Nothing is original

Written by Naja Shafiq

Everything that you are today is the sum of all the inspirations and experiences that you have collected through out your life so far. So everything about you is not original, including and especially your ideas.

Well, how do you come up with new ideas then?

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” – Picasso

You don’t have to recreate the alphabets to be original, you just need to rearrange them in your own unique way. Austin Kleon wrote the book “Steal like an artist” and according to him, people with “original” ideas are those who learned to remix other people’s ideas effectively.

How do you steal ideas?

There are bad ways and good ways to steal ideas. The good way is to take inspiration from multiple sources, transform it, remix it, put a twist on it, adapt it into your own idea by injecting your unique view and perspective.

Being original is overrated, just be uniquely you.

Published on 8 Jul 2021