighty percent have identical, one-to-one counterparts."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/T...sc.mousegenome/

 I think newness, vibrance and originality are not ONLY about something that has never been thought of or spoken before, it's about taking old things and looking at them in new ways. Or taking several old things and combining them in a new order or a new context.

The words themselves are only partly responsible for the messages conveyed. When the words are said/written has a tremendous bearing on their meaning as does the audience to which they are presented. 

A good example of this is a stump speech. Same words recited over and over, and yet it's almost a completely different speech if it's said in Hawaii vs. Nebraska, if it's said after a victory, or before, whether it's said to partisans or undecideds.

The same is true for any sort of writing or communication.

Another example is the Gettysburg Address. No one would claim it is original now, and yet when an audience of 4th graders hears it for the first time, and their teacher explains it it can be. 

Well, you can say that that's not really the question here, but to me it seems like maybe it is. there's this tendency to think originality is this exploding newness where no part of the thing has ever existed or been thought of or created before.

But let's go back to that article. A mouse and a man share 99% genes in common. the ideas behind each are virtually indentical. the hearts, the skin, the hair, the eyes, the ears, the tongues, the bones, they're all the same stuff. Is a man not original because he is made up of the same primal bits as a mouse? 

Ideas and words are similar in a way. An idea that is 99% the same as another idea is still a 100% different thing.

It is not the ways we are the same that define us, it is the ways we are different.

I am sure originality does in fact exist. Evolution proves that, even if the differences are minute.

But who needs it?

I can read ten poems focused on the same subject matter, all penned by different authors, all worded differently, with a different rythm...and they all invoke in me a different response, a certain mood, different scenes in my mind's eye. And I am still excited, inspired, and pleased to read them.