Why Originality May Be Our Most Effective Survival Mechanism During These Tumultuous Times

Most will agree that these are unprecedented times. We just experienced a chaotic election, racial tensions are at an all-time high, and bias news reporting has stooped to an all-time low. All of these things, of course, are fueled by either skewed truths or just flat out lies. 

The question is this: If the world around us is entangled in falsehoods and lies, then where is the truth? 

Simple.

Inside of us. 

Not just any truth. But our artistic truth. A creative ideal born in the purist part of our inner-self. In other words, our originality. 

Contrary to popular belief, originality is not only about claiming creative turf, but it’s also the unveiling of possibilities. Simply put, hope. It’s the kind of hope that comes deep from within and can stand up against most oppositional forces. Originality is a kind of enlightenment that moves you out of the realms of competition and acquisition, and into the realms of discovery and appreciation. As a general rule of thumb, we can appreciate much more than we can acquire. As a musician, this can mean simply discovering music. But, more profoundly, it’s about the discovery of oneself. There can be some darkness in your discovery, but at the nucleus is an effervescent shining light that gets brighter the deeper you go, not darker. 

Looking at my own path, the clearer and more crystalized my artistic-self becomes, the less fazed I am about the things that happen around me. Most things appear to me, not as wins and losses, satisfaction and disappointment, but lessons learned and to be learned. 

The good news is that this originality/hope/sea of possibilities is latent within all of us. We simply have to clear our hearts and minds and let its radiance come through again. You'll not only do yourself a favor, but the world around you.