Same here, you constantly wonder if what your thinking is truly unique.
I believe the key is figuring out when your view is unique. What I have been doing is asking people questions on their view of a problem or something I am thinking about and looking at the deltas there. I have not thought about it with the term delta. Maybe looking for deltas would be another addition to the toolkit when searching for insights.
I prefer to use the term contradictions. Sometimes that leads you to further insights.
And you spend most of your life trying to prove how special you are, instead of productively producing things and playing with the world that is also shaping them?
People tend to forget that ideas are worth nothing. It's not that hard to build a model of the world which would be parametrisable for any possible outcome.
Then those parameters would be defined by your experience, which requires you to get out of your mind and earn on the outside.
It seems my comment was not precise enough. The result is the following assumptions being made:
1. The thinking/insight/ideas is in pursuit of proving my own special nature
2. The thinking/insights/ideas are purely theories and have no practical application
Notice that the word "problem" was used. What is meant here an actual problem that I am trying to solve with actual practical implications.
Let me clarify what I mean, using concrete examples:
In product development/startups/business space: "My customers are telling me their problem is X, but what they are doing or how they are doing it is Contradictory. Why is this?"
"Two customers have completely different and contradictory views on what feature/problem is important to them, why is this?"
The actual purpose is to understand your customer better so you can cater for what they actually need.
This part is confusing, can you clarify what you mean:
"Then those parameters would be defined by your experience, which requires you to get out of your mind and earn on the outside"
Right now I would say that I have some insights that I feel are really unique and interesting, at least to me, and maybe a few friends.
However, they aren't monetizable to fans or marketable to employers. This has been fairly evident to me after a year of youtubing and twittering and twitching and etc.
So, even though I enjoy it, I really start to question if my ideas are actually that great, or if the addressable market is just not very large.
I believe the key is figuring out when your view is unique. What I have been doing is asking people questions on their view of a problem or something I am thinking about and looking at the deltas there. I have not thought about it with the term delta. Maybe looking for deltas would be another addition to the toolkit when searching for insights.
I prefer to use the term contradictions. Sometimes that leads you to further insights.