Recommendation for Imitation

My son's toy car mandala!

Many have negative ideas for the words such as imitations, mimicking and copying.

We have copy rights and trade marks for artists and brands for their unique styles.

And if you are an artist or want to express something in public, one of the first requirements is 'originality'.

But I wonder.

Isn't originality something you can't avoid anyway if you live your life?
No matter how you try to mimic someone's way of being, your uniqueness is always...coming trough the outer layer.
Like your finger prints, ultimately your style is the one and only.
I mean, you can't be anyone but yourself.

So, in a way, it is such a pity that people are timid to express themselves just because they are afraid of being 'not original enough'.

I'm all for being mimicked.

I consider being mimicked means that I've inspired someone.

If you type in '花曼荼羅' (flower mandala in Japanese) in Google, many pictures of my flower mandala come up in different websites.
Someone is making a collaboration video of their singing bowl music and my flower mandala.

Either ways with credit or without credit, I am happy that people like what I make.
And nothing makes my heart jumps with joy than the moment I see flower mandala made by my friends or their friends on my Facebook timeline.

I do respect other artists' copy rights myself as I understand where they are coming from.
There are people who make fake products for greed and fame.
But what do they get by doing that?
Money?
But so what?
It is a vain, meaningless, waste-of-energy-act that their own creativity itself would know in deep down.
It is more violating to their own souls (their own creativities) than someone's artistic works.

We can not be anything but original.
At the end of the day, you can not mimic anyone.
You can not be anyone else but yourself.

If you find anything beautiful, anything that moves you in life, I hope you are not afraid of mimicking them.
Soon you will find what you create is nothing but your original.