{"id":205,"date":"2010-02-21T02:44:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T06:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.novadestin.com\/?p=205"},"modified":"2019-06-11T03:25:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T07:25:24","slug":"theres-nothing-new-under-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.novadestin.com\/?p=205","title":{"rendered":"There is Nothing New Under the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nihil sub sole novum<\/h2>\n

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
\n– Book of Ecclesiaste<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was talking about this notion with someone recently and they asked me what the “8 ideas” were, but I couldn’t remember. When I went to look them up, they were surprisingly hard to find, so I\u00a0copied the blog post I found them in here.<\/p>\n

The idea that there is nothing new under the sun, that all things are somehow connected to something in the past, is something I feel we all need to realize. We need to get ourselves out of this “dude that’s so a rip off of this…” rut that we’ve fallen into. Originality doesn’t exist in the way we think it does, but we are still capable of taking something old and making it fresh and exciting for a new generation. We all need to remember that we don’t know everything, so a lot of things are still “new to us.”<\/p>\n

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Is It True That \u201cThere\u2019s Nothing New Under The Sun\u201d and How Does That Affect Writers? The Concept of Originality Explored \u2013 Well, A Little, Anyway.<\/h3>\n

A gentle musing on the concept of originality and how the idea that there are no new ideas might affect writers, or at least, how it affects this one. Written by notenoughfreetime.<\/h4>\n

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1 v 9)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I once heard a teacher say this when I was at primary (elementary) school. She was talking to another teacher and I wasn\u2019t really listening (as well I shouldn\u2019t have been) but this unusual phrase leaped out at me. I didn\u2019t understand what it meant, so later on I asked another teacher. She told me that it meant there were no entirely new and original ideas any more \u2013 that everything has happened before, that history repeats itself and that every idea has its basis in another idea and so can not be considered original. I suppose it was a very accurate description of what the statement meant, but is it actually true? Are there really no more truly original ideas to be had that have not been had before? No more inventions that that aren\u2019t merely improvements on someone else\u2019s invention, who probably first got the idea from\u2026 I\u2019m sure you get my drift. So this article is really two-pronged \u2013 firstly, is it true that there is nothing new under the sun and secondly, if so, how does this affect writers? It\u2019s a bit of an exploration, a musing if you will, on the concept of originality.<\/p>\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve had cause to use this statement of there being nothing new under the sun, myself \u2013 upon hearing of events and incidents that have gone on to have some kind of historical importance, such as the destruction of the Berlin Wall and other incidences of countries moving away from communism or dictatorships towards democracy and freedom, for example, or of hearing of terrible crimes and injustices that have been committed, or of reading stories and watching movies where the storyline and plot seem all too familiar. I remember years ago, having to write a college assignment on \u201cInspiration\u201d. In the course of my research, I happened to read a book, \u201cTeach Yourself Screenwriting\u201d by Raymond Frensham. In it, he said that there were only eight basic stories upon which all other stories were based. A list of them follows:<\/div>\n