You Don’t Have to be Original

But you probably can be, anyway

Photo by David Rotimi

I’m a writer. At least by this definition Parker Palmer passed along: “A writer is distinguished by the fact that he or she writes.”

I write, so I’m a writer.

But I’d like to be an artist, which, for me, means I’d like to write things of a certain quality; things that feel like a worthwhile encounter; things worth revisiting and sharing; things that stay with you a while. I’d like to be wise and insightful and good-humored, to have a deep understanding of life, to shrewdly observe and adroitly articulate.

I may never really get there.

I am content, at the moment, to honor the desire and to live in pursuit.

Along the way, I’ve thought about originality. There's pressure, as a creative, to be fresh, new, novel, original. Hell, there's pressure to be original as a human, especially in contemporary western culture. Stand out! Be noticed! Do. Not. Be. Derivative!

It’s been useful for me to think about different varieties of originality. I see three, and I am pretty sure I t…