To be or to become

It's the old nature v nurture argument again. Are you "born this way" or are you shaped by circumstance or even self-made?

I must say that I lean to the side of nature, that your genes or DNA or whatever is inside has more of a say in who or what you are than where and when and how you grow up. I am not saying that environment or experiences or education have no effect, clearly they do. However on balance, I think there is some pre-wiring which has a greater effect.

At a very basic level, we cannot all be Michael Jordan, Usain Bolt or Lady Gaga even with hard work, determination and luck. I think there is something to "being a boy" which cannot be escaped, and I remember the same-sex female couple who had given birth to a boy and tried to raise him as gender-neutral, yet at two years old he insisted on running around shouting, jumping off everything he could and turning any object into a make-believe gun.

Research shows that "some of the biggest determinants of success - IQ, conscientousness, grit - are far more heritable than we like to imagine".

I read about an interesting family in Kenya where just about everyone rises to greatness and credit is given to upbringing and a family dynamic which may well be true, but so too is that they are all related and share genes and DNA. What would be interesting would be if a completely unrelated child were to be adopted and raised in that family. Would the adopted child see the same outcomes?

This is of course not the same as dynasties where leadership is passed on rather than earned. I remember a study showing that in almost every case, a successful private company does not last beyond the third generation. The first founds and builds it, the second carries it on, the third loses it. By three generations, nature has been diluted and nurture apparently cannot compensate. Several successful artists, athletes and entrepreneurs have announced that they intend not to leave their fortunes to their offspring so it will interesting to see if the second generation reaches the same peak as the first.

Perhaps the kicker is how when becoming parents we so often assert that we will not be the same as our parents, and yet in times of crisis, we become our mother!

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Other Perspectives

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/nature-beats-nurture-nearly-every-time

https://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html#:~:text=The%20nature%20versus%20nurture%20debate,inheritance%20and%20other%20biological%20factors.