Today, I am thankful for those who fervently embrace exploration.
Invention does not come easy, but rather it mandates a slow, laborious, and sometimes mundane process of trial and error. Although I’ve reveled about the power or serendipity in prior blogs, most discoveries do not come from chance. Rather, it’s a commitment to diligence, an openness to experimentation, and the courage to fail that allow the greatest inventors, engineers, and scientists to gain enlightenment. Every discovery has a defined starting point. From the onset of your journey, you need to possess the intestinal fortitude and willingness to course-correct, as the situation dictates, because the path you predefine will likely require some, if not major, modification. Along the way, the knowledge gleaned from your explorations will hopefully reap fascinating advances and uncover untrodden inroads. It might not be a path you first envisioned travelling. Nevertheless, you should never shy away from continuing your pursuit down that unchartered path, for it might ultimately lead you to your desired destination.
Let me use a historical example to make my case.
More than a quarter of a millennium ago, one of America’s most profound explorations commenced. After the Louisiana Purchase was secured, President Thomas Jefferson delegated an expedition of these newfound territories with 2 intents in mind: (1) to survey a practical, all-water passage across the western part of the North American continent; and (2) to study the geography, nature, and local inhabitants of this vastly unexplored land. Jefferson planned ahead, by commissioning a Corps of Discovery, led by Army Captain Meriwether Lewis, and his self-appointed second-in-command, William Clark (a renowned frontiersman and infantry lieutenant). Jefferson sent Lewis to Philadelphia to study under the eminent physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and a renowned astronomer, Andrew Ellicott, so he could have some comprehension of standard medical practices and navigational skills. Lewis also spent time at Jefferson’s Monticello home in Charlottesville, where he read profusely from the President’s large collection of maps, lexicons, and books, which Jefferson had assembled in his library from his worldwide travels.
Then, on this date (May 17) in 1804, Lewis & Clark embarked with 29 others (mostly US Army personnel) on their infamous 8,000-mile trek, starting from the banks of the Mississippi River near St. Louis. Using mostly river passages, they traveled Northwest through what is now Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa before reaching the Great Plains. As they encountered native Americans, they often negotiated peaceful passage through these occupied territories using their honed skills of negotiation, the offering of silver medals, and an occasional bottle of whiskey or two. They settled in modern day North Dakota for the first winter, where they met members of the Shoestone tribe, including a young woman, named Sacagawea, who would eventually serve as a trusted translator and a well-versed guide. In Spring of 1805, they continued via the Yellowstone and Marias Rivers through Yellowstone Park into Montana, crossed the Continental Divide at Lehmi Pass near Idaho, and traversed down a number of rivers before reaching the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River in November 1805. They constructed Fort Clatsop and hunkered down for the winter, in now Northwest Oregon.
Although no continuous waterway to the Pacific was discovered, Lewis & Clark honed their skills in cartography, documented the practices of over 70 Native American tribes, and described more than 200 new plants and animal species. Their trip was long, treacherous, and laborious. These explorers learned to repeatedly adapt along the way, and they parlayed their learnings into new skills that allowed for their expedition to endure without significant mishaps. In 1806, the Lewis & Clark troupe returned to St. Louis, necessitating less than 6 months to reach their original starting point in September of that same year. Amazingly, only one person died on this 28-month year voyage, and, ironically, the suspected etiology of Quartermaster Charles Floyd’s death was a complicated intraabdominal infection caused by a ruptured appendix. Damn those bugs!
The road to any discovery, whether in the wilderness or in the laboratory, is never straightforward or easy. Every pilgrimage for knowledge takes dedication, agility, humility, and courage. The approach taken for any such trek may culminate in glorified success, or it might lead one to languish in woeful despair.
Comments