Has every thought been thought already? The question of whether anybody really has an original experience anymore is what keeps me up at night. I was a firm believer that our thoughts and experiences are what set us apart from others. I often catch myself underlining lines in books or adding quotes to my Pinterest board just because they perfectly express what I’m thinking. Realizing that someone else once experienced exactly what I’m experiencing right now and was able to articulate it is surreal. It is almost unsettling how accurate it is.
I was telling my friend how my mom used to throw sugar on my chapati to get me to eat because I was such a finicky eater. I thought I was the only one who had this particular, oddly personal childhood memory. However, she later told me that she had experienced the same thing. When she threw a fit over eating, her chapati was occasionally dipped in chocolate sauce. At that moment, it dawned on me that perhaps we no longer truly have “original” experiences. Surprisingly, even the times I believed the experience to be truly mine, it was shared.
This phenomenon could be explained by history repeating itself, but not in detail. If we go through the past experiences of people, we might find links with them. There is a high probability we might find someone who was once in our shoes. As a college student, I believe everyone is living a similar life, if not the same. I thought I was the only one going through an existential crisis at least once a week, questioning what I’m doing with my life and fretting over not having it together, until I realised my fellow batchmates felt the same way.
The same question daunts us all. We all follow the same routine, eat the same food, wear similar clothes, listen to the same music on loop, and even have similar life goals. It feels like everyone my age thinks the same, feels the same, and lives the same. This makes me question the originality of my own ideas. Everything that I think is influenced by conversations I have had, books I have read, or the music I listen to. My shared experiences shape me as an individual, making it difficult to gain a complete uniqueness.
Every “new” concept we encounter frequently feels like a rearrangement of something that already exists; it’s as if our minds are simply spinning a kaleidoscope and creating new patterns out of old colors. In a way, it is what brings us together and creates a sense of reliability. Whether it’s a song playing on loop since it makes you feel like it was written from your own thoughts, or a movie you rewatch as it reflects a version of yourself. In a world where we share so many experiences, I think it is less about originality and more about recognition. There is a feeling of comfort in finding pieces of yourself in places you would have never imagined.