Originality is not something continuous but something intermittent — a flash of the briefest duration. One must have the time and be watchful (be attuned) to catch the flash and fix it. One must know how to catch and preserve these scant flakes of gold sluiced out of the sand and rocks of everyday life. Originality does not come nugget-size.

Translation: Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else — and failing.

Originality is the art of concealing your source.

Originality is the art of concealing your sources.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

But what is [the] quality of originality? It is very hard to define or specify. Indeed, to define originality would in itself be a contradiction, since whatever action can be defined in this way must evidently henceforth be unoriginal. Perhaps, then, it will be best to hint at it obliquely and by indirection, rather than to try to assert positively what it is.

One prerequisite for originality is clearly that a person shall not be inclined to impose his preconceptions on the fact as he sees it. Rather, he must be able to learn something new, even if this means that the ideas and notions that are comfortable or dear to him may be overturned.

But the ability to learn in this way is a principle common to the whole of humanity. Thus it is well known that a child learns to walk, to talk, and to know his way around the world just by trying something out and seeing what happens, then modifying what he does (or thinks) in accordance with what has actually happened. In this way, he spends his first few years in a wonderfully creative way, discovering all sorts of things that are new to him, and this leads people to look back on childhood as a kind of lost paradise. As the child grows older, however, learning takes on a narrower meaning. In school, he learns by repetition to accumulate knowledge, so as to please the teacher and pass examinations. At work, he learns in a similar way, so as to make a living, or for some other utilitarian purpose, and not mainly for the love of the action of learning itself. So his ability to see something new and original gradually dies away. And without it there is evidently no ground from which anything can grow.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

what is originality ? undetected plagiarism!

How to have original ideas:

1. Read lots at a young age. Start to see that many different people can formulate convincing ideas

2. Become cynical

3. Start to create/write, realize how hard it is to know what the hell you actually think anyway

4. Keep creating/writing. Copy other ideas, repurpose other peoples ideas

5. Become data literate. Realize how deep you can go with data. Realize the fallibility of surveys and other opinion polling. Realize how people will use this stuff in bad faith.

6. Try to formulate arguments without using references. Damn, realize its easier to repackage other peoples ideas than come up with your own

7. Humbly continue creating/writing. Realize it may never get easier. Keep at it. Get in reps. Find a working mode that you can sustain. Embrace the cringe (you will always feel a bit silly when you publish / share)

8. Read other people writing about similar topics. Realize you dislike some of their arguments and frames. Channel your disappointment into their work into your own commitment creating. Commit to nemeses in your head that you will never cede victory too

9. When people try to pay you to package your creations, deny them. If you accept their money fight for your ideas, no matter what. Don't compromise.

10. Keep going. Just make stuff up. Go for walks. Let things pop into your head. You might have a following now but screw them. You shall not be captured. Share ideas that make you uncomfortable because they are interesting to you. Dare to be unfollowed.

11. Talk to people along the way. Share your ideas in conversation. Find a handful of people that will nudge you if you are about to be captured or seem to be becoming cynical. Pay attention. Reset.

12. Keep going. Refuse to treat "what works" as a worthwhile pathway for creating things. Don't join any peer group where "what works" is a north star.

13. When people call you a genius reflect back on all the things you said that you know no one paid attention to. Reflect on your role in a long line of other people who's ideas let to yours

14. Ponder that you might never create anything original

15. Sit with that. Keep going.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

Originality is the art of concealing your source

Originality is going back to the place where you were what you were—and finding an empty chair. Would you gladly sit on it? No, thank you. It is empty for a reason. That’s where my ass was. Not where my head is now.

People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture, But in its true sense, that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at. Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they? If they could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality.