Original thoughts: Are your thoughts yours?

There is no shortage of people giving their opinions these days. Whether it’s someone on social media talking about a new restaurant that opened up, or a comedian giving their latest political take, the amount of “hot takes” seems infinite. It’s hard to do anything online without being bombarded by the thoughts of other people, leaving very little room for us to come up with our own, original thoughts. 

The truth is, it’s much harder to come up with your own thoughts about something than it is to regurgitate what someone else has said. Luckily, science has kept up with this topic, so we can start to untangle our thoughts from those that originated with us vs. those that were put there by someone else. 

One research group looked at “semantic distance and creativity,” studying what happens in the brain when two very different words can be linked. It found that people who could make these connections were more generally more creative than those who couldn’t, which gave a little insight into the levels of mental leaps required to create originality. Immediately, this made me think of the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” where any actor can be connected to Kevin Bacon within six or fewer steps. People have to use a lot of creativity to not only make that happen, but to do it in the least amount of steps possible. 

Multiple studies show our “original” thoughts are often just a combination of things we’ve thought or heard before. We do this all of the time, often without thinking. For a simplistic example, let’s say you want to cook lentil pasta. You know that regular pasta is cooked with boiling water, and you know lentils are cooked with boiling water, so your lentil pasta will more than likely be cooked with boiling water. Or think of the show MacGyver. He was legendary for having only a few items and being able to get out of sticky situations, drawing on his prior knowledge of the functionality of each item. He mentally made those connections, and it helped him conjure the creativity to solve a puzzle.

This joining of ideas can work both to our benefit and detriment. Let’s say you want to start a business. The good news is that there is a lot of information out there about how to get started. You might even be able to find some people in your desired industry to look up to. However, that also means that there are examples of failures that might make you think twice about going forward with your plan. But armed with the knowledge of what your brain might be doing, you can use the power of combining ideas to create a plan that will make your business avoid the pitfalls others fell into and capitalize on areas of success.

However, there is one way to get close to an original thought: daydream. Research shows that when we let our minds wander, they naturally make connections that we might not otherwise consciously make on our own. It is in the not trying that we’re able to solve problems and think outside the box. This is why you may find an unexpected solution or have a great idea when you’re in the shower or on a walk. While we can generate a lot of creative power to come up with a way to connect two distant concepts, our brains might go ahead and do that anyway. This is referred to as loosely associated or unconscious thinking. 

So, how does all of this make you 1% better? 

There’s a commonly quoted phrase that there’s “nothing new under the sun,” but, personally, I don’t think that’s wholly true. Because you are singular in your existence. There is no other “you,” which means no one else is capable of thinking the thoughts you are. You can connect existing ideas to make new ones, to start projects and movements that haven’t been done. And sure, all of the elements necessary to support the creation of those things are already here, but the thought itself originated from you. 

How are you using these thoughts? Are you using them to support you and your dreams? Or are you using them to keep yourself firmly in place? Are you passively letting solutions present themselves to you, or are you forcing them solely based on what you heard someone else say or do? 

You have a wonderful ability to breathe newness into the world with your own unique worldview and set of skills. How can you use that to add joy and excitement to your life? How can you generate more of your thoughts on your own instead of just repeating what someone else has said? Try to take the time to connect the semantic distance between ideas and see just how wild your ideas can get. 

With gratitude, 

Natalie