Etch-a-Sketch

We have some fun phrases in the American (that's right, I said American, not English...what we speak is a dialectical outgrowth of the original mother tongue, not something that we should either be proud or ashamed of, it just is what it is) language.  OK, fine, American English.  We have phrases for doing work that's already been done. 

Re-inventing the wheel is my least favorite. 

It's not possible to re-invent something. 

If you were unaware of the invention, you're the first inventor.  Period. 

Take fire, for example.  The first caveman who rubbed sticks together and made fire...a brief moment to acknowledge my Creation-oriented brethren.  It may not have been cavemen, that's true.  It could have been some race of near God-like super beings who were able to "think" and fire just came whooshing out of nowhere. 

Point is, it doesn't matter how fire got here, it's here, and for each little cluster of people the first time fire happened for them, it was invented.  

But I digress. 

Not entirely surprising, I know, but the concept of the etch-a-sketch as an illustration of doing work over and over again. 

No matter what I've found myself doing in my life, it seems that the next group to do whatever it is will always want to do it differently than the last group. 

Even if what the last group did was actually...wait for it...working. 

Babies with bathwater...that one's always been a bit gruesome.  Was there an epidemic of infants being tossed willy nilly out of 2nd story bathing facilities that prompted this particular nugget of wisdom?

Doubtful, but it is what it is, yeah?

Point is, we tend to think we're better than the last...that our ideas are so innovative that we should try ours and completely disregard theirs. 

Sometimes this is a good thing.

Others, not so much. 

I'm going to take an Etch-a-Sketch to my first wherever I go.  Make a point.  

Rockin' the 'stan, this is Dan.