I’m a creature of habit.
And as always. Whenever I’m out and about, I follow my regular route.
On this regular route I always see two cats. At a quick glance they’re identical. Mother and kitten.
Now if you’ve ever seen The Matrix (1999) you’ll remember the scene where Neo sees a black cat meow, shake itself off and walk away.
He then carries on, turns his head and as he looks again, he sees the cat do the exact same thing before saying “Oh, Déjà vu!” which basically means “already seen”
And so here’s the micro lesson for today.
Already seen.
Artists of all shapes and genres, business folk and marketing weirdos ALWAYS worry about being unique and coming up with new ideas, concepts and what not.
They lie awake at 3am, staring at the ceiling, wondering if their latest project is just a rehash of something that’s been done before. They Google their ideas obsessively, searching for evidence that they’re either brilliant pioneers or complete frauds.
But the thing they forget about is that sometimes the audience just needs to see the same thing over and over again, cause they might’ve missed it.
Think about it. You’re consuming content, sucking down information from seventeen different platforms while simultaneously trying to maintain the illusion of productivity. Your attention is scattered across more surfaces than a broken mirror in a fun house.
What are the odds you caught that profound insight the first time it scrolled past your eyeballs?
Zero.
The odds are zero.
Your “groundbreaking” idea? Someone’s probably done it. Your unique angle? It’s been angled before. Your revolutionary approach? There’s a decent chance it revolutionised something back in 1987, and everyone just forgot because the internet wasn’t around to make it permanent.
And you know what? That’s exactly why it needs to exist again.
Because the person who needed to hear it in 1987 was probably in diapers. The audience who would benefit from your particular flavour of wisdom wasn’t ready for it when it first appeared.
They were busy dealing with other crises, consuming different content, living in different headspaces.
Personally I can’t even remember something I read a few days ago, unless I’ve actively saved it for later study.
We need to stop thinking that repetition invalidates value.
Every story is a retelling of older stories. Every business model is a variation on commerce that’s existed since humans started trading shiny rocks for food.
Every creative breakthrough is just someone taking existing elements and rearranging them in a way that resonates with their particular moment in time.
Shakespeare straight up stole most of his plots. Led Zeppelin built their entire catalogue on blues riffs that preceded them by decades.
Every startup pitch deck contains the same twelve ideas that have been recycling through Silicon Valley since the invention of venture capital.
And somehow, mysteriously, these “unoriginal” creators managed to build legacies that outlasted their original sources.
The cats on my route aren’t performing some weird glitch from The Matrix when they repeat their behaviours.
They’re just being cats. Consistently. Authentically. Without apologising for not being the first cats to ever exist.
Maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe the goal isn’t to avoid the déjà vu?
It’s to become the kind of person whose version of “already seen” feels necessary, valuable, and somehow inevitable.
Your voice. Your angle. Your particular way of explaining why the world is beautiful and broken and worth paying attention to.
The person who needs to hear it hasn’t heard it yet. And they’re walking their own route, following their own habits, waiting for their own moment of recognition.
Already seen. About to be seen again.
And thank god for that.
Finding the good stuff and being reminded of it when we needed it is always a good thing.
Unless it’s some asshole phoning us 4353 times a day wanting to talk to us about our cars extended warranty.
Fuck that.
Stephen Walker
P.S. If you have a kitty. Show ’em to me.