I remember watching a YouTube video some time ago and the presenter was talking about a website that through some algorithmic code could display every combination of words that has or would ever be written. The Library of Babel, every word in every novel, every poem, hell even this blog post: contained within.
This got me thinking about originality. The words that I type now are first a thought, a blink of electricity in my brain that at the speed of light are transmitted down through my arms and into my fingers, which glide (albeit somewhat clumsily) across the keys– and those words, as if I am casting a digital spell, appear onto the screen. To think that a computer in some server room located in a nondescript place on earth has already been programmed to spit out the same words is sort of eerie and poses the question: should I even write them at all?
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
― Ernest Hemingway
Yes. That computer and it’s algorithm may be able to display this post in it’s entirety, but it cannot feel it. It doesn’t understand the emotion, or meaning. And besides, some human programed it do perform that nifty trick, so its really just a slave to human creativity. A tool.
Nonetheless it is interesting, but have no fear it will not deter me from continuing to write here, even if it has all been written before. If you are interested about learning more about The Library of Babel, check out this article here.