#22 What You Think Is Originality Is Really Self-Forgetting

You copied someone's laugh. Now you can't find your own.

That is the price of imitation. Not failure — loss. You wear a mask so long your face forgets its shape.

The crowd says: study the successful, take their structure, their timing, their phrases. This is the shortcut to greatness.

It is not. It is the shortcut to becoming a better copy of someone else. You will gain their habits. You will lose your instinct.

There is a cost deeper than wasted time. Every moment spent speaking in a borrowed voice is a moment your own voice grows quieter. One day you listen for it and hear only echoes.

And then you are the echo. Not the one who made the sound.