Standing on Shoulders of Giants
We build off others ideas. I know this has been touched on before but I agree with them, it is a truth of being creative. If you think of how many people have lived on this earth, you realize the chances of one person having a unique idea is extremely rare. When I was at the Information Security conference last weekend, the very first talk was about that. Jack Daniels showed the quote from Issac newton ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ Then preceded to talk about all the people who were fundamental in the beginning of that field. He ended his talk by basically humbling everyone in the room by saying nothing you will do will be original, it has been done before. But then he went on to explain how we take what others have done and use it to make ideas grow.
When my son was born I did a lot of quilting. I think it was because it was something I could do with him near by and still be able to drop it if he needed me. Anyways, I participated in a couple quilting round robins on the Internet. What is that? It is where a group of people form up. Each one gets enough fabric to make a quilt. They decide what they want the theme to be or what kind of blocks they want it to be made of. Then they divide the material up between those participating and mail it to them with instructions of what they wanted. Each person in the group would then make a block for the quilt and send it back. In the end, each person would then get back enough blocks to make there quilt. Sometimes the owner wanted something specific and you made it for them and that was it. But usually is was vague and you got to play around and make your own thing. These moments were amazing to me. I got to create blocks that I saw in my head and make them reality. I would love to say they were original, but I know better. I would spend hours on the Internet looking at other quilts people made. It was always in those moments that the idea of what I wanted to make would pop into my head. Without them, my creations would never have come to be.
This is not anything new, art historians have been finding links between different artists and figuring out who influenced whom. There even was a recent article that talked about a computer program that looked at tons of pictures and found links between different artists that were never noticed before.* In these paintings you can see the connections but they are never exactly the same. Yes there are similarities but at the same time they are completely original pieces of art. They looked at someone else’s painting and a light bulb went off in their heads. The original painting was the egg to their chicken.
Most things in life are like that, even simple things you do in everyday life. I don’t know how many times I have wondered about something, did the research, and then found out the answer but realized it was not going to work out that way for me. So I modify it, make it my own. Sometimes after helping someone out with a problem, I have had friends say, “Shellah, you are brilliant.” But, that is not true. I used something someone else did to spark my internal idea generator. Without them it never would have come to fruition.
This concept applies to writing as well. Dan Sanders said ‘Your words and ideas will belong more and more to the world’s conversation.’ If you think about conversations one has with their friends, it always starts with one statement from one person. Then the next person adds his thoughts on the subject. Eventually, something someone says will trigger connections, in that old brain of ours, that just were not there moments ago. Take for example the conversations we have been having just by answering these questions. I have read every single one of them and it has made me think about things, that I already knew, in completely different ways. All because that person wrote an old idea in a new way. These new ways are are then letting me share my particular spin on them with you. This cycle keeps repeating until someone makes a connection that is life changing. In a way, we are all then part of that life changing moment. Amazing!
