All good ideas must be taken by now
Disclaimer: This article was extracted from my Creative Space Newsletter which I will be closing to focus on writing solely on Medium. Subscribe at the end of this article.
Expertise gives you enough insight to reinvent what everyone else assumes is the truth- Seth Godin
There was once a time when people would queue an entire day just to use the landline. Now, there are thousands of mobile devices to choose from. This is the same in the film industry, the aviation sector, storytelling…
When you sit to think about it, what hasn’t been innovated already? The world has passed us by, there’s nothing left to create.
Seth Godin writes the story of human innovation. In his words
Instead of saying, “I’m stuck, I can’t come up with anything good,” it’s far more effective to say, “I’ve finished this, and now I need to make it better.” Or possibly “I finished this, and it can’t be made better, but now I’m ready to do the new thing, because look at all I’ve learned.”
Seth’s story of human innovation is not about looking for new things to create -it is about making the old things better.
Last weekend I was having a similar discussion with my big brother, and I was of the view that many of the things being created at the present are simply little or no modifications to the old stuff.
We are humans, we run out of ideas and only find ways to make things better. If you could alter the character of Raymond Reddington of ABC series The Blacklist, you have created a different movie entirely or if you change one or two notes in Michael Jackson’s Thriller, you could be a legend.
Genius ideas are in units- In 20 minutes, Herbie Flowers delivered a tiny bit of genius and ensured Lou Reed’s career. Of course, it took more than 20 minutes. It took a decade of building his craft and learning to see and to listen.
The thing about ideas is people who will draw up and execute plans before you. People who will go first and create.
After that, you can easily spot the flaws and work out the imperfections in it- that right there is your own creative genius.
If you are being honest with yourself, most of the things you have created are better-offs or an improvement of previous works, either yours or another’s. New ideas come from old works, most of the time.
When all ideas are taken, improve on them. Let me put it more rightly
If you can’t create anything, find a flaw in one and make it better.
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