Creativeness comes from research by collecting ideas of different writers; simplifying and reducing them; by keeping out everything that is not essential. Then, fusing those ideas and forming an entirely a new original one to open the eyes of average and busy readers who have no time to open the dictionary and find the meaning of big words. Some think that creativity depends entirely on education.
Some have shown fantastic creativity in storytelling skill, verbal creativity and even went beyond their formal education. Shakespeare went deep into history, myths, and other earlier works. For instance, “Romeo and Juliet” was an Italian tale that had been told in various forms before Shakespeare. Creativity pops up from inborn tendencies, environmental influences, observation and even individual thinking process. All this is because no individual can know everything on one’s own. There is so much knowledge in the field of medicine, engineering and information technology. Very rarely is a creation entirely isolated from past influences.
Pablo Picasso’s iconic painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” was influenced by African masks and Iberian sculpture. While Picasso introduced a ground breaking style. The work was not created in isolation. Secondly, Beatles, one of the most influential bands in history, were heavily influenced by earlier American rock’n’roll, R & B, and country music. Their unique sound was a blend of these kinds, changed and reinterpreted in innovative ways. Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation was built upon the work of predecessors like Galileo and Keller. Yes, new creation arise from building upon or being inspired by previous works.
Some researchers, belong to a generation who freely mix and match the whirring flood of information just to create something new. They do not cheat by saying that certain idea, in what they write, is completely their original; sometimes, some ideas may or may not be wholly, their own. Because, may be, many were picked up from long years of reading, from listening to lectures in their college days or possibly, it may be, they have kept their own library of some interesting facts which they use in their writings. Truly, their sole, sincere desire is to do, good to others as they communicate with the public through the radio, TV serial and articles on newspapers and thus open the eyes of many; to build up new thoughts, be it political, social or in any other fields. Some ideas with high sounding words are explained in simple words, so that people of average education can understand the true meaning of the original idea.
There are copyright laws to protect intellectual property of people and lifting their ideas amounts to plagiarism which is punishable by fines and jail. So, even if a person did not know that he was copying, still he would be found guilty because — ignorance of law is no excuse. Therefore, it is said, “Originality is power and imitation is death.” But copyright laws do not protect facts that are of ‘common knowledge’ and hence they can be used freely without naming the author.
God is the first creator, and man’s originality is based on God’s creation. There is no human being, who without imitating God’s creation on this Earth, has done anything original. In conclusion, I believe in what one great person once said, “To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; but to steal ideas from many is research that leads to discovery of something new.”
