Member-only story

Nothing I Do Is Original, Nothing You Do Is Original And That’s Great

Dominic Medford
5 min readApr 12, 2024
Photo by Deb Dowd on Unsplash

I haven’t truly done anything original in my life ever.

Neither have you.

A statement like that would have normally made me get all defensive and try to quickly retort some examples to the contrary but now I am happy about that.

Thanks Austin Kleon.

That’s Right, his book “Steal Like an Artist” held within it this formative concept for me.

I like many others would sit at their laptops, their journals or even be daydreaming about what can set us apart. What’s that thing that will make me original so that I will stand out. How will I be defined as a person different from all those around me.

Wow. I can hear myself becoming quite existential, I think I should dial that down a bit.

But really though at the essence of my tangent is that of trying to be original in a world where it feels like all the big things, all the milestones, all the foundational principles have already got well trodden roadmaps to follow. I wasn’t clear on how to be an original.

Until the concept of stealing like an artist and finding the intersectionality of multiple unoriginal ideas to form a new “original” idea come to pass.

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

Dominic Medford
Dominic Medford

Written by Dominic Medford

Law and Political Sciences student in Australia who dabbles in writing about his thought processes in his spare time with the hope that it can be insightful.

No responses yet

Write a response