A Big Antenna

My cowboy boss, now sober, explained the way of the world recently. “See, the Chinese believe that everything that has ever existed is still around. I mean, not modern Chinese – the ancient Chinese believed it. Thoughts, words, everything is still there, floating around. When you think you’re having a creative thought, you’re really just recycling someone else’s thought. Your creative ability is way, way smaller than your receptive ability. So, when I was learning to read ancient Chinese, I just got a big antenna and laid back and received all those old thoughts and then it was real easy. But I know darn well those aren’t my thoughts. I never had a creative thought in my life. Anything I create was created by someone else first, and me, I’m just nothing.” Pauses. Looks mournfully at the ground. “This knowledge is the reason why I’ve got low self-esteem.”