Now I am truly off. First lines of a new idea for a new short have been written down and I feel quite excited. I remember this phase; it is one of the more pleasant ones when you think that your idea is so original that no man in the history of humanity has ever come up with such an idea. But this phase is sharply followed by a more unpleasant one when, blushing, I can’t believe the gobbledygook I am writing and the unforgivable pride I find myself guilty of in thinking that my idea is in any way original. But does it have to be original? Or is everything, all the ideas linked in an endless chain through history?
I guess it depends ultimately on what view one has on the position of the individual in the society. Do you believe that we are born into a culture and there is not much we can do about it, or do you believe that every child born is an original, unattached, blank canvas? Is a child an original or an improved copy?
Seeing my own boy, this mixture of two European cultures, Polish and Czech (plus a whole encyclopaedia worth of other European influences) genetically and two other European cultures as influences (Swedish and English), one can clearly see that the genetic are stronger than the acquired. He is not a Sweden not English, he is too frozen for that (!), in his ways, in his way of thinking and in the way he looks. But he would completely fit into a Polish or a Czech surrounding, even behaviourally. So although he is unique, he is not original. And I think this is a good lesson to be aware of. You do not have to be original, but you should always add something of yourself to the stew. It has to be true, and by being true it becomes unique.
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