I am not original
This one lingering thought always stops me from speaking or writing. The one thought which I guess isn’t just mine either. The thought that what I am going to say or write is not mine. It is not an original thought or feeling. That someone already somewhere wrote this. Someone had already said this. So, what came to me was their thought passed on to me, but this realization left me with the feeling that it wasn’t my thought. So many people might have had the same thought at the same time as me and several others before me and maybe after me.
It isn’t just about thoughts. It’s about the life we live, I live. I have lived then found myself living the same scenario in a book. A book written decades ago. The author had already written what I would say in what scenario. Did they write so I can speak, so that I can live. Or I lived because they wrote? That’s what I have been thinking.
This puts me in jeopardy as a human being and as someone who one day aspires to write something which will move hearts. What if all that I ever write has been already written and thought already? What then remains of my thoughts and of me but just a plagiarized piece. All my thoughts, my experiences, my words and my life are not lived by me. But several people across the globe. Maybe I have existed in words for eons ago and will exist even after death. Not in my words for the words that existed before me. But in the words of several others who thought, who lived probably lives written by others in the same cycle.
What if we all are just fragments of different people? Who thought of us in distinct parts of globe at different time zones and when enough people had thought, and some also had written we come into reality. Then don’t we just become an imaginary fragment of collective delusion. And it leaves all life as just the most elaborate Mandela effect. You and I exist in the falsehood and belief of someone else who as well in all likelihood does not exist.
Then why and how come I write? The same way I live. These multiple pieces all spun together that create me also leads me to believe. A beautiful believe that for life it’s not who’s original piece I am but the mere feeling of living. No matter how many monsoons I have experienced, the song raindrops play has always been mesmerizing, the drops on my skin send the same feeling of fulfillment, the petrichor always makes me breathe deeply. These experiences, no matter what, are always new. The same things which make me cry give me comfort too.
These experiences which are shared by all of us, that falling asleep in class, waking up to a laughing or sometimes scolding teacher. That eating hot food knowingly and then trying to cool it down while it’s still in the mouth. That way the eyes close to savor the bite of a decadant cake. That feeling when we meet a beloved after a long time. How we recognize each other’s voice and emotions. Life is not original; it’s reliving all these shared joys. Life is not how different we are from one other but how I and you we all are same. How we tear apart when someone we know is said. How we try silly things to cheer them up. How our pupils enlarge as soon as we see baby animals. How we probably will be ready to give a kidney to our siblings but not a glass of water. The big discoveries, the creations those are not us, the little moments are what make us.
We are not originals; we are memories from the past living in the present conveying memories to the future. We are experiences. We are those rains, the flowers, the sweet fruits. Sometimes the little thorns. We are the tears sometimes of happiness others of grief. Yes, we both you and me are individuals who are someone’s imagination. Someone else’s experience. Maybe I am yours and you are mine. But at the same time of ourselves. You have created this universe of yours of which I am a part. But at the same time, you are my creation, my imagination as well.
“All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
- Gautam Buddha
