---
title: 'The Bolter Principle'
date: '2008-06-29T09:01:46-04:00'
permalink: /the-bolter-principle/
tags:
    - pondering
    - writing
---

I eagerly anticipate at some as yet undetermined point in the future having a complex thought of which I do not later discover Jay David Bolter has already said a portion, both more intelligently and a decade earlier.

(I feel compelled, however, to note two attendant ironies:

1\. The [chapter](/planned-obsolescence-the-proposal/) on which I’m currently working makes as part of its argument the claim that one of the ideas about authorship that we’re going to need to loosen our grip on a teeny bit as we move into the digital future is that of originality.

2\. One would think I’d already spent enough [pages](http://www.anxietyofobsolescence.com/2006/04/introduction/) disagreeing with the notion of the anxiety of influence to suddenly find myself feeling it.)