Whenever one starts writing literary works based on any genre, an aspiring author may look at already written works in the genre he or she is interested in to gain some insight into how to write and structure their stories, and then give their own spin to it to retain their originality.

John Napier invented the abacus, aka known as the Napier Bones, to make sure that calculations easier, and centuries later, the calculator was invented to establish streamlined calculations for day-to-day calculations such as transactions. Similarly, when a baby is born, it is taught values by its parents growing up, then the baby matures into a toddler who goes to school and learns languages and absorbs them and the personalities circulating around him or her and then further manipulates the values they have acquired to fit their mental system but that doesn’t mean it’s their original personality.

When we witness something original, how do we understand the reasons or situations, or the criteria around it that lead to the establishment of a new idea or invention in any field? What is the historicity and basis of originality? Are ideas original, or are they just refinements of concepts that were already given decades of centuries ago?

Whenever we look, observe, or study the concept of originality, the process of creativity pops up. Each person has tried to describe the notion of creativity in their own manner, for e.g., a layman, in his or her own words, would describe creativity as a process associated with fine arts in which the artist creates a sculpture or painting describing an individual, situation, or phenomenon. On the other hand, scientists have described creativity as a step-by-step process to attain a new discovery.

But what exactly triggers this originality or creativity? Is it an accumulation of prodigious data in an individual’s head, such as a forte for mathematics or having the swift batsman performance of Sachin Tendulkar? Is it an accumulation of social and intellectual criteria, such as one’s upbringing, environment, and education? Or is it an art? Or maybe an individual’s interest in a particular subject, after which he or she discovers a topic in that field that had already been laid down before, and they just make it better by refining it?

A crucial point that happens or occurs in everyone’s life in some way or the other is the evaluation of one’s self or personality. People demand that we must be true to what we are in terms of our thinking and behaviour, but can we ever attain that? Maybe it’s difficult even for psychologists, sociologists, and cognitive and behavioral scientists to dissect an individual’s personality simply because a person has about a hundred shades, and all those shades might contradict one another. A baby is born, it grows up, it cries, it becomes a teenager, makes his or her own choices while entering adulthood, during the process of adulthood, they make decisions for their life and career, they enter midlife and get older. How can it be possible to establish an original self during this entire period? One might observe and meet people and grow and change their views on concepts that they had previously held, so while transitioning in their views, a part of them changes or dies what they had previously held. A lesson that they had learnt previously now contradicts itself with a new learning that they have acquired. This could be also be classified from the perspective of neuroscience as well as when we get older, the average human has a higher propensity to acquire brain related illnesses such as dementia and Alzheimer’s which impairs one’s cognition and thought process and thus eradicating the original self of an individual which had existed before the acquisition of mental illness. An individual houses a hundred shades in their personality. Most of those shades contradict one another, and will it be possible to define all those hundred shades?

Creativity could also be applied to the field of literature, where authors just starting out will observe stories in their favourite genres and, after getting inspired by them, they will have their own take on the stories. Further down the line, they will start blending different ideas to form their own unique stories to express their creative mind and its processes, and thus it could be said all of literature is mostly inspired by one, just giving their own take on it.

The concept of creativity and originality has also been emphasized heavily in the field of science, but maybe the notion and process are distinct from those of the humanities and arts. Creativity in science has always been centered on moving closer to the truth, or in other words, discovering a reality that wasn’t previously visible to us because we believed in certain myths or redundant beliefs. The scientific mind has always moved closer to discover the truth about the world but not in the way an artist would such as creating a series of works to mimic or reflect upon the notion of society but rather to experiment and discover or create something which wasn’t visible to us via the naked eye or lack of technology for example the invention of microscope made it possible for all of us to view the structure of objects at a cellular level and in that scientific process not only old beliefs tumbled but rather they formed a grid on plane surface which not only extinguished old myths about the science but also conceals certain truths which are meant to broken down later and made visible to the mind. This thought could also be compared to the concept of gravity. How is gravity on Earth, and what set of challenges will humans face in terms of structural engineering when establishing colonies on Mars?

The notion of creativity and originality also finds itself at an intersection point between business and science. For example, many people have this belief that in order to establish a business, all you require is a novel idea, product, or service, but that is not the entire story, even in terms of originality. For example, many people credit Apple with the invention of the smartphone, but that’s not true. Smartphones existed prior to the launch of iPhone as well, but Apple made it better by getting rid of the stylus feature and making sure that we use the tools that we’re born with, our fingers. Similarly, McDonald’s wasn’t the one to pioneer the concept of fast food, but with a little bit of branding and marketing, they were able to upscale it. Similarly, the concept of entertainment, sports, theatre and stage weren’t new but the professional wrestling company World Wrestling Entertainment aka WWE chose to create a fusion of sports and entertainment and coined the term “sports entertainment” which offered a blend of entertainment and athleticism to excite and entertain the fans and offer something new in the entertainment and business landscapes. When you start something on your own from scratch, it takes years of hit and trial and experiment to get it right, but when you follow an already established path and then give it your own twist, the process becomes much simpler and straightforward.

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