Originality

Do you ever get that feeling like you are completely unoriginal?

The other night I was examining my closet. Well, not just my closet, but the wardrobe inside my closet. After spending an unusual amount of time looking at my clothes, I was suddenly enveloped by the feeling of unoriginal-ness (is that even a word?).

Every single item I own was something that I found cute on someone else. Nothing in my closet, nothing in my jewelry box, nothing in my shoe tree came to me as an original thought. I even bought a watch yesterday solely because I found cute on someone else (Heather Barney, if you're reading this, it's you).

I feel like I've committed plagiarism. Fashion plagiarism.

What do I do about this? How do I create my own style; my own image? I feel like my Rachel-ness (again, not a word) is just a jumbled hodge-podge of other people's styles. I'm not trying to take anyone else's closet, but I've now come to wonder if there a singular item that in it's existence only personifies me?

Then I got to thinking, what about everything else in my life? My personality (which is heavily influenced by the WB show Gilmore Girls), my interests, my taste in food, my laugh, is any of it really mine? Am I just another drone of existence, hopelessly copying what the media has displayed for me?

And then crazy questions start popping up in my head, like:

Are we all this way?

Is there really any true originality?

Is everyone just copying something cool that they saw on someone else?

And with this, I take a deep breath and a little advice from Natalie Portman.

Aimer

Finally! After much contemplation and persuasion, I've created a public blog. I still don't have a good reason for it; I'm not traveling or beginning anything new, I'm not creating a specific theme such as my college major (Music Education) or hobby, I'm not really even qualified to type publicly to my peers seeing as my grammar, spelling, and story-telling are far below sub-par. Regardless, I clicked "Create New Blog," I chose a template, and now I am writing out my first post.
I hope you all enjoy.

I'm sure the vagueness of my blog's title is perplexing many of you, so I'll go ahead and explain it.

The time is Summer 2010. The place is my living room. The event is the electronic filling-out of my "Getting to Know You" form, which I emailed to the president of my college residence hall promptly afterwards.
The question: "What is your favorite word?"

To be honest, I'd never really thought about it. The first thing that came to mind was the term Perry-winkle, which a certain friend of mine had decided back during our Freshman year of high school, was the cutest word in the English language. But this questionnaire was not asking what I thought was the cutest word. It was asking what was my favorite word. I thought about it for another few minutes when the answer hit me like a ton of bricks. I've studied French for several years (still resulting in an unsuccessful knowledge of the language, by the way), and there is one particular word which I find to be particularly interesting:

Aimer:to like, to be fond of.


One of the first full sentences I learned in French was J'aime le pizza (I like pizza). I should have been studying Italian. For years, I thought the only purpose of the verb was to convey a liking for something. It wasn't until a few years after my pizza infatuation that I found out how much more this word means.

The sentence "I love you" translates into French as Je t'aime. I found myself wondering why it is that the French use this verb and not Adorer, which literally means to love. Why is the phrase not Je t'adore?
The exact reason was never explained fully to me, mostly because I preferred my own solution as opposed to some statement of grammatical history and translation.

I would like to think that the French don't say "I love you" the same way we do in America. They say "I'm fond of you." They literally say "I like you." And wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if people could say "I like you" and mean "I love you"? I don't necessarily mean in a romantic, mushy-gushy kind of way, I'm talking about just stating that you are fond enough of someone or something that saying you love it, is just as easy as saying that you like it. Wouldn't it be great if people could give their love that unconditionally; their hearts?

That is why I like the word aimer. It allows me to express this idea with five simple letters; three of them vowels. If you know anything about me, then you know I appreciate kindness in strangers and the stewardship between neighbors. I was raised to be polite, loving, and kind to people, whether I knew everything about them or nothing about them. And it's not always an easy standard to keep up with, believe me, but I think it's a respectable daily goal.

This world is too harsh and too dark to not try and shine light whenever possible.
That's why I've named this blog "To Like is to Love." I hope that one day everyone can love as easily as they like, and that eventually, they can find their own version of Aimer in their daily lives.

J'aime le pizza. J'aime les hamburgers. Je t'aime. It is, easily, my favorite word.