Cynicism or Maybe Reality? Questioning Originality and It's Validity in Modernity

Creativity. Innovation. Novelty. Invention. Originality.

These are words that drive people everyday.  These are words the drive our "evolution." We want to present the world a newness never seen before--something that nobody's ever thought of.  But I wonder, is what we seek even possible? Is novelty or originality even possible anymore?

I was initially driven to this question and reflection when trying to concoct an idea for a novel.  Numerous ideas have arisen, but I've yet to decide on one. The problem is that they all seem redundant.   After think through each "new" idea, I find myself wondering, "hasn't this already been written?" Sure, you can present an idea, notion, theme in various ways, but does that make it original? At the core the idea is the same. Is it not? Plus, with so many people living in the world and so many people who have previously lived, what's the likelihood of even your groundbreaking, original idea being original? Chances are it's a thought that's already been thought.

We have a lot of innovations in terms of technologies, sure. I tend to wonder, though, if they are truly original ideas.  Or, could they possible be better ideas or solutions to what we had before? Take phones for instance.  We used to only have landlines to communicate with people, but then it wasn't convenient enough.  So, we someone "invented" car phones, or cell phones. They built on what already existed. The idea of communication wasn't original; it was just a better way to simplify communication.

Problematically, I think my drive to be original can somewhat hamper me.  I'm so focused on the nonexistent that I let the existent pass me by.  I tend to think we should worry more about what's in front of us, what we can improve on, rather tan being original.  Fix the problems we know instead of the problems we hypothetically conceive.

I could be wrong. Shit, I'm probably wrong. Maybe this is just a load of cynicism in the form of a poorly laid out, brief blog post.  I guess the point I'm trying to make is sometimes the dream impedes the reality.  So what you're not original; you can improve the original. We all can, if we'd focus our energies to positively improve on the what is instead of the what could be.