Why originality doesn’t matter

I used to worry about being original. I also used to worry about acne.

I’ve outgrown both concerns.

Age took care of the acne.

Reality took care of originality.

That reality led me to these conclusions:

First, on one level, there’s nothing new under the sun. So I find striving for newness itself about as successful as mentally willing my acne to disappear back in middle school.

Second, originality is the wrong goal. Instead of striving to be original, seek to say or do something that matters to you and will matter to someone else. Write or create to help others, to add value, to make a difference, even if for only one person on one day. Pursue helpfulness and saying what you need to say over originality. If you pursue the latter, you will likely end up doing something crazy like trying to face paint a gorilla while dressed as a gondolier, reciting Tang dynasty poetry and simultaneously trying to record your work with your iPhone. Upside down. Original? Yes. But good and useful and helpful? Ask the gorilla.

The best way to be original

Pursue originality and you may get, well, something you may not want to show your parents (or a prospective mate). Pursue doing something that matters, that is helpful and strives to say something in the best way possible and guess what? You may just end up being original.

To prove my point, here’s a quote from C.S. Lewis I found after writing all the above:

Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

See? Nothing new under the sun. But let me add a few other points.

When you cease striving to be original, you take a lot of pressure off yourself. You back your way into quality and freshness rather than obsessing and freezing up. Thus, you end up doing better — maybe even more original — work.

You may be the one

Most important, however, is this. If you’re a writer, even if what you write isn’t original or new, it may be new to your reader. In advertising, they say it takes six or more impressions (exposures to say, an ad) before a person even consciously registers that she’s ever heard of the product. That means that a reader may have read about a subject multiple times before they come across your take on it. But you may be the one writer who cuts through the clutter and makes sense to that reader. Your voice, your unique take on the same subject that dozens of others have addressed, may be the one that resonates with that reader at exactly the right time.

So don’t worry so much about being original. That will come with time and discovering and writing in your own voice. Instead, figure out what you want to say, what you’re meant to say and then say it. Write it. Proclaim it in your own best words and then trust it will find the right readers when they most need it.

And watch out for gorillas with face paint.