What is original?

A while ago i responded to this quote:

WE ARE ALL BORN ORIGINALS. WHY IS IT SO MANY OF US DIE COPIES?

Edward Young

This was my answer:

This is a statement that can be interpreted into many meanings by different points of view. To me this means through life many of us lose our identity to trends, other people and to the fact of life it self.

We copy others to make us fit in and in doing so lose our originality, but the ones that die copies are the ones who lose their originality not to other people but to themselves. If you lose yourself to others you may not be able to find yourself again and to do so you must not find your old self be in turn create an original. But can any one be original? No, to be original you have to be the first one to live your life like no one else you have to have new ideas and a new life path. In birth no one is original we are all born the same way by our mother and others before you have learned to walk, talk and become ‘human’. An example of this statement is religion; you are born atheist not believing anything than you are brought up like many others and in the end are all copies of that one belief and most likely will die as a copy of that lifestyle. Humans are all copies of each other we learn to be like others, we may be very diverse but we are not original.

In conclusion I think we are born copies and only some of us die original.         

although this was awhile ago i find what i wrote no less relevant to how i feel towards this now, however, i do see what Young was trying to say in this quote and no less is the same conclusion i drew in the end anyway. on the other hand, be it now that im older or just more cynical, i think that it really doesn't matter what you are in life, as the act of both life and death are the same for everyone-messy. you come in covered in shit and you leave the same. they are not pretty things by any definition, but are an inevitability. and that all that is left by you is either your career, a bloodline or your moral teachings to younger people, it is not you that will be remembered, it is just your name, memories and interpretations of others.

hummm...let's hope one day i can turn this into an artwork aye?