Inspiration from being the real "YOU"

In this moment, I guess I'm all entertained with the thoughts of being yourself and loving yourself :) Recently, I read an article on NY Times called "The Creative Monopoly" by David Brooks. The article discusses about individual creativity view points of Peter Thiel,  an American venture capitalist.

Some of the main points are:
"we tend to confuse capitalism with competition. We tend to think that whoever competes best comes out ahead."

"We often shouldn’t seek to be really good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists. Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it."

(In politics) "They (politicians) get engulfed in a tit-for-tat competition to win the news cycle. Instead of being new and authentic, they become artificial mirror opposites of their opponents."

 We all know that the U.S. is the country that focuses so much on individualism. I think that's one of the many reasons why creative industries here are very successful, such as film, music and entertainment industries.

People often try so hard to be 'creative' because that is such a great quality to have. Being creative is actually being authentic and original of yourself, not following the crowd and not the same way other people do or think. I think a lot of us struggle with that. The more we know about how other people do things and succeed, the more we want to follow the same suit. But in reality, all the respect and admiration are reserved for those who built their own road and walked that road.

Piccaso said "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up." Children are creative because the whole world is NEW to them and they do not have much knowledge about other people and past memories. So they INVENT the whole world themselves.  That's why sometimes we need to "unlearn" something to learn a new skill.

Somehow, it seems so hard to be original after you learned so much. However, still, I'd rather be 'weird' being myself instead of 'good' imitating someone else.