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Face it: everything that passes through your brain is really someone else's identity-froth, collected and passed on until it got stuck there somehow. It means you're not a specific "someone", but really a mix of other people's identities poured by accidents in that particular blob of greasy neurons in your head. You're not even really living yet. You're not someone, yet. You're not, yet.

I don't this as the problem.  If true living is defined as being a source of unique or different concepts then we're all fucked and have been for a great while.  I would agree (up to a point) that its statistically likely that every possible idea has already passed through the mind of a sentient creature at some point.  I'd also find it likely that one individual, given a normal lifespan, could not possibly come close to thinking of each of those ideas on their own, even with a limitless body of data to expose themselves to.  Furthermore, for each of those idea that our collective species has thought up, how many have we tried?  Of those, how many have succeeded?  How many of the failures were done right?

The problem isn't in being defined by others' ideas; its in being defined by others' RESULTS.  There were plenty of people who thought of powered flight before that first bicycle-powered glider got airborne, and I've seen enough comical attempts to fly to estimate that, of the limited number who got off their asses and tried, most of those thinkers failed miserably.  Its not the people that think of new things that matter, its the ones who are willing to try, and (far more importantly) willing to fail that are really living. 

What I'm trying to say is, if you didn't have an epiphany today, don't sweat it.  If you didn't have a goal, time to evaluate.

wow, I was quite drunk last night.  feel free to ignore.

"I... knew just what to say,
now I found out today
that all the words get in the way"*

Remember the IRQ (Interrupt Request)?  Allow me to refresh your memory.  When you installed your AdLib card (or, if you had the cash, your l33t [l33t was a decade from being  valid term, substitude $$$] SoundBlaster hardware) you had to reconcile the IRQs between the various cards attached to your motherboard.  Sometimes it made sense to move them several IRQs apart; sometimes you could even share an IRQ between peripherals you were sure would not be running at the same time.  Out the other side of the tunnel you'd solved a puzzle that, while not necessarily comprehended, was expedited nonetheless.

I am not a Mac user but I do appreciate the Mac experience.  The Mac presents one's computing experience as an extension of the human corpus, an extra joint at the end of one's chosen proboscis.  I am positive this represents the next step in human/machine interaction. I am equally positive that it is the withering of the human psyche.  When I was a child (can you fathom that far?  Think Guns and Roses as new and novel and you'll be in the correct psychocosm) I found all things lit and luminescent as magical, worth my time, my effort, my future.  I peered into the previous and saw the electrical engineers toying with (electromagnetic) drums and tubes and wished I could grasp, through my more contemporary efforts, their understanding of the core of what powers what I enjoy.  As much as I wanted to use, I wanted equally, even more so, to understand.

Is this alien?  Where is the desire to understand in those that have followed?  Perhaps I am an old curmudgeon, unrecognizing of the systems that the new comprehend.  Somehow, I think not.  I think the new, the current, the examples for the future exist in an environment of use, not of exploration (dare we hope, creation).  Have we sanitized creation to the point where its glossy finish bears no appeal with regards to digging below its surface?  Does the fear of degrading its secondhand value repel such inquiries?

You, the current current, ignore the above.  It is directed at the past, those who would languish (I cannot exclude myself) in the constructs of the old.  For the current, bend an ear, lift the fucking white bud (you are a pawn, stop using acceptance to deny it) from your ear.  Find the roots of what you enjoy.  Find the soil beneath that.  Find the raw, the signal, the one, the zero, the alloy and the rust.  Find the current and the voltage and the amperage.  Burn it into your skulls (just behind the ocular nerve cluster, if you get a choice) and never let those who would paint over it with layers of paint, chrome, interface, marketing and love for the love for the norm for the love for the norm for the love obscure the truth from your nerves.  Love yourself.  LOVE THE BOMB. 

-Deacon DeMoore

(I do hope I get a little hate from this, the last response was alarmingly positive)

I'd rather not have my first post be a quote, but its fairly appropriate:

"It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it."
-Nicollo Machiavelli

Change, for whatever quirk of human society or genetic code you choose to attribute it to, comes only* when said 'lukewarm defenders' either grow to a sufficient number to overwhelm the existing system or when a smaller number grow sufficiently aware of the desperation of their situation.  to facilitate the insurrection the man at the top refers to to occur you either need to raise the awareness of a lot of people or make the existing base of aware people sufficiently incensed. 

Why not hedge your bets and do both?

-DeMoore

*other options include a) the introduction of a third party, in whose opposition the existing order and the proponents of change units and b) Tsunami / Meteorite / the consumption of waffles in great number.