Wired for the Wild

Gregory L. Smith, MD, MPH, is a Harvard-trained preventive medicine physician with over four decades of clinical experience. A graduate of Rush Medical College and the Harvard School of Public Health, he is board-certified in both General Preventive and Occupational Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Smith’s career spans clinical practice, research, and teaching in areas including metabolic health, medical cannabis, and lifestyle medicine. Drawing on his background in epidemiology, physiology, and human behavior, he explores how the evolution of civilization has shaped—and strained—the biological systems that once kept us healthy, connected, and whole.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Born to Belong

PART I: THE DEPARTURE — How We Left Ourselves Behind

Chapter 1: Seeds of Control — Agriculture, Hierarchy, and the Birth of Inequality

Chapter 2: Empire and Conquest — From Kinship to Kingdom

Chapter 3: The Mechanization of the Soul — Scientific Revolution, Capitalism, and the Remaking of Reality

Chapter 4: The Great Acceleration — Industry, Technology, and the Conquest of Time

PART II: THE WASTE LAND — Living in the Ruins of Mismatch

Chapter 5: The Fractured Self — Anxiety, Atomization, and Life in the Modern Machine

Chapter 6: Disconnected Communities — The Collapse of Belonging

Chapter 7: Extraction and Domination — How Power Systems Consume People and Planet

PART III: THE RETURN — Finding Our Way Back

Chapter 8: Coming Home to Ourselves — Reclaiming Agency, Health, and Embodied Autonomy

Chapter 9: Rebuilding the Village — Reconstructing Community and Interdependence

Chapter 10: The Cultural Renaissance — Rewriting Our Collective Story

Chapter 11: Symbiotic Systems — Redesigning Society for Ecological and Human Flourishing

Conclusion: The Choice Point — Which Future Will We Choose?