On Originality, Simultaneous Invention, and Why I Write

Some weeks, ideas for my blog arise naturally and spontaneously; the words just flow and I can easily articulate my thoughts. This time around, I was not so fortunate. I struggled to generate a topic. I toyed with a few but summarily dismissed them, as they all seemed boring and derivative. I felt like I had nothing original or interesting to say. I felt like anything I might say had already been said.

This is especially so considering the advent of AI and tools like ChatGPT, which can whip up a succinct answer to any question in mere seconds. Writers and other creatives are rightfully afraid.

Despondently, I thought of the adage, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” But then I came across a different quote, this one by the French author André Gide:

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

Gide is proposing that we express ourselves not necessarily because our thoughts are uniquely brilliant but because they bear repeating. Because human beings do not instantly grasp new information. For ideas to penetrate the psyche, they often need to be retold and repackaged multiple times and in multiple ways.

Simultaneous invention is a fascinating phenomenon in which scientific discoveries and inventions are made independently by scientists and inventors at the same time.

Calculus is a famous example of simultaneous invention. It was discovered in the late 17th century separately by both Isaac Newton (in England) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (in Germany) and created a major controversy in the intellectual community.

Similarly, identical theories of natural selection were simultaneously invented by Charles Darwin and Arthur Russel Wallace. In 1858, Darwin had written the bulk of his treatise, On the Origin of Species, when he received a letter from Wallace. The letter contained Wallace’s theory of natural selection, with conclusions identical to Darwin’s findings. The two ultimately collaborated on a scientific paper about evolution.

And although Scottish-Canadian engineer Alexander Graham Bell is generally credited with the invention of the telephone, an American inventor named Elisha Gray submitted his patent for the telephone on the very same day that Bell’s patent was received. A lengthy legal battle ensued.

We now live in a world that’s been revolutionized by calculus, the theory of natural selection, and the telephone. Does it matter that these ideas were simultaneously invented and discovered? Not really. What matters is that they exist and how they’ve influenced civilization.

So perhaps my blogs, which originate in my mind but have likely been articulated elsewhere on the internet in some capacity, have inherent value. Writing is not a zero-sum game in which one person’s ideas detract from another’s. The writing process itself counts. The cognitive work of sorting through my thoughts and putting pen to paper is itself worthwhile, regardless of the end product. And maybe, as Gide suggests, my seemingly inconsequential contributions are somehow playing a role in the greater conversation.