Welcome back to Train of Thought, your weekday audio pause designed to inject a little curiosity into your commute, your coffee break, or that strange in-between moment when you're waiting for the elevator and pretending to check your email.
In today’s episode, we tackle a surprisingly liberating idea: Is originality overrated?
We live in a culture obsessed with the new. From tech to art to personal branding, we’re constantly told to be “innovative,” “disruptive,” “unique.” Originality is often marketed as the highest form of creativity, and anything less than something never-before-seen can feel like a failure.
But what if that pressure is misplaced? What if originality isn’t about inventing something from thin air, but about showing something familiar in a way only you can?
In this five-minute reflection, our host gently dismantles the myth of originality as isolation and reframes it as a form of participation. Great artists, it turns out, were great borrowers. From Shakespeare to Beyoncé, human creativity has always been a remix of influences, references, and cultural echoes. The power isn’t in being first — it’s in being honest. And maybe, just maybe, the most valid form of originality is sincerity.
So, whether you’re writing a novel, launching a project, or just wondering if your thoughts are "original enough" to be worth sharing, this episode is for you. You don’t have to be the first to matter. You just have to be you, doing the thing today.
Listen now to reclaim creativity from the myth of genius — and maybe lower the stakes a little.
Until tomorrow, stay curious — and don’t be afraid to echo. Sometimes the echo is where the truth lives.
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