Things we repeat
Or maybe the appropriate question would be, “What if I run out of new things to say?”
This possibility has been haunting me these past few weeks, for no particular reason other than trying to keep this space going. It’s this nagging feeling that I might be running out of new things to say, and that this is happening against the background of too many of us saying too much of the same, in too many places, with too much frequency. Words are limited, and new combinations of said words are limited too — logic dictates that new ideas will run out at some point. How much more can I say with the limited arsenal of contemporary English, without repeating myself or someone else? Compelled to travel this trodden path, is saying anything, just for the sake of saying something, worthwhile at all? Are we (writers) condemned to repetition, and therefore there’s little point in worrying about running out of new things to say? Is this something that we just need to accept?1 Even the i…