A sort of Humility.

I wish I were the first human, so all my thoughts would be wholly original! Think of it, you are the first person, ever! Every thought is open to you, the great founder of human thought! How sweet it would be. Of course, being the first human you would have no one else's thoughts to influence and shape your own. So your thoughts may resemble more an "ugh" than anything we would recognize as language. You may not have any thoughts beyond survival, if you are busy trying to get food, store food, make shelter, clothes, etc. there is very little down time left for thinking. So perhaps this is why so many of our ancestors didn't leave us with profound thought. They left us their genes, which was enough.

Lately I have been dissatisfied with my own thoughts, none of them are original. I read a friend's blog post(http://aliciahudson.posterous.com/) and her thought sparked my own thoughts, which were based on the ideas of Kierkegaard. In either direction my thoughts were not original but stemmed from other sources. Discouraging for me. I realize I'll never be a Plato, Kierkegaard or Frege, but I wanted to be able to have some sort of thought that hadn't been dominated or originated by anyone else.

But this isn't a real hope. Even the great philosophers ideas take root or are a response to the ideas of someone else. Many such ideas wouldn't seem to be possible without interacting with the ideas of others. I benefited greatly from an Introduction to Philosophy class. It broadened my thinking and introduced me to exciting new ideas to support these "new" thoughts.

Not being an "original thinker" isn't so bad. I have an entire history of thought that I will never get to, let alone comprehend, and by men and women who surpass me in both understanding and I.Q. Perhaps what I am learning is a sort of humility. I will never understand it all, much as I may wish to. I will learn all that I can learn.