Be Original! Innovate, don’t Imitate.
My advice for 2024, “create your own stuff”, take a chance, learn how to use a program and get good enough at it to make something, anything, with passion, with a little bit of your soul, and then share it, post it online, or share it with your Grandma, let someone see it.
Why am I telling you this?
Simple, in a world where people copy what is popular, the cycle looks like this. They read something they think, and other people will think, you think will be insightful, they take that pearl of regurgitated wisdom and regurgitate it again, usually using chat GPT.
Then they add their little signature to it, usually a picture from Shutterstock (like everyone else) and post it online, waiting for the dopamine fix to run through their brains as the likes add up, like a good little lab rat.
I am not going to be a little lab rat, waiting for my fix of dopamine from some rubbish that I’ve copied from somewhere else, with no creativity whatsoever, so that I can try to influence the cool kids to like what I’ve done.
It is meaningless, there is no love in it.
There is no learning in this process, no pain, it is bland and tasteless, like that day old bread you get at a cheap restaurant, it’s free, but its horrible.
What makes everything even worse, is that unless it tops the last post that gave another lab rat a dopamine kick, it won’t even register a like.
The like means nothing by the way.
Do you want to be different?
Are you capable of being original?
In order to separate yourself from the pack, and add some love into what you do, you need to create it yourself.
- Start with something you are passionate about, something that moves you.
- Then, write, speak, film, draw, digitally create, cook, clean, grow, heck just do something that is of your own creation and have fun while you do it.
- Now look for options in the plethora of tools available to you on the internet. (Hint: watch a youtube video if you need inspiration or want a starting point).
- Make it look good!
- Add the “wow” factor, something that is unique to you, your nick name, a pseudonym or alias (if you don’t know what that is, look it up!), create a logo for yourself that describes who you are and what you stand for in one image.
- Post it! It doesn’t matter where, just send it out into cyberspace and enjoy the moment.
Any Monkey can use Chat GPT to write, (and pretty soon I’m sure Elon will make the breakthrough and monkeys will be writing epic adventure stories!)
You however, are no Monkey, better to use Chat GPT to edit, to expand ideas, to count words, to compare, to change tone or quickly change the style so that you can imagine what it would be like if you were writing it from a different perspective.
Using Chat GPT this way you get to understand what you are writing, how you are writng and are better able to improve it.
If you use Chat GPT to write your articles, you will become lazy, your article will sound amazing, but it will ultimately be crappy.
My wife already knows when an article is written on Chat GPT because it uses the same language and register(unless you specifically tell it not to) and certain words that nobody uses, ever.
On top of this, you will probably spend as much time on amending it as you would have if you had written it yourself.
I am not putting down Chat GPT, its great! I use it all the time!
I’m beating up on the laziness that comes with using it to create crap, like a fast food outlet pumps out junk food.
In fact, I encourage people to create free acounts for tools online, and use them, like perplexity, or midjourney. use them, learn how they work, see what you enjoy using and ask yourself “why?”
Most of all, have fun!
This is what will come through in your final product, your joy, your journey, the tears of frustration, your heart and soul, will literally infuse your creation.
That is what people want to experience, to taste and savour, and many can tell when you have just copied someone else, and when you have come up with something scrumptuous.
And if they don’t give you a “like”, who cares?
The real joy come’s from the journey, and I promise you this… someone out there thinks like you do, appreciates what you have created, and you will have done something more valuable than gained a million likes, you will have moved someone and made a difference.
Be original, make a difference.
Tags: #CreateYourOwn #OriginalityMatters #BreakTheCopyCycle #DIYContent #InnovateDontImitate
