Do
you have any idea how many types of barbed wire are made?
And
this isn’t a call to consider differences between two or three
or more manufacturers. This isn’t about the difference between
barbed wire and razor wire and whatever wire.
If
you investigate it, you’ll start to find out all sorts of things.
There are variations depending on the metal used. Variations based
on the types of twisting of the wires. Single strands. Double
strands. Single wire. Double wire. Coated steel. This gauge. That
gauge. A half gauge. Stainless steel reverse twist double strand
13 gauge barbed wire.
And
yet, for the most part, it’s just barbed wire. For most of us,
we have no clue about the different gauges or styles or such.
If we had to, we could likely figure out a way to set up a fence
of it fairly quickly. But we don’t need to. Barbed wire. There
you go.
I
wonder about things like this occasionally when it comes to history
and production you might never consider, for instance like technology.
Have
you ever tried different online browsers? They all have slight
modifications, but every one of them is basically the same darn
thing. You enter in the information for the site you want to visit.
You can create ways of marking specific web sites as your favorites.
Want to open multiple tabs, download material or print something?
Yes, yes and yes, no matter the brand you open.
How
about streaming services? They all allow you to create lists of
programs you want to see, whether they call them watchlists or
my shows or anything else you might encounter.
Smartphones?
Different enough to avoid lawsuits. (Though not always avoid them.)
And yet I think the vast majority of us would be able to figure
out how to make a call or take a picture or send a text on any
of them without much instruction or assistance beyond the code
to unlock it.
When
you think about it, it’s kind of stunning how many true breakthroughs
and differences there are in the world. Success brings along imitation,
no question about it. But do we really know the innovators and
moments of true change?
Ever
heard of Philo Taylor Farnsworth? Of course, you haven’t. He was
one of the early pioneers and inventors responsible for bringing
us the television. Plenty of options these days for buying a TV,
and not many people thinking about Philo Farnsworth when they
do.
Karl
Benz is usually given the nod for creating the first automobile.
And yet, not to lesson his accomplishments in any way, there are
places in history where motorized carriages and vehicles had been
used on roads decades ahead of his work.
In
a strange way, let’s use all of this to bring us back to barbed
wire. Or, more precisely, the original general thought.
There
is no way to move through your home without quickly passing multiple
items that have a history you don’t know and several manufacturer
options for purchasing. We take for granted exactly what these
items provide, regardless of similarities or differences that
may exist between those options.
They
are everyday items. They are normal items. They are, simply put,
there, even though we may have no idea of how or why they came
to be.
You
say to anyone baseball cap or coffee mug, and we just know what
it is, even if we don’t know where it came from.
I
hope that doesn’t mean we’ve lost the appreciation for origin
stories and history. I hope that we don’t become fully desensitized
by the acceptance of things as nothing more than the way it is,
as if that’s the way it has always been.
Somewhere,
there is someone taking the first steps in tomorrow’s great advancements.
But to believe most of those steps aren’t as a result of another’s
advancements would be to lose some tremendous contributions and
variations.