"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, 'Look! This is something new'? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time."

I mean ~2000+ years ago people understood this. Day to day relatable ideas generally come to anyone involved in the cutting edge of any era of humanity, and such ideas will generally resonate with one's contemporaries who are likely thinking similar things. Billions of us can't really claim to have found something new. We didn't invent countability, or factoring, or primes.

But it's also a bit of a cynical lie that may comfort some of us, that being ordinary is okay, because ordinary is normal. Over the millennia we managed to turn philosophy into science, mathematics into machines, and miniaturise them into our hands, generate energy and resources unthinkable to our ancestors, and create networks of algorithms complex enough we offload a significant portion of day to day thinking and planning. These are new things.

Is it true wisdom? Define true wisdom - my understanding is there is no objectivity in such matters. There is only the balance and friction between forces of imagination wrought out by human minds and hands, always building on knowledge that came before. Take away all knowledge, and the cycle will continue, it's just what people do. We think, we imagine, we create.

I ramble but it probably feels day to day like nothing is ever new, and everything is always being recycled, but it's in this compost heap that new ideas ferment and take root, so that is an analogy I'll be adopting henceforth (not in the least as it makes me less disappointed in my own unpursued ideas).