(8 minute read)

Or More Importantly, What The Hell Are We Doing?

…genius can be bound in a nutshell and yet embrace the whole fullness of life.

Thomas Mann, As quoted in The Soul’s Code, James Hillman, Random House, 1996

For nearly two centuries, scientists have greatly debated the factors that influence a human life. Basically, there are two camps or schools of thought. One believes that individual human beings are formed through genetics. The other believes that the environment plays a bigger part in who we become.

The great nature vs. nurture debate.

It was a hotly contested debate until another generation of scientists came along and proved an outcome. It came through a decades long study of …twins, identical and fraternal, raised together or separated by birth. Twins share the same DNA genetic code. They had a nature variable.

The scientists compared the twins separated at birth to those that grew up together in the same home. If they could prove genetics was the dominant variable then environment could be ruled out or vice versa.

The nature vs. nurture debate might finally have an answer. The conclusion? Both were equally important.

“A strict dichotomy between genes and environment is no longer relevant; they work in concert,” American psychologist and researcher, Nancy Segal told The New York Times in 2018.

However, in 1996, long before the nature vs. nurture debate was finally put to the test, Hillman advocated that there needed to be a third and better way. This approach would lift us out of and away from the restrictions imposed by the nature vs. nurture debate. Despite the fact that he is writing decades earlier, what is provided is relevant today.

Ultimately, we now know that genetics and environment are at equal play. If we accept the premise that we are a product of nature and nurture, we must do so now. What we are left with is a passive life. We are helplessly, hopelessly, and utterly reduced to being a product of “results.” These results are several factors that we have no control over and are provided with no initial input. We are mere products of our parents and environment in which we were formed.

The age old saying, “garbage in, garbage out,” holds true. Conversely, “good stuff in, good stuff out” also applies. This is the only logical conclusion. By the time we reach the age of becoming aware of this, it’s too late and the die is cast. We are who we are …with very little hope for change, aren’t we?

So, why are we fighting it? Why not just learn how our DNA and environment have shaped us and leave it at that? Take it like an adult. Accept our fate. There is no free will.

By accepting the idea that I am the effect of a subtle buffeting between hereditary and societal forces, I reduce myself to a result.

The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim.

At the outset we need to make clear that today’s main paragigm for understanding human life, the interplay of genetics and environment, omits something essential–the particularity you feel to be you.

Hillman, Soul’s Code (emphasis mine)

Nature and nurture are the first and second ways to understand human life development. We know that it’s not one more than the other. But, and perhaps equally just as important, there is a third way that rises above both nature and nurture.

It is what Hillman calls, “that particularity you feel to be you.”

• The individual we define
• The inner qualities we define
• The fullness of our humanness we define
• The self awareness of knowing every nook and cranny (the details) we define

That “particularity” is our very essence. It is how we see and define ourselves in the world. It is also “who” we have an inner dialogue with on a daily basis. There is a part of us influenced and animated by genetics and environment. However, it does not have to be a slave or robot to them.

The inner essence knows there must be more to a quality of life. It’s not just about coming from a good gene pool. It’s also not just about the high class country club the pool is in or not in. There are countless examples of those who refused to be reduced to a single identity. They transcended their socio-economic upbringing. Some became the first in their family to achieve something outside of what some would say “their genetics dictate.”

• Frederick Douglass – leader of the 19th century American abolitionist movement, born into slavery, witness to great acts of violence, separated from his parents, taught himself to read
• Albert Einstein – father of modern physics, after graduating from university couldn’t get a job as a teacher or in any physics field, eventually found work as an assistant patent clerk, but was refused a promotion because he had a hard time learning how to use office machines
• Victor Frankl – Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist, wrote Man’s Search For Meaning detailing the universal human condition of our search for a meaning as the main motivational force transcending race, religion, or sex, was imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp 

There are just as many examples of people with pedigrees and “great” genes. They had upbringings that led to great expectations written for them at birth. Yet, they squandered opportunity after opportunity, never living up to their potential.

The above examples show that we need to recognize the influence of our genetics and environment. This awareness is crucial to become more than a product of them. We must also absolutely and categorically refuse their imposed limits. Not that we deny that the effects of nature and nurture exist, but we refuse to be reduced by them.

If we limit ourselves and others to only being products of genetics, we risk reducing ourselves to being victims. This would be unfortunate. American society needs to lift itself out of the victim quicksand. That time is now.

We are rife with it but don’t have to live like that.

• Unraveling the Mindset of Victimhood
• Opinion: The consequences of victimhood culture
• The problem with a victim mentality
• The Rise of Victimhood Culture
• How White Victimhood Fuels Republican Politics

Since the dawn of developed language, attempts to recognize or define an inner motivation have been written about. This pursuit is still active today.

Whether one actually exists or not is of little consequence. In reality, all of it may have been made up like the myriad of religions all over the world. We use different terms for this inner source depending on the spirituality de jour. It can be called a soul or life force. Other names include character, calling, inner guidance, spirit force, or daimon. We choose our preferred myth to define us. This myth inspires and guides us. This is done “in order to be emotionally and psychologically prosperous.”

The attempts at defining those inner workings helps in developing individual and collective meaning and purpose. The words and names we assign to them do not tell us what IT is. They demonstrate that we recognize that there is something. This is true even if it’s just to define a body full of life. It is also true when compared to one literally deplete of it.

We cannot know what exactly we are referring to because its nature remains shadowy, revealing itself mainly in hints, intuitions, whispers, and the sudden urges …

Hillman

In order to answer the question, Who Are We Really?, we look not on the outside for a definition, but inward.

We may list our accomplishments when asked, “Tell me a little about yourself.” However, being a teacher, a policeman, a writer, an artist is a vocation and NOT who we really are. Rather, those are an outward manifestation of our inner character, soul, or life force.

By answering the question, Who Are We Really?, we begin our biography. Not necessarily for the world to read, but for ourselves first. Like Dorthy in The Wizard of Oz, we place our ruby redslipper on that first golden brick. We need our own yellow brick road to follow.

Who Are We Really? We are a mixture of genes and environment. Both good and bad co-mingle in a human genetic cocktail. This cocktail is comprised of failures and potentials. Many of these aspects are out of control. However, that’s only part of the answer.

We start mining for answers when we recognize the earthly limits of those genes, chromosomes, and family ties. We dare to transcend them. This effort creates a third way of defining ourselves.

A third way. One that refuses to be defined by limits.

A third way. One that determines to define ourselves as a little more than human but a little lesser than the gods.

Who Are We Really? More importantly, who are YOU?

Start mining for your answer now.

Read The Acorn Theory, Pt. 3