lowering our intellectual brows

There is no original thought or ideology in this world. Everything has been thought up before. We just repeat it over and over again, in a new form, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. It’s just a matter of packaging. A fresh perspective is nothing but a rehashed ideology of another that has been given a new twist, or a certain modification here and there. Those grand “–isms” that we love to discuss lengthily have their inspiration in nature or in the thinker’s environment; a reconstitution of thoughts from Plato’s world of ideas.

This universe is interconnected. We are all made up of the same matter. What we conjure inside our brain has probably been dancing inside the mind of another in the foggy marshes of Scotland. What right have we to shout “Eureka!” and claim that some brilliantly original thought just popped into our heads, when, hundreds of thousands of miles away from us, in the confines of a stony, deadened cloisters of a Benedictine monastery, a monk has been philosophizing about the same idea for months?

In a world where rapidity is almost synonymous to brilliance and intelligence, whoever gets to patent his or her idea first wins. Never mind if that idea has been cooking in the minds of worthier people halfway across the globe. Whoever writes it down first gets to claim that idea as her own. With what hubris could we display our laurels and bask under the artificial glory of klieg lights?

Thinking about this humbles me down. There is absolutely nothing I (or anyone, for that matter) could be proud of. Everything I have ever thought of, every artwork I have created, every good thing I have done to my fellow human beings has been thought up, created, and done countless times before. Right at this very moment, somewhere in the vast expanse of our uncharted universe, some creature with three eyes and antennaes as ears is probably having his three eyes scanned by a supercomputer to store the very same thoughts that I am typing away on my keyboard.

I am merely a tiny particle of rust in a huge machinery of heavy pistons and grinding wheels. I am insignificant.

Humans have built insanely enormous temples and churches to house their invented gods and deities. For me, these monuments are a homage to the Universe. It simply represents the vastness of space and the inconsequentiality of our existence.

The sooner we realize this, the better we could situate ourselves within our limited context, and perhaps lower our intellectual brows a bit.