That, of course, raises the question of how non-conformists ever got started; you can't very well have an infinite regress of them copying one another, for that would beg the question of how the first one came to be. If we look at the growth of a human being, it becomes quite apparent that we all begin as conformists; we do nothing more than internalize our parents, and this is how we learn to walk and talk. By internalizing these traits, however, they lose something of their former nature, for a copy can never be its object. And so right from the start, a small measure of originality emerges, and this same motion is repeated each time we try to mimic each other. Furthermore, in being a unique perspective on people rather than one person alone, it becomes not only possible but necessary to intermix the traits of others and to do so in ways that can't be repeated. Last of all, even if it were possible for me to internalize a perfect copy of a personality, this copy would have to live through different life experiences than its original. These life experiences, because unique, would necessarily lead that same personality to walk down a different path in life.
So originality amounts to trying and failing on principle to be like other people. Even those who claim they want to be original are trying to be like someone else; their wish is a mere counterfeit of something they've heard.