Left Behind

I talked my teacher into changing a major paper assignment for me on Monday. We were supposed to use a literary theory to write a long, laborious paper on a work that I will be sick of by the end of the semester. Then, in class, she joked about how if we had more time in the term we should each write our own theory. I, being the smart aleck that I am at times, was already working on a theory of my own out of my frustration with the limits of those placed before me for study. So, after class I approached her and proposed that I write a major paper on my own theory instead. She somewhat consented, but it'll still be in the works until I, in essence, prove to her that I have something new and innovative to offer to the theoretical world.

This brings me to my dilemma--no one is really as innovative as he or she thinks. Even the modernists who thought they were breaking away from social norms into a realm of complete divergence were really only continuing a trend from the century before by taking it to the next level. At this point in my own thougth pattern, I start to get a little downtrodden. If no one can effectively produce an utterly different thought, than what do I really have to offer? As an artist, a family member, a friend, and many other random positions I hold on this planet, what could I possibly do to evoke stark change in a world that does nothing but slowly evolves? If nothing can be found that did not have its root in something else, where does anyone with ambitions for integrity in form and universality in purpose turn?