I have been staring at this comment for over 2 hours. It is brilliant on so many levels... During that first hour, two people DMed me, and said a couple of my practices are genius.

I think that this is one of the very most important ideas I have ever read on YC:

"It is crucial to maintain mental flexibility and one does that by thinking things through."

Quite a compliment, thanks. I learned this approach in industrial design school, where you're surrounded by a whole class of other people who also have their own ideas. You sketch your ideas and there is a real danger of falling in love with something too quickly and cramping to push it through. And then you realize, it only looked good on paper, or only looked good to you, or to were mistaken about its functionality, proportions, readability or whatnot.

Those who want to create great things cannot afford to fall into love with them. You can fall into love with a particular problem or question, but not with a specific solution, especially not if you came up with it.

One of the big downsides of the internet is the cold water it constantly pours on my idea of my own originality. Every time I think of a great idea I find someone else has already thought of it

(well, almost every time)

> Every time I think of a great idea I find someone else has already thought of it

that's because an idea's greatness does not come from the creator, but from the other people affected by the idea. And most ideas dont affect anyone.

That does not make it a etter or worse idea though. Realistically, most people will only ever have ideas that someone else somewhere else will already have had.

Does that mean, that the idea is commonly known? Not necessarily.

It is also still an original idea in terms of you having thought, that was not easily derived from what you know (but probably somehow derived, like all thought likely is).

Originality does not exist, humans are not capable of purely original thought.

Closest you can get are unique sentences.

If this was true then we would all be thought-free, unless every thought a human has thunk originally came from our non-human ancestors

Collective (un)concious, yes.

There is no parallel chains of unconnected thought.

We are barely, rarely more than the sum of our parts on average.

We have very convincing illusions of free will though - like the apparent exhibition of agency.

I am sure this is not an original thought.

It may have been for them.

I could have phrased it as "convinced themselves they had an original thought" but that sounded too cynical even for me.