I am simply, just as every individual is, a patchwork of all my influences. Every word I have heard has altered the way I speak; every sentence I have read has affected the way I write. Perhaps even my gestures are borrowed, or something as intimate as the squint of an eye, the curl of a lip--even these may be seen hanging somewhere in a picture, having entered my mind silently, unnoticed. The intonation in my voice--the rises, the falls, as I speak, as I sing--these may as well have also been taken from another's throat, from some innocent whim to mimic the pleasantness of another's sound, whether in casual conversation, or from a track on a favorite CD. However this is not an argument against the existence of originality; rather, it is an attempt to redefine it.

There is a preconceived notion that originality characterizes that which does not borrow from anything else. But we do not exist in a vacuum; does that make us unoriginal, un-unique? We are painted upon by all we have ever seen, heard, tasted--we are canvases for the things we have touched and the things that touch us. But nothing ever leaves quite the same pattern on any two people. As our physical being is formed from any combination of the traits given it from father and mother, so our character and passions are borne from a certain mixture of intuition and experience. That is what makes us original--no two people will have the same combination of influences, or share alike in every experience. And thus the ideas we shape and let fly into the world may also be unique, because they are born and grow wings within the gears of an exclusively configured mind. Every eye that glances upon a certain portion of the world will process it differently because each views it through a different lens.

Throughout my life I have become frustrated and thrown away many a crumpled paper because of this--because of the primitive, flawed concept of originality that continued to pulse through my brain. I would think: this sentence here, I feel I have read it before, and try a new combination of words. And then those would not suffice either. Of course they never would--it is because everything that I could ever say would, inevitably, just be pieces of that which has already been said, arranged differently. But words have always moved the world. Music has always found a way to be beautiful. Somehow, the tide keeps moving, and shifting things in new places, but the water is still the same. I feel more myself now having realized that there is no shame in wearing my influences on my sleeve, carrying within me that which I love and that has done me good and placing it on a table from time to time for others to look at. There is something wonderful about being able to see by the glint in someone's eye exactly what propels them forward; some thrilling vulnerability in the tremor of someone's voice when listening to them talk fervently about something that moves them.

When asked to describe myself, I can think of no better response than to immediately describe that which I love. Every perfumed word of every poet and novelist I have read flows through my veins, as every note of every song I have enjoyed still rings clearly in my ears. My passion for humanity and its gift of expression and communication as a means of advancing itself I bear as my nametag, or in place of it. I am but one person but I carry within me the vast sea of ambition that is visible in every youth's eye, turning always with the tide of those before me. I hope to be a voice that will push that current onwards--that my words may, one day, be interwoven in the patchwork of someone's identity as well.