Originality- Does it Exist???

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.