Under the Sun

Is there nothing new? We have existed, one way or another, on this planet, for centuries, for millennia, for countless ages. We have plumbed the depths of our creativity over and over again, it seems. We have drunk the well of our God-given communal heritage dry and, more recently, drained the dregs of our proud, individualistic creative talents. Is there nothing new under the sun?

 

Here we sit, in our shady nook, with a pint of Snowdonia’s best local brew and a half of London Pride. We gaze contentedly at the estuary and its muddy sand flats. Each to his own. We are no longer limited to the restricted menu of a solely local choice. The world is our oyster. A small flotilla of ducks drifts lazily by. The steep sides of the estuary are thickly covered with dark green mixed woodland, traditional oaks that have supported a prosperous ship-building industry in times past and a spread of tall, dark conifers. It is somehow reminiscent of a Canadian lake scene, the high peaks towering above us and the shore lined with trees. All that is lacking is a grizzly bear, teaching its young to go fishing for breakfast. Everywhere reminds us of somewhere else. Everywhere is a little like this, a little like that, a little like ... so many other places I have been, scenes I remember, locations I have cherished and stored away in my memory for posterity.

 

We were discussing copyright the other day. What makes something copyright? Is it just an original idea? Is it a new technical specification? Is it a chunk of written material, crafted yesterday – or so many years ago – and now appearing in some word-hungry student’s course work, plagiarised word for word with total disregard for the author’s moral right? What if I take a chunk of this and add it to a chunk of that, then add a twist, a turn of my own? Is that plagiarism or is it a fresh new piece of original thought – ‘all my own work’? What percentage must be new? Can I take 50%, 70%, 95% of the old, provided I can just find a missing ingredient to transform it? Is this what newness consists of nowadays? Have all the old original thoughts been taken?

If I take the broken fragments of a thousand original utterances and place them together as a freshly crafted mosaic is this newness of thought? Is this a new creation – a mini ‘big bang’ produced with the aid of the ‘god particle’? A favourite quotation of mine seems to cover the case: twentieth century novelist, Virginia Woolf, wrote that: “truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error”*. ‘The truth’ – that surely would be a novel discovery! After all our searchings, all our posturing, all our pride and prejudice, if one were to discover the truth in a mosaic of broken fragments of error, how original would that be? No case for plagiarism here. The whole truth has escaped us all thus far and would be singled out by its total originality.

 

In the meantime, in the absence of such an awesome discovery, I will enjoy the last sips of my London Pride and continue to savour this glorious look-alike scene before me. Who cares if it is totally original? Actually, I would love to see a grizzly... Maybe life can be viewed as a kind of collage these days, a fresh compilation of numerous assorted pieces, collated in a variety of new and original ways? After all, my blog, in its turn, is informed by selected fragments of an inaccurately remembered and casually reported radio chat show the other morning, plus a few 'original' thoughts of my own! Nothing new there, except my own thoughts on the subject. Or is there?

 

*Virginal Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, pub. 1929