Postage for Pakistan and other parts of the planet

Thursday, June 2, 2011

On biology versus environment (or nature vs. nurture)

By all lights, I should absolutely LOVE beets. My mother and father love them. My sister loves them. My grandparents, as far as I know, love/loved them. I should be genetically predisposed to loving beets with a passion that might frighten some into wondering whether I needed psychological counseling (undoubtedly I do, but that is a different matter for a different post).

The truth is, however, that I don't. Quite the opposite. Nothing turns my stomach more than the very thought of those deep purple, sweaty, gelatinous slices or cubes approaching my mouth. The repulsive visions this produces in my psyche are worthy of the greatest nightmare, such is my revulsion to the very notion of beets.

So am I a genetic anomaly in my family? Well, perhaps, but here's the thing: In my baby book, my mother writes that as a toddler, "[He] loves beets." Evidently, I ate them up with gusto whenever they were placed on my high chair tray. The question is begged, therefore, why do I hate them now?

I don't know. I can't say. All I do know is that I can never remember a time when I didn't hate beets. If I didn't see it in writing, and I didn't know that writing was set down contemporaneous to the events in questions, I would think my mother had made up the above statement in an effort to guilt young-child-me into going along with the rest of the family at dinner time. "Be like us! See?! You used to LOVE beets." The evidence before my eyes, however, shows me this is not true.

Today, there are lots of people who say that XYZ condition must be genetic within them because they can never remember a time when they didn't feel drawn to and/or afflicted by said condition. Memory when we're very young, though, is such a very vague thing, isn't it. How can they say for sure what did or didn't happen to make them behave or feel that way?

What do you think?

No comments:

Post a Comment

When commenting, be charitable, be kind, be loving. Say nothing you would not say to Jesus himself.