Reinventing the wheel

It’s not always a terrible idea.

Photograph by Alessandra Caretto

Whenever someone tells me, “don’t reinvent the wheel,” I think about the fact that the wheel was invented around 4000 BC.

It was at least two thousand years before people began to hollow out spokes to make it lighter, and it wasn’t until 1808 that we figured out the axle could hang on a tensioned wire spoke from the top of the wheel rather than weighting a thick, solid spoke to the bottom of the wheel (this is why your bicycle wheels are so light.)

And while wheels were all the rage for millennia, we put a man on the moon before anyone thought to put wheels on a suitcase.

The wheel, of all things, should teach us to challenge the status quo and make good things even better. So go ahead and reinvent the wheel. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t.