Years after completing the 'Ka' project, I discovered that what I did on site that critical afternoon had an established engineering term: a 'Sedimentation Basin'.

Before that day, I had never heard the term. I only knew that rushing water was washing away the soil beneath our foundations, and if I didn't stop it immediately, the entire project would grind to a halt.

A few hours later, amidst overwhelming doubt, I improvised and built two simple settling ponds. The turbid water entered the first chamber. The heavy sediment settled down. Clear water flowed through the second pond. The problem was solved.

Later, I realized I hadn't invented anything new. I had merely arrived at the exact same principle that engineers and builders had discovered centuries before. But that live experience reshaped my philosophy forever.

Since that day, whenever someone tells me 'Thousands have already done this before', I simply smile. That may be true, but none of those thousands experienced it in your place.

Knowing is fundamentally different from understanding. You can read a textbook and memorize why silt settles. But when an entire development, your capital, your reputation, and your hopes depend on those few critical hours, that knowledge ceases to be an abstract formula — it becomes part of who you are.

Our biggest mistake is assuming experience means memorizing existing answers. To me, true experience is arriving at the answer yourself through direct confrontation with reality, even if the world found it long ago.

That is why I never fear reinventing the wheel. My goal is not to claim invention of the wheel; my goal is to deeply understand why and how it turns. And once you truly understand something from the ground up, you never forget it.

— Rasoul Dabiri