Walking Toward the Mountains
“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and impossible.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
There’s a short clip that’s been circulating for years: a lone penguin, waddling away from the safety of the colony, crossing miles of frozen nothingness, heading straight toward distant mountains.
No mates. No food. No obvious reason—at least none we can easily explain.
Just movement. Purpose. Direction.
Biologists don’t fully agree on why this happens. Some think it’s illness. Some think it’s a navigation error. Some suggest instinct misfiring. But anyone who watches the footage long enough feels the pull of a different explanation—one that isn’t scientific, but deeply human.
The penguin isn’t wandering.
It’s choosing something harder.
The Colony Is Safe. The Colony Is Also the Problem.
In nature, survival usually depends on conformity. Stay with the group. Follow the patterns. Don’t stand out.
Healthcare is no different.
For decades, the “colony” has been clear:
- Bill more.
- See patients faster.
- Add layers of administration.
- Accept that burnout is the cost of doing business.
- Accept that patients are confused, frustrated, and financially exposed.
Most doctors didn’t choose this system because they believed in it. They chose it because leaving it looked impossible.
And then some didn’t.
Direct Care Is the Walk Away From the Colony
Direct Care didn’t begin as a market strategy. It wasn’t a venture-backed disruption. It wasn’t born in boardrooms.
It began when individual physicians looked around and said:
This is not why I became a doctor.
So they stepped out.
No guarantees. No safety net. No roadmap. Often no encouragement—sometimes outright hostility.
They traded predictable paychecks for uncertain income, institutional protection for personal responsibility, and “this is how it’s done” for “let’s try something better.”
That decision looks irrational from inside the colony.
From the outside, it looks necessary.
Why the Walk Looks Like Failure (Until It Doesn’t)
That penguin doesn’t look heroic at first.
It looks wrong.
It looks like something is broken.
That’s how Direct Care has been labeled for years:
- “Not scalable”
- “Not real insurance”
- “Only for the healthy”
- “Too simple to work”
And yet—quietly, steadily—Direct Care physicians are spending more time with patients, restoring continuity and trust, slashing unnecessary costs, reducing burnout, and rebuilding medicine around relationships instead of codes.
The mountains don’t disappear just because the walk is lonely.
Attempting the Impossible Is the Point
Nietzsche wasn’t celebrating death. He was celebrating meaning.
Some things matter enough to fail at.
Some systems are broken enough that trying to fix them will look foolish before it looks inevitable.
Direct Care isn’t easy. It isn’t safe. It isn’t comfortable.
But neither is staying in a system that asks doctors to care less in order to survive more.
Why This Story Resonates
That lone penguin reminds us of something uncomfortable:
Progress rarely starts with consensus. It starts with someone willing to look wrong.
Direct Care is not the end of the story. It’s the walk toward the mountains.
And whether it succeeds or fails, it already proves something vital:
Medicine does not have to accept the world as it is.
Final Thought
Most people never leave the colony. Some do—and change the landscape forever.
If healthcare is going to be fixed, it won’t be because it was easy.
It will be because enough people believed the attempt was worth everything.