There are different measures of similarity or novelty.

Your new computer may be faster than your old one, but it’s still Turing complete, made of atoms, and inedible.

Likewise, many of our thoughts are new in some detailed ways, but common in other higher-level ways.

Perhaps nobody in the history of the universe ever thought to buy a ChatGPT subscription as a birthday present specifically for your Grandma Martha. You’re the first.

But many people buy and arrange the latest tech for their older family members.

Most thoughts - in your head or mine - are new and unique in some ways, but commonplace in other ways.

I think the upshot is that we’re able to exploit common, useful patterns in all sorts of unique, valuable ways.

I think it’s worth appreciating both sides of this.

1. Most of our thoughts - even seemingly boring ones - have never been had before. If you look close enough, you’ll see that the blend of details is often a unique one.

2. Most of our thoughts are slight variants or special cases of an obvious, well-known, widely-used pattern. And we have a zillion such patterns in our heads.

Drop a thought below, and see if you can work out what is unique and what is common about it.