https://medium.com/darius-foroux/wheres-the-creativity-c6e5a0e17775
“X things (fill in the blanks) people don’t do”
Are you tired of those annoying headlines as well? Where’s the creativity? It’s a sign that people have run out of ideas, so they rehash the same concepts.
- 10 things cool people don’t do
- 5 things that intelligent people do do
- 9 things emotional people don’t do!
I get that it’s tempting to do what others are doing, but why imitate people? I remember when I started writing, I had this strong urge to copy what my favorite writers were doing. And there’s no shame in looking at others for inspiration.
One of my biggest inspirations is Oscar Wilde. I read his poems when I was in high school and also read a lot about his life. He was his own man and lived with honor.
At the height of his fame and success in 1895, Wilde was arrested and convicted for “gross indecency with men.” Something we can’t imagine in today’s world. He was sentenced to two years’ hard labour. After jail, he was never the same again and lived in exile until his death. Wilde died of meningitis on 30 November 1900 at the age of 46. Some look at his life as a tragedy, but I only saw strength. When I write, I often think of Oscar Wilde. Especially this quote:
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
The other day I was on a Skype call with one of my readers, Ivan. He asked me what I was reading at the moment. I said I stopped reading popular self-help books a while back, because I learned from one of my mentors that “if you read what everyone else is reading, you get the same ideas as everyone else.”
I hope we will remember Wilde’s work forever. He lived his life in his own unique way. He didn’t need to copy others or rehash his own ideas because he simply lived as he was. And if you live as you are, you change all the time. So if you’re constantly writing or talking about the same things, it’s a sign you haven’t grown. Oscar Wilde is also the person who famously said:
“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”
There’s much more. If you want to read Wilde, check out this collection. It’s less than a buck on Kindle. He has the ability to change your perspective with one sentence—simply by being honest and sincere. That’s true creativity: Being yourself.