more things i should have no time to think about

does it ever seem to you like our lives are just a collection of the good ideas we steal from others? we recombine them in (hopefully) original ways, but... really, i wonder if there have been more than a handful of true innovations in the past several centuries. ideas more than inventions, i guess, but even some inventions are only old ideas catching up with new technology (like helicopters). it kind of makes you wonder why we're still here. i guess we get to stick around until we completely destroy everything?

it's just -- blame the economist's productivity paradigm -- but what's the point of you if you don't do anything new? is human interaction, the influence you have on the lives of others, enough to justify your existence? because surely there are enough of us on the planet to be redundant by now. sigh; it sounds like i think everyone unnecessary will just *poof!* disappear, which i don't (although it might be interesting... *insert mental picture of millions of tiny wisps of smoke left by the implosion of useless people here*).

maybe it's not a question that even needs to be answered. or discussed. but i'm one of those who likes to assign meaning to possibly meaningless things, even though i am perfectly (if only occasionally) capable of stepping back and realizing how very stupid and human and... small... such a process is. the fact remains that, no matter how much it's rationalized or de-rationalized, i still want to know the answer(s). explain it to me, please.