I drew the following
quote from a pile of paper strips on the library table at Emandal, CA. I was attending a writer’s workshop and this
was a writing challenge we were to do.
My thoughts follow the quote.
Originality does not consist of saying what no one has
ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself. J F Stephen
There really is nothing
new under the sun, unless perhaps you trip upon some kind of mutated wonder but
then it might just be an alien! Heaven
knows, there’ve been aliens around since the beginning of time.
No, when you want to
consider something original, one just has to dig deep. I mean, really deep; deeper than the pit of
your stomach that grips when you have to do something you’ve never done before
and deeper than any meditation where you are grounded to the center of the
earth. You really can’t go any further
because, if you did, then you’d come out the other side and then it wouldn’t be
deep because you aren’t in the center of the Earth anymore. ‘Course you could go on out into deep space but
that would be pretty far away from the subject after all.
No, this thing called originality
has to come from an undocumented space within your being which is more like
inter-cellular space, and all the way to the primal beginnings of your cells,
where you don’t know who you are anymore and you have to sit there until you
recognize the building blocks which are you and you alone. Think on all the possibilities and how your
family has given you the DNA substance that fused with the friction of your mom
and dad’s contribution to your existence.
I mean, you can see the chancy business of creation when you look at any
brothers and sisters and see how different you came out.
You might as well relax
and enjoy the fact that you are an original.
The chances of your being replicated are only dreamed of in science
fiction. I mean, sure there’s cloning,
but the scientists haven’t gotten there yet.
Nope, YOU are an original so if you just say what you think and describe
what your unique eyes see, well then, you’ll be giving us a whole different perspective
than anyone else, and that’ll be, right on, original!
So go on now, just do
it!
