A friend recently emailed me to inquire what platform I had been using for my blog because he had grown increasingly frustrated with his own, as it had proven to be quite buggy. This was the first I was hearing about said blog; naturally, I immediately demanded the address. When he obliged, I was delighted to discover a thoughtful, witty, and photo-rich narrative about his travels to far-flung lands. I wrote him a compliment, to which he responded:

“The only REAL reason I did this little blog is for a girl. Ha. Is there any better excuse?”

Which reminded me of an article I read several years ago (one I’ve since lost), in which the author postulated that the most significant achievements within a number of fields (e.g. art, literature, music, science) were likely motivated by love or sexual desire. Freud referred to this as Sublimation. According to Wikipedia,“Freud considered this defense mechanism the most productive compared to others that he identified. Sublimation is the process of transforming libido into ‘socially useful’ achievements, mainly art.”

When I suggested that I wanted to write a blog entry about it, my friend responded:

“You should, but just don’t include me as an example—not that I’m at the same level as the wheel or anything. That would be the coolest story if the guy who invented the wheel did so in order to take his date to places.”

And while the exact date and location of the wheel’s origin are largely debated, most historians seem to believe, based on clay tablet drawings, that it was likely developed for spinning pottery in Mesopotamia some 5500 years ago. It seems that the use of the wheel as a method of transport occurred a significant number of years later (between 300 to 2000). So while the details of my friend’s theory may be wrong, is it equally ludicrous to imagine that, once upon a time, some Mesopotamian Man of Few Words fashioned one of the greatest technological advances of all time for a Cute Mesopotamian Girl who was incapable of making anything but endearingly lopsided urns?