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people’s lives were like blank
canvases on which we could paint
new and original works of art.BLUEPRINT
However, even in this age where
anything is possible, the way we shape
our lives is more predetermined than
we’d like to think. It all starts with our
personality. Part of our personality
blueprint is genetic and hereditary: the
way we look, for example, and how we
age. We have also been given certain
inherent qualities that can be made
stronger or weaker by our environment,
but won’t disappear. Personality traits
such as anxiety, kindness, emotionality,
being open to new experiences, and
aggression are largely innate,
according to psychologists and
neurologists. For example, a 2009
study by the Washington University in
St. Louis, US, and the University of
Parma, Italy, showed that these diverse
personality traits reflect actual
differences in the brain. People who
exhibit different traits are born with
somewhat different brains. In his book
We Are Our Brains, Dick Swaab,
professor emeritus of neurobiology at
the University of Amsterdam in the
Netherlands, even states that not much
changes in the brain after our fourth
birthday. International twin research
also repeatedly shows that certain
personality traits are genetically
determined. These traits are then
merely encouraged or suppressed by
our parents, our teachers and the >Sometimes, sayings I grew up with,
anchored deeply in childhood
memories, suddenly pop up again. I’ll
say things like, ‘Don’t let anyone ever
dull your sparkle!’ or, ‘Put some effort
into it’. And another old favorite:
‘Don’t let anyone pull the wool over
your eyes’. I also unconsciously copy
the behavior I saw and heard in my
early childhood in my responses to
situations. And I even recognize it in
my very posture, when I see myself in
photographs: I can see the slightly
stooped shoulders of my mother and
my aunt in how I now sit and stand. In
people I knew growing up, I can also
often see echoes of their fathers or
mothers. In the way they pigheadedly
insist they’re right, for example, or in
how they try to control their children’s
behavior. This copycat attitude is
poignant and astonishing at the same
time, because I remember how they
themselves once suffered from
what they are now unconsciously
replicating. No matter how far our
path strays from that of our parents,
no matter how high the peaks that
some of us have scaled in our
careers, it seems there’s no escaping
from the behavior modeled for us in
our younger years.
THEY WHO WALK BEFORE US
In some indigenous cultures, it’s
customary to list your ancestral tribes
or clans when introducing yourself.
When Irish-American author Molly
Larkin went to visit a New Zealand
Maori family, the eldest daughter
stood on the porch of the house
and greeted the visitors with a chant
in which she called out an invitation
to the guests’ ancestors ‘because
they always walk before us,’ Larkin
was told. ‘Our ancestors are always
paving the way for us,’ writes Larkin,
author of a number of books on native
wisdom, in her blog. What’s more,
she explains, Native Americans often
introduce themselves by reciting their
lineage, such as what clans their
mother and father were part of.
People then immediately know who
you are. For her, she writes, this
would look like: ‘I’m Molly Larkin,
born to John and Iva, descended
from the O’Donohue’s of Bantry,
County Cork, Ireland, the Larkins
of Laragh, County Cavan, the
McCallions of Ballymeana, Northern
Ireland and the McLane’s of Cork City,
Ireland. Daughter to Wallace Black Elk
of the Lakota Nation and Bear Heart
of the Muskogee Creek. I’m also
known as Nokos-fe-ko che [Little
Bear] of the Bear Clan of the
Muskogee Creek Tribe of Oklahoma’.
The fascinating thing about reciting
a list of ancestors is that it’s so far
removed from life as we live it today.
Never before in human history have
our origins played such a minor part,
partly thanks to emancipation and
accessibility of higher education. In
the 1990s, philosophers happily
claimed that, now that we were free
of the ballast of our background,