Originality

You probably haven't noticed, since I assume most people aren't constantly taking note of my various tics, but I'll occasionally make this "awkward" face, where I grimace and make my eyes dart to either side as if I'm avoiding eye contact. I do it on purpose, it's supposed to be comedic, pretending to tell the person that what they just said is deeply uncomfortable. I got that from Ethan Chen.

Here's another tic: Sometimes I'll jerk my neck muscles, pulling the corner of my mouth down into a sort of half-grimace. I started doing it after seeing my friend's dad do it once.

Another: If I'm walking and thinking hard about something, I'll tap my thumb against the rest of my fingers in a deliberate sequence. I got that from a character that appeared in a single episode of Fringe.

My weirdly posh and over consonated speech when I get heated? That's Schmidt from New Girl. The way I draw out certain letters and peculiarly extend words when attempting to sound authoritative or menacing? James Spader in Age of Ultron (also James Spader in the Office, but less). The specific way I hold my phone as I glance at it under my desk? From the pages of Van Gundersen. Stuttering and sentence fragmenting for comedic effect is a combination of Justin Roiland's characters in Rick and Morty along with some Amir from Jake and Amir.

The point is, my personality is and, for as long as I can remember, has been a hodgepodge of behavioral quirks from my peers, my favorite characters, and anything else I pick up along the way. I don't think there's a single aspect of my behavior that can't be at least partially traced back to another source. Which is a really strange thought. Am I an actual person with original thoughts and concepts and ways to be, or is every part of my identity just something I stole from someone else?

And I know I'm not the only person this applies to, so are any of us really our own people? Now, this might not be a bad thing, I kinda like the idea of being a sort of Voltron of behavioral traits, but at the same time, I want some things that are my own.

But is it even possible to have something entirely your own? So much of our lives are influenced by our environments, fancy science people have said time and time again that nature's impact is so minimal compared to nurture: The socioecnomic standing you grew up in, the emotional support from people around you, the media you consume, determines who you are way more than any sort of innate traits.

While I was thinking over this, a quote came to mind that often does when I start thinking about originality. It's from legendary director Quentin Tarantino and he says, “I steal from every single movie ever made. If my work has anything, it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.”

Now, anything that comes from Tarantino should be held in the highest esteem, obviously, but I hold this one in particularly high regard. Though he's specifically talking about art, I think this applies to us as well. I think what makes us who we are isn't so much who we inherently are, but what we choose to take from the world around us, and how much.