I was recently accused, by a scholar I greatly admire, of "reinventing the wheel."
While I understand and appreciate his effort to reduce the burden of my sojourn, I was immensely proud that I had, in fact, reinvented the wheel. I did not know that this particular "wheel" actually existed, so the fact that my model of history, which is really a radical departure from current models, reproduced it independently makes me feel pretty darn good.
Finding your own way is worth it, and doing so may help to confirm that what others have found is, in fact, valid.
