King of Birds

From Document (1987).

It’s hard to be original in a world where it seems that everything has already been done. There’s nothing new under the sun. There is only how you perceive it, how you describe it, how you convey it to others, which is new.

Ask a classroom of 25 kids to draw a picture of something, you get 25 exceptionally unique pictures of that thing.

I think that everything that came before you helped to shape the things you create, whether you know it or not. Maybe you’ve never encountered the absolute original. Maybe it goes too far back. Maybe as far back as a cave painting, or a tribal drum beat. But its existence brought about the creation of many other things, and you’ve encountered some of those, and that means the thing you made is the next link in the chain of creativity.

It may not be the next big thing. It may seem to you like a drop in the ocean, something that doesn’t matter, wholly uninfluential. But I like to think that merely existing on the creativity continuum makes it important, whether it ends up on auction at Sotheby’s, or gets 100 views on YouTube, or gets tossed into a drawer, never to be seen or heard by anyone.

Because it exists, it has matter, and that means the make-up of the universe has been forever altered. Those quantum particles go swirling undetected by human eyes into the atmosphere and are carried away to other places as if on the wings of birds. And then someone somewhere is offered the ephemeral hand of inspiration, and it drives the creation of something new which has been made before, but not like this. Something which might be auctioned at Sotheby’s, or get 100 views on YouTube, or end up in a drawer, never to be seen or heard by anyone…