When Unique Content Is Not "Unique" | 👔 | @quocvietle

To think originally might be what any individual is striving to be, but the minute we get to creating something, we catch ourselves getting inspiration from others. Most of which are somehow copying the idea and reinventing it in our own way. In a world full of ideas, one is hardly an original. The basic elements of creativity are:

Copy 💫 Transform 💫 Combine

This executed concept is a remix and that can be solely ours – not the idea but the final presentation itself. We do tend to get in a clouded notion that we are "originals".

But really, we are not.

Let's put it this way, one of the great legends Steve Jobs did not necessarily had an original idea. Apple is an example of merged ideas and is an evidence of multiple combinations of the old computer models like Xerox and Alto. During a 1996 interview, Steve Jobs once quoted Picasso "good artists steal, great artists copy" and said, "we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

For someone great like Steve Jobs to say that, are you not convinced that every idea we imagine is not within ourselves but a recreation of something that already exists and we just try to improve it?

Do you ever listen to music remixes? Hearing samples from other artists and hearing a different beat to it is a whole new way of experiencing the song. This is one of the best explanation I can give to the elements of creativity = we copy an idea, we transform it in our own way, and we combine different artistry to create something that belongs to us.

Among many great artists/inventors, did you know that Hunter S. Thompson retyped Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby just to get a feel of writing a great novel before he eventually wrote his own material? Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb but he improvised the original work and invented the improvement of the electric lamps, see NOBODY starts out ORIGINAL. We all derive our work from existing materials and that is how we learn until we are finally familiar in the language of our realm.

Just like in writing, the most common language to communicate and to send a message or just simply putting out our self-expression to help it make sense is a dominion of many remixes. We are influenced by the vision of others, and somehow it triggers the way we think and we simply write something that liberates us beyond our knowledge and understanding to an idea.

There are so many creations and different things to keep our ideas go broad. It is a matter of mixing them and turning it into our own. This is why I believe that blog contents are great and enjoyable to read when we combine other ideas from a variety of perspective because we are opening our minds to a new interpretation. It encourages us to be more creative and to embrace new learnings. We should not be afraid to admit that remixing is the evolution of writing the best content. It is the only way to become proficient at it.

Thank you for reading!

@quocvietle

Picture source: 1, 2, 3
Influenced by: Kirby Ferguson – Everything is a Remix