Originality

Are you being original in what you say and do? Are you being yourself?

It is easier said than done. There, I’ve just used a cliché.

Language is an external construct that we learn and then use with our personal voice, and so it is not truly original. But it is prudent to use language consciously and to speak truthfully.

To articulate your experience your way, you need to pay attention. You need to be alert to pressures of conformity and collective thinking.

Are you a clone? Are you picking up sayings because someone else, who picked them up like the clap, is slinging them around? Cute as they may be, they may not be you. Woo hoo! They may feel fun but do you just use them to impress? But I digress...

No, I don’t! That’s another right there that many people use in their writing. Why digress, especially in written form? Why then admit to it instead of editing the detour out? Why think it’s funny?

Maybe the first person who said it was ingenious and hilarious, but on every other blog? Rather find your own voice.

Tune in and speak sincerely. Write the real thing. Make it a meditation. Presence and spontaneity draw you towards originality and thinking takes you away from it.

Be aware of the superficial self and its propensity for mimicry. Let it go, and go deeper.

Feel what you feel and let words find themselves for expressing it. Say those instead. Why? Ooh, that’s one of my least favourite!

Writing and speaking are living art, make them original.