Plagiosphere

While reading Tenner's article "The Rise of the Plagiosphere," I began to think of all the times that papers of my own have gone through that screening for plagiarism. It's hard to fathom when anything will be original anymore if it is constantly being searched for similarities with countless of other works of texts. Everything in the world, be it ideas, lyrics, books, has always been intertwined with some other work that exists out there. One thought will inspire another. Lethem's article "The Ecstasy of Influence: a plagiarism" drives that point home. When we find things that are similar to one another are we to assume that one person cheated and decided to copy the other? If so, then who do we say is in the right, who came first? The thought that what we say, write, think up maybe isn't so original anymore - to me, it's devastating. There is a certain feeling you have from coming up with your own thoughts and putting them out there for the world to see, via whichever form of media you choose; when all of a sudden you see that those thoughts and ideas were there before you - it's a kind of disillusionment. No one will deny taking inspiration from anyone else either - but where do we draw the line? How are we to define between pure coincidence, inspiration, and plagiarism if everything is constantly being compared to everything.