This material isn't exactly new, but I just came across it and found it interesting and worth sharing. A few months back, self-described "writer, director, and producer" Kirby Ferguson started a web video series called "Everything is a Remix". The project has its basis in the concept that nearly all pop culture relies on a few simple themes and refrains, repackaged and repurposed and remixed to look like something different--"West Side Story" has the same basic plot as "Romeo & Juliet", "Clueless" is based on "Emma", the Blue Man Group is a total ripoff of the Smurfs... et cetera, ad nauseam.
At any rate, Part 1 of the series (posted below) was very well done, as is the recently-released Part 2.
As individuals and as a society, we always like to think of ourselves as unique, new, and important--hence the proliferation of "best (fill-in-the-blank) ever" (or "worst (fill-in-the-blank) ever") conversations and debates and lists. It can be humbling and somewhat depressing to admit that we are simply ordinary, or that we live in ordinary times--it is a perfectly human desire to at least want to be extraordinary.
I like to think of myself and my own life--my athletic accomplishments, my academic degrees, my job history--as unique, but all of my achievements are almost by definition derivative. At best, I am unique only in the specific ordering and packaging of those achievements--very little I have done is original, in fact (I'm certainly not the first hedge fund manager in history) or at least in theme (this blog, while "unique", is not realistically any different from anything that anyone has ever written before--the letters and words are just ordered differently and read by different people).
That recognition can be a very humbling thought, and it's not something that anyone seriously likes to think about. Thinking about it makes us feel small and insignificant in a world, universe, and history that is larger than we can possibly fathom. Since I've been sufficiently existential now for one day, I'll leave you to watch and ponder the video. Good talk.
[Everything is a Remix]
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