Why use the name Docwilderness for your blog? You don’t just write about the woods or camping, after all.
In general, I answer that there is so much wilderness around us; why should I restrict what I write or talk about to just one area of the proverbial forest?
More specifically, Webster’s dictionary defines wilderness in three ways:
1: a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings.
2 (a): an area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its naturally developed life community
2 (b): an empty or pathless area or region
in remote wildernesses of space groups of nebulae are found
— G. W. Gray †1960
2 (c): a part of a garden devoted to wild growth
2 (obsolete): wild or uncultivated state
3 (a): a confusing multitude or mass : an indefinitely great number or quantity
I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys
— William Shakespeare
3 (b): a bewildering situation
those moral wildernesses of civilized life
— Norman Mailer
I choose to embrace all three of these definitions. I have never been one to limit myself. Whatever the endeavor, I have always wanted to go full bore. Just ask my wife — or look at the shelves of my home or collection of credentials after my name. Some would call me a collector. I instead think of myself as a curator.
What I am interested in is knowledge. One of my many idols is Leonardo da Vinci. Born out of wedlock and to a peasant mother, he pulled himself up to greatness, becoming a master painter, sculptor, anatomist, architect, and inventor. He was the epitome of the renaissance man. He was also not one to sit still for long or to let old age or infirmity get in his way. He continued his work despite having several strokes before his death. He needed no credentials behind his name, only the evidence of his work and those who saw his genius.
Thomas Jefferson is also someone I much admire. While not of the same meager beginnings as da Vinci, he too was interested in a wide breadth of subject matters. Noted primarily for his work on the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States, Jefferson was a renowned linguist being fluent in languages to include French, German and Italian. He was also an inventor and was obsessive about note-taking. He filled countless notebooks on gardening with every detail imaginable in his quest to better understand how he could improve yields on his land holdings.
These are but a few subjects that I also hold interest in. I wish that I could say I rival either of these gentlemen in even a single area of knowledge, but I know that not to be true. My anatomy may be more up to date — and my medical education certainly more current and useful. Nevertheless, both of these profound thinkers had accomplished far more than I may ever be able long before they were even my current age.
While this last statement might discourage some, it makes me all the more keen to continue to learn. It is the reason I continue to go to the library and the bookstore and borrow or buy more knowledge. It is not enough for me to know that the entirety of the history of the world is at my very fingertips (aka Google, Wikipedia). I much prefer to sit amongst it and to be able to absorb all that I can.
On my blog, I want to share what I can with anyone as enthusiastic about learning as I am. My ideal audience is anyone excited to come in out of the cold that is ignorance. My readers want to come out of the wilderness of life and into the warmth and safety of knowledge.
If you are as excited about this as I am, you enjoyed at least portions of my blog and my podcast.
Given the different topics each week, they may not all be for you.
Nevertheless, I suspect that you will greatly enjoy coming along with me as we all discover new things about the wilderness of medicine, life, philosophy, and preparedness. Be sure to follow along on my blog, my social media accounts, and my podcast. As always, I invite you to comment should you have any suggestions for topics or questions.