The Philosophy of Emulation

Days and days of delving into literature and art have led me to conclude that everything is a mere emulation of something else, i.e. its double. From people to paintings, nothing seems original to me anymore.

The string of words you read before your eyes and they stylistic means by which I intermingle them are an adoption of the convoluted web of the archives of my literary intelligence. As I extrapolate this theorem, I hereby claim that everything under the sun is a mere replica of...yes, you've figured it out, something else under the sun.

This thought occurred to me not out of a spark of ingenuity, but rather from experience. To claim that two "creations" are identical may be a bit too far fetched, but to claim that all knowledge is built upon a precedent reservoir of other, twin-like knowledge would not be outlandish. So you ask yourself, what about the issues of plagiarism and intellectual property that seem to be the buzz words of today? Well I hate to break it to you, but they're meaningless in the literary and art world. Let me prove my point...

Ever since my youth, I have always taken pride in claiming that so-and-so invention belonged to my civilization, be it Egyptian, Islamic, or Arab...

Just when we were learning about the "atom" in middle school, I recall, during a cab ride up 2nd Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan, the Pakistani driver was insistent on proving to me that the West had ripped off everything from the East. It were the likes of Ibn Sina, Ibn Firnas, etc... that were behind such great movements like the Scientific Revolution and not their Western counterparts. I was convinced.

I was young, biased, and uninformed at the time... for I was later taught that "All knowledge is one!" It doesn't matter who invented what or who stole what from what...as long as it was a contribution to the breadth of mankind's understanding of this dream we call life, the it was valid...

To begin with, all knowledge is traced back to the Source. Whether you believe in God or Allah, all knowledge is divinely inspired, or so I believe. Whether it's Ibn Arabi's account of Mohamed's travels to the seven heavens or Dante's Divine Comedy, they are both one and the same, inspired by the Source. The fact that both discources discuss Heaven and Hell at about the same time to such exact twin-like precision indicates that there must be an inspring Source.

After reading Robinson Crusoe, I was proud of accomplishing a feat worthy of laudation, i.e. reading the first novel ever written in English. I was shocked to then find out that this was a mere copy of the Moorish Ibn Tufeyl's novel with the same plot, except applied to an Arab setting. This time the outcast was marooned on a desert island instead of a nautical one.

The point is to claim that so and so is a rip-off of so and so is to simplistic when delving into the matter of twin-like knowledge.

I recently toured an exhibition at the Sabanci Museum titled "Travel to the West". It was the story of the Turkish artists of the 19th century that ventured to Paris to acquire a taste for design, perspective, anatomy, and artistic concepts that would leand them to emulate the classical, romantic, and realistic movement works of their French counterparts. What these Turks came back with is the skill set of painting Istanbul with the same exact techniques that the French painted Paris. Hence, emulation of knowledge under different circumstances is another attribute of imitation.

This brings me to the point that I've been craving to make. Does it ever occur to you that you try to become somebody else? Well, think about it, don't we live in a society that expects to act a certain way, look a certain way, achieve in a certain way... Say, in religion, isn't it a matter of reaching perfection so as to emulate the virtues of Mohamed or Jesus, in work and business, isn't it a matter of achieving the success of some tycoon, say Bill Gates, in sports its a David Beckham, et cetera, et cetera. The point is, in every realm of knowledge or every activity in life, there is always an extreme that one has to imitate.

To be frank, I really have no clue where I'm going with this entry, but I'm enjoying penning down my stream of consciousness...

But what if one becomes too enveloped in this craving to become someone else? Does it lead to instanity or ingenuity? Can one become one's self? Should one be embarressed that he's not satisfied with his own being and is always eyeing others to emulate or is that what we should aspire to be doing (either because of personal or societal reasons)? I pose these questions to some curious reader who has ventured this far...

But if what if there truly is a soul-mate out there that is meant for us to emulate? Is it loneliness and lack of self-worth that drives one to want to be someone else, or is it truly our destiny to morph into some other being? Whether its through our actions, writings, or reasoning, is there anything that we acquire and produce that is truly original? Does the mere rearrangement of acquired knowledge to innovate considered original?

Now that I do not believe in originality, I believe that the true art of emulation stems from the adaption of the phenomena created, or rather emulated, over the centuries by our forefathers who roamed this world who were inspired by divinity. By drawing upon the creations of these renaissance men, and tweeking these creations a bit here and a bit there, aren't we creating something that can be called our own?

This is the reason why I am inspired to write. Reading something truly magnificent, be it a poem of Rumi's, a prose from some Nobel laureate's speech, or some other great work, I aspire to also become a creator of such a marvel. Hence, to draw upon other sources as I write is a way of continuing the philosophy of emulation.. I implore you to think, dear reader, whether this philosophy could truly be the "secret" that has led many on the paths of success, fame, and glory...