Original sin

I just googled the handle I'm using on a particular site and discovered the name I had made up had been independently made up by several others. I tried a few other of my "original" handles and found the same is true of those as well. I assume the others who are named just like me believed themselves to be uniquely named, as did I, and just like me they were mistaken.

Before the internet, there was no way of discovering this. Before the internet, I could get away with thinking I wasn't just like you. I could believe myself to be original. The sin of my imagined difference can no longer be supported in the presence of modern technology.

Perhaps, at this exact moment, someone else who'd thought themselves original is also discovering otherwise. Just like me.

Mathematically speaking, someone was chronologically first with an idea, but perhaps that firstness is not really important. It could be a mere coincidence. They just happened to be the first instance of where an idea whose time had come couldn't be stopped.