Even as I now move into programming, computer science, and industrial programming language research, I'm still grateful for that small amount of art theory I did at university. You don't need to try to be original - rather it's important to seek wide and varied influences, develop your sense of taste, and from that will flow seemingly unique and varied insights.
Adding on to this, the evolution of modern music, particularly sampling and DJing, is a very visceral example of how originality doesn't just appear in what sources you approach, it can also come from the /way/ you approach them.
The bigger risk is that by not knowing your sources, you end up repeating the same work from the same start, and end contributing little
This is pretty much forced on people by the nature of the intellectual property system. If it's ""derivative"" of something written in living memory, you have to pay.
I mean, yes, _something_ in the story is going to be repetitive.
But the unrealistic expectations people have these days is that it that it should be 100% original. don't write stories about humans, write about aliens, but no, alien vs predator covered that.. it is never ending.
One such person had said to me a long time back that "you'll never write something like this". I was like, "you don't know me and never say never. Just because you lack the ability to write something down doesn't mean the rest of the world does, too."