The Pressure to Try to Be Original Is Obnoxious and Ridiculous

when everything is basically plagiarism, let’s find joy in eu-constraints.

Audio voiceover available here for paid subs!

Something new happened recently.

For the past seven years, I’ve always had the “next” writing project. As in, whenever I finished the current thing, I always had the next thing. Usually there’s about five things in the queue—from articles to book chapters to academic papers to pitches to proposals.

But after finishing my last article, the aforementioned new happening happened:

I didn’t have the next thing.

Which felt confusing—like encountering an inside joke that you pretend you’re in on but don’t really get.

So I scanned the mental reserves to check for anything squirreled away. Nothing—a concerning lack of activity, honestly. Then I pulled up Word and scrolled through my everything in my storage. I probably read 25 rough drafts; all too rough.

So for the first time in seven years, I had no idea what to write.

It wasn’t really writer’s block—it was more of a black hole of novelty. Almost like a decision paralysis from realizing that every possible thing that I could say had already been said—and was there any use in just rephrasing smarter peoples’ words?

But in tossing spaghetti at my brain’s wall searching for something interesting when everything’s interesting’s been said before, I noticed I’d been thinking intensely about not having anything new to say for 25 hours.

So I thought: can I write about that?

And so I did.

Here’s the TL;DR, offered in three premises that form a rough syllogism:¹

1. There’s nothing new to say—even your most creative thoughts start to feel uncreative with enough backtracking through your creative influences.

2. Especially for those doing theology: most of what you could write—or even think—has already been written or thunk before. Which makes the pressure to come up with something original both ridiculous and exhausting.

3. Yet that constraint—the fact that we’re all stuck repeating & remixing ideas because we’re supposed to stay within the sandbox built by biblical theology—is a good thing. That limitation provides a bottomless well of innovation.

Because, the more I studied the futility of writing when everything’s already been written, the more I saw that this constraint makes us thrive—the boundaries and borders and limitations are actually more gift than curse.²

To begin,

everything is plagiarism,

if you do enough research.

When I first started writing, I’d dream up an original idea and get this euphoric nerd high.

Nowadays when I dream up an original idea, I take it as evidence that I haven’t done enough reading.

Sooner or later, that original idea pops up in someone else’s book.

As Qoholeth, the author of Ecclesiastes, said,

“Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”?

It has already existed for ages…

There is nothing new under the sun” (1:10, 9).

He’s right. In fact, lots of “original ideas” that seemed novel in their heyday are just remixes of biblical ideas.

• Shades of 18-20th century existentialism already popped up in Paul’s exposition on inner conflict in Romans 7.³

• Nietzsche’s ubermensch (super man) and letztermensch (last man) dichotomy was already (loosely) proposed in Qoheleth.⁴

• And of course, the belief in humanity’s inherent dignity—which backgrounded every human rights advancement of the past few centuries—has its origins in the Bible’s first chapter: “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26-27).

Not every idea that ever was pops up in the Bible—just most good ones.⁵

To clarify, all of us can write plenty of new sentences that’ve never been put together before. And that’s because we keep inventing new things. But I’d wager that even when we write new sentences to comment on new things, we’re probably relying on timeless, universal principles that’ve been around since people started putting pen to papyri.⁶

Some people hate this idea; but it’s not as constricting as it seems.

Yes, there’s nothing new under the sun—but there’s always a need to find new ways to describe old things. In fact, it’s one of the most noble tasks we can assign our imaginations.

To explain, let’s discuss why

constraints make us freer.

Imagine a film studio (A24, for example) hired you to make a movie. Assuming you want to make the best possible film, which of the following options would you prefer?

1. You have complete freedom—your budget is limitless, you can cast anyone you want, and you can craft plot from scratch.

2. You have a 5-million-dollar budget, 5 actors already cast, and a 5-page loose plot treatment that you’re allowed to adjust slightly here and there.

Most assume the first option (more freedom) is best.

But the science writer David Epstein points out that, contrary to this knee-jerk belief, less freedom usually encourages more creativity.

Epstein (such an unfortunate last name, the poor guy) explains why through the “The Green Eggs and Ham”⁷ model of creativity.

The model gets its name from a Random House editor who bet Dr. Seuss that he couldn’t write a children’s book by using a vocabulary of only 50 words.

And of course, Dr. Seuss did—selling 200 million books in the process. And it worked so well it became his paradigm for writing most of his bestselling books: limit the word count, limit the pool of words that you can use, and this will force your creativity into overdrive.⁸

Again, the go-to assumption is that freedom leads to innovation. But sadly, as the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham says, “Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking. It’s designed to save you from having to think.”⁹

Because the brain is naturally inclined to avoid effortful thinking and to rely instead on familiar patterns, complete freedom tends to lead to unoriginal ideas, simply repeating what is known.¹⁰

This is why many directors, novelists, and bands who make it big often wind up rehashing their earlier work in their new projects. Their success causes their studios, publishers, and labels to start giving them more freedom, but this often ends up with them falling back on what works: films with the same formulaic plot, novels with interchangeable architecture, or the same four chords that originally got the band on the charts.

When everything’s possible, our brains go on autopilot and take the path of least resistance. We start conforming to past triumphs to avoid the discomfort of shaping future innovations.¹¹

Conversely, putting parameters around our freedom pushes “the brain beyond its default tendencies, forcing it to engage in deeper problem-solving.”¹²

Examples? Sure:

The Beauty of Eu-Constraints (“Good Constraints”)

The radio personality Howard Stern said that at beginning of his career, he was all about breaking boundaries and exploiting taboos. So he’d interview adult film stars and do extended bits on bestiality and plenty other things you shouldn’t mention in a Christian subculture.

Yet, even though chaos is fun for a bit, Stern realized that it eventually gets surprisingly dry and repetitive. Coherence is a necessity—it gives the audience a norm that allows them to feel surprise when the norm gets broken. Edginess isn’t possible when there aren’t any rules.

When nothing’s off limits, we develop a dizziness from the anxiety of possibility. As the novelist James Baldwin wrote, “There is nothing more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.”¹³

So Stern pulled back, added rules, and built one of the most successful audio format shows of all time.

Plenty studies show the beauty of eu-constraints:

• When asked to draw what lifeforms would look like on other planets, most people drew creatures that looked like what you’d see at any old earth zoo. But when they were given the rule that they had to figure out how the lifeforms would eat, they quickly dreamed up more atypical designs.¹⁴

• When asked how to improve public health, subjects only started generating novel ideas when they were given a specific field to focus on (i.e., nutrition, exercise, hygiene).¹⁵

• When asked to produce creative rhymes (aka, spit bars), people performed much better when they were forced to integrate a specific word than when they had an endless word bank.¹⁶

Personally, I was stumped on what to write for this essay because it felt like I had limitless options of things to write about. But then I remembered that that’s not true. Plenty’s off limits. Ex: I’m not going to write heresy.

It might seem silly to acknowledge that, but it’s weirdly helpful. Two musicians of equal renown, Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) and Ke$ha, say that they often start songwriting sessions by writing a terrible song. And once they get the bad song out of their system, it shows them what’s off limits, putting a cap on the unbearableness of freedom and providing clarity on what a better song might look like.

Beyond that, there’s the rule every writer hates but needs: the deadline. One copywriter called deadlines “amphetamines for writers.”¹⁷ My rule is sending out an article once every 14 days, with some leeway for emergencies and vacations. Which again, seems unfun and stingy—but it’s a constraint I literally need to keep me from listlessly watching Tim Robinson Youtube videos instead of writing.

Now, those of us who write, preach, or teach have an incredibly unique constraint: the fact that what we say has to stay within the parameters of biblical theology or else it becomes blasphemy.

Thankfully, this limitation is less handicap than opportunity.

The Freedom of Unoriginality

One of the leading scholars on MLK Jr., Keith Miller, was putting the finishing touches on his PhD when a friend called him up. Apparently, the friend found a sermon by J. Wallace Hamilton that was almost an exact copy of King’s sermon “The Drum Major Instinct.” Miller laughed it off at first—until he tracked Hamilton’s sermons down and found one called “Drum-Major Instincts” dated 16 years before King’s sermon.¹⁸

But even worse, as Miller dug deeper, he found more and more damning evidence. Apparently, many of MLK Jr.’s most popular sermons were plagiarized.

However, as he traversed the sources and followed the footnotes, Miller found a bread trail. Even though King copied Hamilton, Hamilton had actually copied his sermon from a popular Atlanta radio preacher, who copied the sermon from a Yale theology professor, who copied the sermon from Reverend Ernest Tittle, who copied the sermon from an unnamed liberal preacher, who copied the sermon from an itinerant Virginian pastor, who copied the sermon from John Wesley.¹⁹ The more Miller researched, the more he found that many preachers from MLK Jr.’s generation plagiarized sermons without citing sources.

What was with all this stealing? Well, our modern ears hear this and think “plagiarism.” But apparently, before 50 years ago, people would’ve heard this and thought “remixing.”

MLK Jr. came up in the folk preaching tradition, watching both his dad and grandad preach from a paradigm where borrowing someone else’s words wasn’t taboo—it was even encouraged.

Apparently, “excessive originality” was considered “self-centered, if not downright suspicious.”²⁰ Familiarity with tradition showed more respect for your audience than attempts at originality. By borrowing from what other people said, it was like paying homage to the great cloud of witnesses.

Now, I’m all for decreasing plagiarism (hot take, I know) and believe citing sources is an artform, but honestly, this skepticism about originality is kinda comforting.

Every pastor I know is exhausted by the pressure to come up with something innovative each week. Most writers feel dread wondering how their next piece will compare with their last.

Which is unfortunate—and a little weird. We want our theology to look innovative, when theology itself hasn’t really innovated much over the past 2,000 years.²¹

Theology has to stay more or less the same because getting too “creative” in theology is better known as “heresy.”

Yet this pressure to innovate drives us down that road. To keep afloat, we turn to saying more and more fringe, radical, or esoteric things—losing sight of the basics in the process.

But in reality, Christians are the people group that should be the least anxious about originality.

Henri Nouwen diagnoses the side effects of our craving for originality:

I wanted to say, write or do something “different” or “special” that would be noticed and talked about. For a person with a rich fantasy life, this is not too difficult…You can teach in such a way that it differs enough from the traditional way to be noticed; you can write sentences, pages, and even books that are considered original and new; you can even preach the Gospel in such a way that people are made to believe that nobody had thought of that before. In all these situations you end up with applause because you did something sensational, because you were “different.”

But just as people can watch a circus artist tumbling through the air, so they can listen to a preacher who uses the Word of God to draw attention to himself. But a sensational preacher stimulates the senses and leaves the spirit untouched. Instead of being the way to God, his “being different” gets in the way.²²

Ow.

But he’s got a point. Theological reflection is paradoxically the purest when we resist personal pyrotechnics.

And intentionally suppressing the craving for performative originality—something all Christians are sort of required to do—doesn’t mean we have to suppress innovation or creating beautiful things. I’d wager it’s a perfect constraint.

The folk preaching tradition attests that some of the top-tier sermons of the past few centuries happened by chopping up other people’s work and then preaching whatever screwed together.²³ And by building off of some previous work that was crafted with help from the Spirit, you join in the chorus of Spirit-driven creativity that’s been congregating for ages.

Maybe skepticism over self-inflating originality (the constraint) leads to greater preaching, teaching, and writing (the innovation).

And in all earnestness, there’s nothing wrong with not being original. Because of our unlimited capacity to forget, we need reminders—along with reminders that we need reminders. Like T.S. Eliot wrote,

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before.
I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again?²⁴

He isn’t defending mechanical repetition; he’s saying we need to revisit and recite certain truths over and over and over again because genuine understanding isn’t achieved by hearing something once.²⁵

The truth must root in you. Get inside your body.

It’s why no spiritual journey ever moves beyond the fundamentals. We get past elementary school, sure (1 Cor. 3:2); but we’re never so far past elementary school that we can do away with the building blocks it provided.²⁶

The fact that we have to return over and over and over again to the same Bible, the same words, the same church, the same Christian tradition, the same theology, but then creatively work within those parameters that’ve been established long before we were born is a grace.

The paradigm shifting writers or preachers or theologians of each new generation don’t reinvent the wheel—they simply pick up the torches that’ve been passed since the beginning while reframing the flame in an angle that provides more clarity in a new context.

Constraints Make Good Things Run Wild

There’s, of course, a limit to the benefits of constraints. When you have too many—as in when you’re getting micromanaged at work—innovation and joy crumble. There’s a sweet spot where we have rules, but those rules encourage rather than suppress.

Thankfully, Christian theology is constantly, permanently, forever, a perfect representation of that sweet spot.

Like G.K. Chesterton put it, “And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”²⁷

This is a perfect sketch of the eu-constraints granted by Christianity. We know what’s off limits in the best possible way. And with those borders drawn, we work with the Holy Spirit to creatively discern our daily movements within the gorgeous reality God designed. That’s the good kind of freedom—the kind that frees us from the wrong and frees us toward the beautiful.²⁸

To end, it’s okay if I don’t have anything new to say. The reality is that this isn’t a crisis—unoriginality, borrowing from trusted sources, and reframing the same old Scriptures is often what faithfulness looks like.

Paul said he didn’t care if he came across as an unglamorous preacher; he said he’d prefer to know nothing other than Christ, Cross, and Resurrection so he could draw people toward those things and away from himself (1 Cor. 2:1-5). That’s the kind of energy I wanna go for.

So, I’m grateful that we never grow out of the ethical sandbox built by Christian doctrine. It forces a kind of anti-originality that weirdly allows for more creativity. Which is probably why many of the greatest artists (Michelangelo), musicians (Bach), writers (Bunyan, Dostoevsky, Lewis) also happened to affirm the Christian faith.

There’s nothing new under the sun—but that doesn’t mean that sitting under the sun isn’t a gift. Being inside the box paradoxically gives us more space for good things to run wild.

1. Not really. The word ‘syllogism’ just sounded funny to me.

2. Now’s the best time to tell you: in feeling uninspired, I picked up David Epstein’s new Inside the Box and felt immediately and immensely inspired. So that’s the main inspo for this piece.

3. See Nicole Francis, “The Things I Hate,” BYU thesis; see also James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8. Word Biblical Commentary 38A (Dallas, TX: Word, 1988), 174, 527.

4. See the Ecclesiastes section in Walter Brueggemann, The Theology of the Old Testament (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1997), 393-399; Karl Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought, trans. David E. Green (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991);

5. By “most” I am not implying that the Bible is missing good ideas, but that it necessarily cannot contain ideas on things that had not been invented yet, such as how to deal with AI and biomedical technologies. However, it gives us all the general and necessary principles that pertain to life and godliness as we navigate contemporary issues.

6. For example, AI critiques are new, but many rely on criticisms that’ve been around since humans started creating tech. The most famous example being Plato’s Phaedrus, where Socrates critiques the practice of writing: “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.” This almost exactly mirrors criticisms of AI.

7. C. Haught-Tromp, “The Green Eggs and Ham Hypothesis,” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 11, no. 1 (2017): 10-17

8. Tromp, “The Green Eggs and Ham Hypothesis,” 10-17; J. Morgan and N. Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography (Da Capo Press, 1996), 168-169.

9. D. T. Willingham, “Why Don’t Students Like School? Because the Mind Is Not Designed for Thinking,” American Educator (Spring 2009): 4-13.

10. Epstein, Inside the Box, 49.

11. Epstein, Inside the Box, 58.

12. See C.P. Moreau and D. W. Dahl, “Constraints and Consumer Creativity,” in Tools for Innovation, eds. A. B. Markman and K. L. Wood (Oxford University Press, 2009), 104-27; T. B. Ward, “Structured Imagination,” Cognitive Psychology 27 (1994): 1-40; C. P. Moreau and D. W. Dahl, “Designing the Solution,” Journal of Consumer Research 32, no. 1 (2005): 13-22; P. D. Stokes, “Using Constraints to Generate and Sustain Novelty,” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 1, no. 2 (2007): 107-113.

13. James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (New York: Dial Press, 1956), 5.

14. T. B. Ward and Y. Kolomyts, “Cognition and Creativity,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, eds. J. C. Kaufman and R. J. Sternberg (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 93-112.

15. E. F. Rietzschel et al., “Relative Accessibility of Domain Knowledge and Creativity,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43, no. 6(2007): 933-946.

16. Moreau and Dahl, “Constraints and Consumer Creativity,” 108.

17. Can’t remember who said it, but it was one of the advertisers featured in The Copybook.

18. This story is documented in K. D. Miller, Voice of Deliverance (University of Georgia Press, 1998). Again, many thanks to Epstein for pointing us to this story.

19. Epstein, Inside the Box, 89.

20. Epstein, Inside the Box, 89.

21. This is both true and not. It’s innovated in some ways, as in our continued deepening understanding of grace (charis), but even this deepening understanding is allegedly based off of meanings latent within the original meaning and theological underpinnings of Scripture.

22. Henri Nouwen, The Genesee Diary (New York: Image, 1989), 65-66.

23. Which is essentially how each and every essay, lecture, book, or talk I’ve ever created was created.

24. T.S. Eliot, “The East Coker,” in The Four Quartets (New York: 1961).

25. As a side note, I also think it’s worth mentioning that Paul preached the Gospel in (presumably) a similar way thousands of times and yet still said “Woe to me if I don’t preach the Gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16).

26. Theresa of Ávila similarly argued that no matter how advanced we feel like we become in our prayer life, we never get so far that we can disregard the basics, such as praying the Lord’s Prayer or Psalm 23. This is mentioned in a section of Gerald May’s The Dark Night of the Soul. I believe it’s from The Life of St. Theresa.

27. We might have to do one of those “‘—Wayne Gretsky’—Michael Scott” things for “‘—Chesterton’ —Josh Nadeau.” Anyways: G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: With Annotations and Notes by Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2022), 137.

28. For more on this idea, see Isaiah Berlin’s idea of negative liberty and positive liberty, in the essay called “Two Kinds of Freedom.”