the Origins of Originality and Creativity

Out of the 2 hits my blog got this year, one happy surfer asked if i copied my last post from somewhere else.

good question and good topic: Originality.

being completely unoriginal myself, i'll first state the dictionary's definition of originality:

The ability to think and act independently.

Sounds simple enough, but who among us can possibly call ourselves original? He who says he is original obviously isn't, and he knows he is not original certainly is.

But what the hell does that mean? Is it some fancy quote that I pulled off of a website in order to impress the 2 visitors per month i have on my blog? Or is this in and of itself an original statement that as it enters your mind and you judge it inevitably ceases to be original?

The only thing in life that can possibly be original is Wisdom. Everything else is relative and therefore, based on previous knowledge and experience. But what is Wisdom?

In English like in every other language, every word is open to personal interpretation and bias depending on differences in experience. In example, the word Love means very different things to different people. Love was originally meant as sacrifice of self for someone or some thing or cause that the person or subject was relating to, but now Love is inextricably tangled up with Romance and Sex, which are obviously not about sacrifice, but about selfish want and desire.

Understanding, Knowledge and Wisdom have all gone through the dumbing down of the general consensus and have now become confused and misunderstood.

Let's start with Understanding:
Feel free to look it up in the dictionary, but a general explanation is that UNDERSTANDING is THOUGHT about something without having direct EXPERIENCE with that thing. It is only UNDERSTOOD, not KNOWN.

which leads to Knowledge:
KNOWLEDGE then, is THOUGH based on direct EXPERIENCE, nothing more.

and finally Wisdom, which undoubtabely is the least UNDERSTOOD:
WISDOM is awareness outside of the realm of THOUGHT. The closest word for this realm in English would be Intuition, but that doesn't quite do it justice as well as words from Asian languages describe it.

So now, let's come back to our topic of Originality.

Anything that is merely understood, cannot be original, because it is completely based on the understanding, knowledge or wisdom of another.

Anything that is known, cannot be original, because the makeup (the totality) of the knower is based on previous understandings and previous experiences.

Wisdom then is the only area that can be termed completely original, simply because it is not based on previous thoughts without direct experience (Understanding) nor is it based on previous direct experience (Knowledge).

Which brings us to Creativity.

Anyone who has ever played a musical instrument can attest to the fact that when things are really flowing, when the music, when the sound seems to play your fingers rather than your fingers playing the sound, THAT MOMENT is completely original! There is no thought in those moments, there is no analyzation of the past (Did it sound right??), there is no planning of the future (I'm going to mess up!?), there is only the NOW, that eternal moment when all things cease to exist but what IS. And THAT is original.

My previous blog about blogging was meant more for me than for other readers. Just as this is blog is. For readers, whether I copied that blog or not isn't really important. What could be important if the reader can truly take to heart the words that are read, is the tapping into that part of yourself that recognizes these words to be true and then pushes you toward action, whatever that may be. That's why I write and that's why I get out of my own writing.

For all the crazy UNDERSTANDINGS and KNOWLEDGE that we've been spoon-fed since the beginning of our lives, there is a limitless wellspring of WISDOM and ORIGINALITY that dwells within each of us; it is only a matter of tapping that well to bring forth it's riches and revivify our own lives. And in the process, we might just have an impact on those lives around us.