You Could Be the Entertainment. You Might Be the Genius 

“A genius is the one most like himself.” --Thelonius Monk.   We’ve all heard the jokes about the idea of originality. “You think you’re original? I wonder how many of the 8 billion in the world think they’re original? I wonder how many billions who lived before us thought they were original?" If it’s impossible to be original, how about doing something so often that you find you. Is it possible to create something uniquely personal? Will it be original and without influence? What is? No work of art is influence free, and no influence is free from personal interpretation. Is it worth striving for originality if it’s impossible to be original in an absolute sense? With nearly 8 billion in the world and billions who have preceded us, our chances of being redundant and derivative are high? If we can get passed all of this, imagine doing something that is so you that you feel naked when it’s over. We might want to delete the vulnerabilities that incriminate us, or we might not, because some long-dead artist many considered one of the most original artists to walk to planet might’ve considered it ingenious.     Everyone started out wanting to be somebody else. We don’t start out pure and raw. We lack knowledge, skills, and the sense of security necessary to expose ourselves completely. We feel icky about ourselves when we start. We’re insecure, we have no talent, and we’re boring, or at least we’re not as entertaining as that guy. Look at him, he’s got it all figured out. Every woman I know wants to sit with him and chat, he’s got a wad of dough, and everybody likes him. And funny, ohmigosh, if we could be just a little bit like him for one minute of one day, people might want to be around us, they might like us, and they might read us. We add a pinch of ourselves along the way. The other guy over there, he’s all calm, cool, and collected. He’s radiating self-possession. If I could wrap his aura around my neck for just one night, it could all be different. We add a dash of ourselves to it. At some point, in the painfully gradual process, we shed their skin and become more like ourselves, and if we become more like ourselves than anyone else can, it’s ingenious. My new favorite quote.