Saturday, January 19, 2013

original thinking, original thought

When I worked as a news reporter, it used to make me testy as a wet cat when someone would regurgitate an idea I had retailed to him/her ... under the pretense that the idea or thinking was their own. By extension, it used to put a burr under my saddle to hear someone expatiating ideas they had clearly read in a book or heard on the evening news. There was never any attribution or nod to the source of the presentation ... and I thought it was galling and gutless ... and, of course, common.

Nowadays I think there's something to be said for recognizing:

1. All thinking is original thinking.
2. There is no such thing as an original thought.
3. And whatever thought there is, it most assuredly does not belong to me.

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