We admire and honor creativity. We tell our children to be imaginative, inventive, expressive. To add a little something unique and special to the everyday. To look at the world sideways sometimes. To march to the beat of a different...
But it's all stuff and nonsense and we know it.
Take the World Wide Web. We all know the web is preposterously vast, and not just because it's 85% porn, kitten photos, and unneeded product reviews ("I give these plastic forks 2 out of 5 stars because some of them have rough plastic burrs on the handle and rather weak tines." --DisposableFlatWareDude87, Top 500 Amazon reviewer).
The web is also the largest "market of ideas," the largest photo gallery, the largest movie theater, the largest bookshop, the largest reference guide, ever created.
We know that virtually every opinion a person could have on any topic is being had at this very moment, and that all the counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments and counter-counter-counter-arguments about that opinion are also being had.
We know that any time we pick up a camera, wherever we are in the world, we are probably shooting something similar to many other photos or videos that other people, with greater skill, have already put online. The same is true if we write a song, create an animation, write a piece of fiction.
Any kitsch we would like to demonstrate an ironic enjoyment of to enhance our coolness factor has already been thoroughly ironically enjoyed by someone else with an even higher coolness factor.
Face it. Not only is there nothing new under the sun, there is so much under the sun already that we can barely feel the few rays of sunlight that filter through the enormous jumbled heap of our endless creative activity.
The obvious conclusion: ask yourself if you are a genius. If so, plow on, for you might do the world some good. If not, just stop creating. Cold turkey. The next time you feel a creative impulse coming on, stifle it. Just say no.
As for me? What a hypocrite, you must be thinking. Why would he start a blog? I assure you, I'm only blogging for the money, and I promise to be as uncreative as possible in every post. You have my word.
But it's all stuff and nonsense and we know it.
Take the World Wide Web. We all know the web is preposterously vast, and not just because it's 85% porn, kitten photos, and unneeded product reviews ("I give these plastic forks 2 out of 5 stars because some of them have rough plastic burrs on the handle and rather weak tines." --DisposableFlatWareDude87, Top 500 Amazon reviewer).
The web is also the largest "market of ideas," the largest photo gallery, the largest movie theater, the largest bookshop, the largest reference guide, ever created.
We know that virtually every opinion a person could have on any topic is being had at this very moment, and that all the counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments and counter-counter-counter-arguments about that opinion are also being had.
We know that any time we pick up a camera, wherever we are in the world, we are probably shooting something similar to many other photos or videos that other people, with greater skill, have already put online. The same is true if we write a song, create an animation, write a piece of fiction.
Any kitsch we would like to demonstrate an ironic enjoyment of to enhance our coolness factor has already been thoroughly ironically enjoyed by someone else with an even higher coolness factor.
Face it. Not only is there nothing new under the sun, there is so much under the sun already that we can barely feel the few rays of sunlight that filter through the enormous jumbled heap of our endless creative activity.
The obvious conclusion: ask yourself if you are a genius. If so, plow on, for you might do the world some good. If not, just stop creating. Cold turkey. The next time you feel a creative impulse coming on, stifle it. Just say no.
As for me? What a hypocrite, you must be thinking. Why would he start a blog? I assure you, I'm only blogging for the money, and I promise to be as uncreative as possible in every post. You have my word.
(And if you think this post is creative, just imagine what Oscar Wilde or even Dave Barry could have done--probably already did--with this topic.)
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