Posting and Pasting and Linking and Such

Big Frank has been thinking lately about how much of what we write, read, and talk about is really just a post, past or link to someone else's thoughts. How much of what you share, not what you think necessarily, falls into this category? OK, exclude what Big Frank refers to as your personal itinerary: you know, where you have been lately, who you were with, and what it is that what it is that you are planning to do. Then think about actual exchange of information apart from that. Much of it centers on books you read, stuff you read in the paper or online, movies you saw, or, what you heard on the radio or TV. On the social networking sites and many blogs, the ideas often relayed via links to other people's or organizations presentation of causes, spins, editorials, rants, or other packages of ideas. Think of the last time that you had a conversation and shared an idea (not about your decorating, your yard, your children, your past or upcoming journeys, or your friends and relatives) that was YOURS and not the passing on of something that you read or heard? OK, Big Frank hears your mutterings - "So, smarty pants, what's your distinctly original idea that YOU have to share with us?" Well, actually, this is it! Remember: that's WHAT IT IS!

"With so many options to choose from people find it very difficult to choose at all", is what Barry Schwartz, author of "The Paradox of Choice (click on the link to hear Barry speak on this at TED)" has to say. So what does this have to do with original ideas? Hmmm . . . . this may be a leap, but Big Frank thinks that with sooooo much information out there that people pass on trying to examine anthing in any depth or breadth, rather they just grab what feels good right out of the gate. What does this have to do with original thought? Quite a bit, actually, because thinking is a kind of paradox of choice itself; your mind has a zillion things that it has to choose from at any time, and as a result often opts out and just goes with what is loudest, most persistent, and generally stays on one's mind. The way out of this to real original thought. Well, remember tough love? No, this isn't that. Tough thought require overcoming weakness of will and the ability to limit choices and work with what remains. Not sure if that's an original thought, but Big Frank doesn't know where it came from if it isn't.

Of course, having an original idea means you must have courage, and face the quite real chance that your original idea could be wrong, or misguided, or in some way lame. It takes courage to be creative. And it may appear that Big Frank is contradicting himself in attaching a quotation and link on this, but, so what?

Here's Sir Ken Robinson on all this: "If you are not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original." Listen to Sir Ken at TED on originality here.