People Steal

Nothing is original!

Ideas derive from experiences and they can never be 100% original. You get ideas from nature, people, things, situations, etc. so they can’t be original.

In fact, “original” is a relative word. You can only compare a piece of work with other things. Nothing can be absolute original.

For example, the famous Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo Da Vinci was said to be unique and original but was the idea really original? It’s the painting of an Italian woman named Lisa Gherardini. Clearly, Da Vinci got the idea from somewhere.

People steal.

If a person on Twitter tweets about his/her last month’s progress on Twitter and if it performs well, a lot of people start tweeting the same thing (of course, the content of the tweet varies).

A few years ago, earning report videos started getting popular on YouTube and since people loved them, now, a lot of YouTube channels create monthly or yearly earning report videos.

An even better example would be people starting a blog. Talking about myself, I started blogging after getting inspired by Amit Agrawal. I first read about him in the newspaper, then discovered his blog, and then I also started to blog.

And not just tweets and blogging, people also tend to copy other people and this is how a culture gets formed.

From the last few years, more and more individuals started to ridicule the 9-to-5 work culture and started to brag about starting up. After seeing the financial and other benefits of starting up, people loved the idea of working for themselves and that’s how the startup culture became popular. Today, more people are starting startups or at least, dream about starting a startup someday.

You steal from others and others also steal from you.

If you’re creating something, just know that the idea can be stolen and maybe, someone can even implement it in a better way than you did.

So should you stop stealing from others or start protecting your ideas?

No! Because that can never be possible.

Here’s an interesting paragraph:

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour films, music, books, paintings, poems, photographs, conversations, dreams, trees, architectures, street signs, clouds, light, and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. Authenticity is invaluable. Originality is non-existent. Don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it.

— I have stolen the above paragraph from Jim Jarmusch.

Your only option is to keep stealing from anywhere that fits and then let others steal from you.

This is how it works.