Unoriginal Loser

is it possible to ever have a thought that’s completely your own?

everything has been said before. everything has been done before. no idea gets to glimmer and shine and expel hope with the same taste of uniqueness.

nope.

done before.

scroll. read. consume. gather inspo. pinterest. instagram. substack. google. idk. new york times.

it’s like you do all this critical research. you learn. you gather. but then it feels like you don’t have the space to create your own idea out of it.

there’s nobody holding a gun to your head telling you not to, but it feels like something is lacking.

will it be perceived the same?
will it be consumed in the same way?
is this all just a rinse n’ repeat thing?
is this just boring brown noise to everyone?

then come the other sneaky lil fucking thoughts.

well, what makes you so original?

well, this feeling is universal. everybody, at one point in their lives, has felt this way.

well, what’s the point then?

it’s been said. it’s been done before.

then i gather more inspo and get excited. i feel this surge of energy and whimsy and hopeful, delusional excitement. i create and create and create, every cell in my body, every synapse firing.

only to get crushed again.

because the idea wasn’t mine. it was someone else’s. i borrowed it, put my spin on it and, voilà, it’s mine now.

ugh.

but it never feels like mine.

the excitement lasts only so long before i feel like a fraud. a fake. an unoriginal loser. because the idea was never fully mine.

and i don’t know if that’s just the way for artists and creatives to think, or if it’s an egotistical one. because why must everything worthwhile be created and thought through by one person?

thinking about it more critically, i don’t actually think that’s possible. maybe if you’re fucking Einstein, or some shit. but truly brilliant ideas and unreal executions come from a collective of minds. not one.

we imitate before we innovate.

every artist is borrowing from another artist. every writer is subconsciously stealing the cadence of someone they once loved reading. every musician starts by playing someone else’s songs. every conversation you’ve ever had leaves behind a fingerprint on the way you think.

maybe that’s all we are.

little collections of borrowed pieces.

we mimic before we find our own voice. we collect bits and pieces from every person we meet, every city we wander through, every book we underline, every song that makes us feel less alone. and somewhere in the middle of all those borrowed pieces...

we accidentally become ourselves.

maybe life works the same way.

because no feeling has ever belonged to just one person. grief isn’t mine. heartbreak isn’t mine. loneliness isn’t mine. neither is joy, or hope, or fear. they’ve all existed long before me, and they’ll exist long after me.

and yet somehow they still feel so painfully personal.

i think that’s the cruelest part of being human. believing you’re the only one carrying something that almost everyone else has carried too.

maybe that’s the trap.

thinking that everything that’s been touched before is complete.

maybe it’s not complete at all.

maybe every idea is just waiting for another person to touch it.

another perspective. another life. another pair of hands.

because nothing is ever created alone.

maybe we’re all just building on top of one another.

different bodies. different stories. different timelines.

the same fucking feelings.