I’ve started to wonder if the cult of originality is the biggest scam in creative life. People obsess over being “original”  -  as if originality is some sacred currency you either possess or you don’t. The startup founder desperate for a “never-before-seen” idea, the artist convinced their work only matters if it’s unprecedented, the writer paralyzed by the fear that someone, somewhere, has already said what they want to say.

But when I look at history, when I look at my own work, when I look at anything that’s ever caught on and caught fire, I see a different truth:

Nothing we celebrate as original ever truly was.

The so-called breakthroughs of our culture are recombinations. Shakespeare lifted plots wholesale. Picasso stole from African art and Iberian sculpture. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the personal computer; he took Xerox’s clunky prototype, married it with design, and called it Apple. TikTok trends are base iterations  -  remixes piled on remixes  - until one expression hits the cultural nerve just right. The miracle isn’t creation out of nothing; it’s that we have an endless and inexhaustible capacity to re-imagine what already exists.

But our culture still worships “genius” as if it’s the touch of a deity. We elevate the myth of the lone inventor // the solitary artist pulling lightning from the void. It butters us into believing that originality is this rare jewel, and that if we dig deep enough we can discover it inside ourselves. But that fantasy is strangling more talent than failure ever could. If you believe originality is the standard, you’ll always feel like an imposter.

Because by that definition, you are.

I’ll admit something uncomfortable: I’ve never had an original idea. Every essay I’ve posted, every word I’ve written, every argument I’ve ever made  -  they all have their ancestors. Sometimes I know them, sometimes I don’t. But I can often trace the lines back. When I talk about liberalism, I’m echoing Locke and Mill. When I write about productivity, I’m channeling Seneca, Drucker, Covey. My hottest takes are, in all likelihood, stitched together from thinkers I’ve absorbed without realizing it. That doesn’t make the work worthless; it’s just plugged into a lineage of thought bigger than me.

The danger in chasing originality is that it keeps us small. It tricks us into hoarding, into secrecy, into waiting for lightning to strike. But recombination is abundant. Ideas want to collide, to mix, to mutate. If you’re paying attention, you can always find raw material  -  a book, a podcast, a walk through a city street  -  that lights a new connection in your mind. That’s the game. It’s not being first, it’s never being first, it’s being sharp enough to see what others miss and bold enough to reframe what’s already there without apology.

The irony is that audiences don’t even want originality. They want recognition. They want to feel like they’ve seen a part of themselves reflected in a way they couldn’t quite articulate. That’s why memes spread faster than manifestos. That’s why the same tropes, jokes, and formats cycle endlessly on social media. Virality is re-presenting what everyone already knows in a way that feels fresh enough to share.

We cling so tightly to originality as the measure of worth because it feels dangerous to admit otherwise. It betrays the illusion of the genius, and it suggests that success might not be about divine inspiration. It has more to do with craft, timing, luck and nerve than any of the lauded cultural gatekeepers would have you believe. It’s a far less romantic story, and a far less forgiving one. If anyone can remix ideas, then anyone could succeed  -  and maybe we just don’t want to face how much fortune, context, and pure shamelessness play into it.

I’m not saying creativity is easy. It’s excruciating. But the part that hurts isn’t the lack of originality. It’s the willingness to risk being derivative, cliché, even embarrassing  -  and to publish anyway. To stake your reputation on a thought you know someone smarter, older, wiser has already expressed, and trust that your voice, your framing, your audience, will make it resonate differently. That is, in effect, the entire history of human culture.

What I’ve come to believe is this: originality is overrated, but imagination is not. The ability to reimagine // recombine // twist what exists into something arresting is the skill of our age and our day. Ideas aren’t born in pristine originality. They explode when a familiar pattern is bent at just the right angle. And if that bothers you, ask yourself: would you rather cling to a fantasy about being original, or actually make something people can’t stop talking about?