Charles Darwin: From Slacker to Maverick Thinker | #MaverickNotOutsider

10 MINUTE READ

We usually think of Charles Darwin as an old man with a long white beard. But Author Across Cultures, Yang-May Ooi, invites us to think of him as a lost young man who didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. A mate of his asked him to head out for an adventure of a lifetime and young Charlie said, “Yeah, why not?” And the rest, as they say, is history. So the image collage for this article shows an original painting of young Charles Darwin in the 1830s around the time he set off on the Beagle with his mate Bob Fitzroy. He looks like any young man we might know. With the help of AI, Yang-May updated the image to see how young Charlie might look in our present day as a backpacker. This can help us relate to his very ordinary circumstances that led him to become one of the most extraordinary Maverick Thinkers in history. #MaverickNotOutsider⁺⁺

Charles Darwin was destined for a conventional life, like most of us. Born in 1809, in Shrewsbury, England, he was the fifth of six children. His father, Robert Darwin, was a physician, and his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a noted scientist and poet.

Young Charlie Flunks Out

The early part of his life may feel familiar to the early life of some of us. Like him, I hated the rigid structure of school and my family tried to get me to study medicine, despite my squeamishness! Young Charles hated the rote learning of that time and was considered only mediocre by his teachers. He preferred to spend his time outdoors, collecting beetles, studying plants, and exploring the natural world. Later, he was sent to study medicine at Edinburgh University to follow in his father’s footsteps. He was horrified and traumatized by watching surgeries – in those days, performed before anaesthesia.

He realized that medicine was not for him. His father was disappointed but young Charles needed to do something that could earn him a living. So he was sent to study theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge to become a clergyman. Again young Darwin was not really taken with book learning, heading outside to spend hours observing the natural world, collecting beetles and studying the works of naturalists like Alexander von Humboldt.

Listless and Lost

Darwin graduated in 1831 but really did not want to join the church and was dithering around not sure what he wanted to do with his life. I love these kinds of details in the lives of great figures from history. Who hasn’t been there? After uni, many of us find ourselves underwhelmed by the usual career paths available to us – but do not really know what it is that is missing. We feel like we don’t fit in to the usual, conventional boxes that our world has to offer. Young Charles was no different to any of us who have ever been twenty-something.

Then an invitation came from the captain of the HMS Beagle, Captain Robert Fitzroy. Rob was 26 and anxious about a long sea journey that he was about to undertake. The previous captain of the Beagle, Pringle Stokes, had killed himself from depression, sparked by the loneliness of long sea voyages. Back then, the hierarchy system was strongly stratified and a gentleman like the captain could not fraternize with the lower ranking and working class men he was in charge of. On top of it all, Fitzroy had a family history of suicide. So he was looking for a gentleman companion to keep him company on a surveying voyage around the world. Darwin would have the role of the expedition’s naturalist.

Strict Dad Almost Scuppers Things

Charlie jumped at the chance. His passion for natural history and everything he had taught himself so far was being recognised. And it was a chance for adventure out in the natural world and far flung places. What young man kicking his heels at home would not have been excited?

But his father opposed the idea, considering it a waste of time. Again, how many of us have come up against parents or figures of authority at a significant moment in our lives who have not had an open-ness to new experiences or ideas? How many of us have had to battle it out to make our own way in the world? How many of us give in and stay in the box others have designed for us? Do they outnumber those who break free?

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If Uncle Josiah Wedgwood (son of pottery Wedgwood) had not intervened to persuade Robert Darwin to let his son go, one of history’s greatest Maverick Thinkers might have ended up a bored and frustrated vicar in an obscure English parish!

His Mind is Officially Blown

During the voyage, Darwin’s explorations included the coasts of South America, the Galápagos Islands and Australia. He was in his element, doing what he loved the most, able to be fully himself far away from the strictures of the Victorian world he had grown up in. He was meticulous in recording his observations, he collected specimens, he asked questions, looked for patterns, trying to understand the relationships between species and their environments.

In the Galápagos, he noticed subtle variations in the finches from island to island—differences in beak shape and size that seemed to correspond to the birds’ diets. Darwin also encountered landscapes, fossils, and human cultures that shattered his Victorian, creationist worldview, forcing him to reconstruct his understanding of nature.

Everything he saw laid the foundation for what would become his theory of natural selection.

Darwin meets his Destiny

The voyage of the Beagle lasted 5 years. It gave Darwin a wealth of data in the form of observations and specimens. That data and his own experience of being away from everything that was home – familiar, unchanging, staid – sparked a new way of thinking. Over the next two decades, he worked tirelessly to develop his ideas, conducting experiments, studying the work of other scientists, and refining his theory.

Darwin struggled with doubts and fears, aware that his conclusions would challenge deeply held beliefs about creation and the natural world. He hesitated to publish, knowing the controversy his ideas would provoke. He also suffered from IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) from bugs he picked up on the voyage.

I visited Down House some years ago, Darwin’s home. It was fascinating to see the great thinker’s study, full of his books and papers – and where there was a commode behind a screen for him to access quickly! I was also able to walk along the paths outside in the garden where he often walked for exercise and to take a break from his work. Visiting the home of someone like Darwin is always inspiring – it reminds me that these great legends are at once extraordinary, yes, but also in many ways ordinary people.

Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, partly goaded on by a sense of rivalry with another naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, whose work in Malaya was leading him to similar ideas about natural selection. The book presented the theory of evolution by natural selection—a process where species adapt and change over time in response to their environments.

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Reviews

It was a revolutionary idea that contradicted the prevailing view of a fixed, divinely created world. Some hailed Darwin as a genius, while others condemned him as a heretic. The debate was fierce, extending beyond science to religion, philosophy, and the very nature of humanity. Churchmen in particular were appalled at the idea that humans in all their Victorian, genteel, civilized incarnation could be descended from savage, dirty, wild and unwashed apes.

In many ways, the outrage and horror of Darwin’s critics was at this fact that humans Belonged with animals. They could not accept that we were not a species apart, created by the hand of God from earth, with the God-given right to rule over the animals and birds and the world itself. Darwin was telling them that we were animals! Eew, the hideousness of it!

It was not easy being the man who changed the way we see the world. The path of the Maverick Thinker is often painful and carries the risk of being cast out from the world that we thought we Belonged in. Darwin, who had suffered from anxiety for much of his life, found the criticism and vilification upsetting and difficult – as, no doubt, many of us would. Even though, as a young man, he had not fitted in to the conventional roles of his society, Victorian England was still his home and Victorian society was still the culture he belonged in. It must have been excruciating to have felt that ostracism from the Church especially, for someone who had once considered joining the clergy and who was still very much part of respectable, upper middle class society.

But he continued to work on refining his thinking on natural selection, bringing out over the years new editions of Origin with amendments and updates. It was the only way to address the arguments of his critics – to improve the methodology, the analysis, the science, his reasoning and thinking. This meant that he had to take on board the feedback, good, bad and ugly, whether it made him happy, angry, proud, upset or more. We all know what it’s like to face criticism, especially negative feedback. We would much rather hear only the good stuff – and often the bad reviews can floor us. But through all the shame, humiliation and emotional toll of the national and international response to his radical theses, Darwin used it all to make his work even better.

New Ways of Thinking

On the Origin of Species reshaped our understanding of nature, revealing the interconnectedness of all living things and the dynamic processes that drive life. It also challenged traditional religious beliefs, sparking debates that continue to this day. But perhaps most importantly, it inspired generations of scientists, thinkers, and visionaries to question and explore. Darwin’s legacy in many ways is a spirit of inquiry and discovery that has given us a greater understanding of our world – and the universe beyond.

I feel that Darwin and the scientists that came after him have collectively given us a new sense of Belonging that can fill us with even greater awe than what the Victorians felt, whether we believe in a God or not. When we think about the millennia of deep time that it took from the Big Bang to the creation of the earth and the slow process of evolution that led from microbial life to us humans now in this very moment, and of our solitary blue planet that we all Belong to, and the vastness of our solar system, and then to let our minds soar beyond that to the galaxy and on and on to the infinite unknown universe – and to feel that we Belong in all of this everlasting and eternal existence, I don’t know about you … but for me, it gives me goosebumps and an indescribable wonder.

By no means am I comparing myself with Charles Darwin but my aim is to prompt us all to follow our own curious minds, in our own way, at our own pace and within the arena where we find ourselves. Not all of us have the genius of Darwin – or the courage and doggedness to face what he faced in the critical response to his work. And that is OK. All we can do is what we can within our own area of influence, as my hero the humanitarian Terry Waite reminds us.

Writing, for me, is my process of exploration—a way of asking questions, looking out for patterns, and trying to understand the world. I have doubts and fears, moments of frustration and self-doubt. But there’s also the joy of finding connections and insights that deepen my understanding. And my sharing my ideas here and in my books is my mission in my arena of influence to shine a light on the Value of Difference within the context of Belonging.

What is Your Adventure?

What about you? What exploration do you feel called to undertake? What restlessness is stirring up in you? What opportunity might be inviting you on an adventure – will you let someone else’s idea of the right thing to do stop you or could you take a voyage into the unknown?

Darwin’s story reminds us that transformation often comes from stepping away from the security and certainty of the familiar and heading out into the unknown with curiosity. If we can then allow ourselves to be changed by what we find, might that be how we find our purpose and destiny?

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Sources:

Darwin’s Beagle Voyage: The 5-Year Journey That Led to Evolution Theory – https://www.kroneckerwallis.com/darwins-beagle-voyage-the-5-year-journey-that-led-to-evolution-theory/

Darwin Correspondence Project, Alfred Wallace – https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/alfred-russel-wallace

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: Reaction to Darwin’s Work – https://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/origin-species-reaction-darwins-work

Evolution and Angst: Charles Darwin Was a Worrier [Excerpt] – https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evolution-and-angst-charles-darwin-was-a-worrier-excerpt/

Image:

Charles Darwin – https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/darwin-voyage-beagle-when-what-happened-discovered/

With AI-created version

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⁺⁺ About #MaverickNotOutsider

This story was first published as part of Maverick Thinking: The Gift of Difference on Substack.

Difference is the Flipside of Belonging. By leaning into our Difference, we can find value that enriches our sense of Belonging. By re-imagining Outsiders as Mavericks, we can turn Difference into a Superpower – and unleash creativity, agency and empowerment in ourselves and others.

I will be cross-posting some of stories on Maverick Thinking here, especially those stories that may build on our discussions here on the theme of Belonging. Look out for these bonus stories under the playful hashtag #MaverickNotOutsider.

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