Meme's and plagiarism

Speaking of the 'next' button...

I have a tendency to be overly influenced by any media with which I am spending any time. If I read a specific author, I find that sometimes my writing or even my speach patterns take on something of that author's flavor. I will quote favorite movies without thinking about it. Songs easily get stuck in my head and stay there - I'll be humming some crappy diddy in the bank and not realize it until I see everyone staring at me. Others' blog posts apperently also sit on my brain without announcing their arrival to my conscious mind.

I had been considering this in abstract for a while now, but Vanessa pointed it out clearly to me in a recent comment. I had uploaded a picture of my home office desk perhaps the day after J. started to post pictures of his work environment. I had even indicated that I would follow up with pictures of my office. And yet it never occured to me how blatant a rip-off this was.

Speaking of Vanessa, she had posted a listing of 100 things about herself. Shortly thereafter, I posted my own, much shorter list. While I had been thinking about writing an incomplete list of fatherhood for a couple of weeks, the coincidence is suspect. And again, until I started to think about it, the connection was never made in my mind.

I started to look over my own blog with a more critical eye. My sidebar list title "link'n b'logs" just jumped from my fingers when I was setting up my new layout in February or the beginning of March. I thought it was quite clever. Now I have a tickle in the back of my brain telling me that I must have seen it somewhere before. I had been reading a lot of politicol blogs at about the same time that the Schiavo case ruled the news, and found myself posting, almost against my will, about Schiavo, gay marriage and abortion.

I guess I can take a broad look and say that very little original is said or thought in the world. And it probably hasn't been since the first few minutes of humanity's sentience. Or I can blame Meme's.

But instead I'll just apologize now if I rip you off. I probably didn't notice, and you may consider it as flattery. Don't pitty me for any lack of originality - actually, that's why I chose the handle KOM: king of mediocrity.