Friday, June 17, 2005

Original Writings

We reap what we sow and we write what we read. That is why our writings are seldom original. Much of our thoughts are built from what we know through reading. Our logic is built from accumulated knowledge from past experience and from studies. Past knowledge is a killer of originality. We need not plagiarize when we write, but we frequently borrow ideas from someone or somewhere else.

In this information age, we are seldom a witness to actual events. The news or stories we read or hear each day is often relayed to the journalists from a source. Relying on source can lead to bias reporting and yet journalists are expected to be objective, impartial, and balance in their reporting. This is a lot to ask of anyone, for a thought or hypothesis we add to what we write is often social construct. We are what we are because we have been molded thus to be, systematically, through education, through regulations, and through depravity.

If someone says he has an original idea, he is almost certainly a liar. Few are the things we see and hear are truly original. They are all borrowed ideas, combined from different sources, formed as one to be considered new, but there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NAS)
That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.

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