Sunday, July 1, 2007

Who We Are Part 1: A Summary of the Roles of Nature and Nurture

Once upon a time there were two good friends, nature and nurture. Nature consisted of all that was genetically oneself. And Nurture was the resulting person formed when one's Nature gained consciousness. It would be easy to say that Nurture is the effect of different peoples' Natures, as I previously contended, but this I now realize would be to belittle the significance of Nurture. It is in actuality, the end result, the person created based upon the rules outlined in the genes of man, Nature. Nurture is one's total being, both conscious and subconscious. It is the result of an interaction with another and one's Nature, the rule book.

Nature is solely your genes. It labels your tendencies and your desires. It creates the basic model for your life. All information and stimuli that pass through you in one manner or another must be translated by your Nature into a response suitable its genetically implaced rules. Nature determines when you get happy, when you get sad, the job you'll desire, the dreams you will have. However, you future is not pre-written by your Nature. As I said, Nature is only rules, not the result. That is what Nurture is.

Nurture represents everything you are. While Nature is the reason why you do something, nurture is the doing of the action. Nurture decides your dreams. Nurture decides your desires. It is an assemblage of hopes, urges, and effects that create your personality and too your person itself.

How is this so? Your Nurture is only the end result. It does not actually exist as an entity, concrete in the world as Nature, your genes, are. However, it is the grouping of all that makes you the person that you are. It is the filler between birth and death that distinguishes you from everyone else. It's worth saying that everyone is different because of their Nurture. Two people with different sets of Natures will have different reactions to stimuli, that is different Nurture variations. Therefore, no two people are the same and likewise, if no two people are the same, there is no basis for comparison (except for in the vaguest terms) and you cannot predict fully one's actions. That is, there is no predestination.

Now that we understand what Nature is (the rule book) and what Nurture is (the filler reactions of your life), we can begin to understand the vast (that is total) affect that it has on who we are and who we will become.

SEXUALITY
Please allow me to thoroughly irritate you by saying outright that your sexuality is fully dependant on your Nurture. You have no control over it. And, there is no gene that decides it for you. As close as we can come to Nature's role in sexuality is this: Evolutionarily, man's first role is to survive to breeding age and man's second role is to reproduce. Thirdly, one can argue raising children to reproduction age could also be one of Nature's rules for man. After that, Nature's rule regarding evolution has finished it's job and man can move onto something else.

This Natural Rule of Reproduction (or Specieal Survival, if you will) is one of the strongest of Nature's Rules. However, it can be broken. Easily, given the right conditions. Will you not sacrifice your life to save a loved one, whether you are sexually interested in them or not? Will you not forgo sexual reproduction if an attractive member of the opposite sex isn't available. (Although it's notable that one's requirements for a mate do tend downwards as they get older and continue to fail to find a suitable person with whom to produce the next generation.)

One of the largest breaks of the Natural Rule of Reproduction is of course the occurrence of non-heterosexual tendencies in all their forms. They are not in the norm insofar as they are not the majority and thereby must be somehow deviant from said norm. This is not necessarily a bad thing unless you are the Natural Rule of Reproduction and desire solely to reproduce. (People in whom this gene is strong, or overtly-strong, tend to foster ill will towards non-heterosexuals incidentally.)

I did say however that it is not a gene that causes non-heterosexuality. And it's not. The gene (the Natural Rule of Reproduction) is only a guide and when acted upon by an outside force with great enough strength will crumble just as any other Natural Rule will. This outside force is usually, although not always, another person. I will say that you cannot be "turned" non-heterosexual, you are born with the Nature that you have throughout your life and what ever you become you become based on those rules. However, it is certain that at some point in a non-heterosexual's life they will appear to deviate from the norm. Sometimes this happens at puberty. Sometimes this happens earlier or later as determined by the end result of your Nature coming in contact with another's Nurture. That is, you may realize that you are non-heterosexual when you meet someone who's Nurture is so significant enough to your other Natural Rules that the Natural Rule of Reproduction is forsaken. Maybe it's because you find them attractive. Maybe it's because of their intelligence. It may be any number of different stimuli that they provide that causes you to forsake the Natural Rule of Reproduction. For instance, "I knew I was a lesbian the moment I got to know her. She made me happy to be alive. I enjoyed myself with her more than with anyone else. We complimented each other."

The only difference between heterosexual relationships (which work of the same premise as the last example) and non-heterosexual relationships is that the Natural Rule of Reproduction must be broken. That is why there are fewer non-heterosexuals than heterosexuals, because it is easier to perchance a stimuli (be it a person, event, or series of events) that will not amount to enough to break the Natural Rule of Reproduction than it is to perchance a stimuli great enough to overcome the pull of the Natural Rule of Reproduction. That is, everyone has the potential to be all sexualities, if the right stimuli are present. Although, for some people, it is more difficult to break with the Natural Rule of Reproduction because either the stimuli isn't present or not present in great enough quantity, in effect that the Natural Rule of Reproduction is more dominant in that person than it, by de facto results, in the other who broke the Rule of Reproduction.

ALCOHOL AND DRUG USAGE AND DEPRESSION
Alcohol and drug usage are similar to sexuality in a few respects, however genes do NOT, I repeat DO NOT, cause alcoholism or drug use. They are the products of a larger problem. Allow me to introduce another of Nature's Rules, the Natural Rule of Happiness. It is Natural, that is it is in your genes, to be happy. The Natural Rule of Happiness is linked heavily to the Natural Rule of Reproduction. A happy creature is a productive creature and therefore is most likely a reproductive creature. Depression has no benefit to your life or your reproduction, therefore it is a result of a breach of the Happiness Rule. If your Happiness Rule is not sufficiently strong enough in a particular instance then you will become depressed by the Nurtural stimuli received. That is, you will become depressed. Alcoholism and drug usage are physical means to dull the senses to avoid overcoming depression. (I will come back to what overcoming is later.)

People who live in a climate conducive to alcohol and drug usage are more likely to do so. Yes. However, that is because they too are in the presence of the same mitigating factors' attack on the Natural Rule of Happiness in say your parents or siblings as well as other mitigating factors that will result in depression. That is, their Nurture is more likely to realize that their other dreams are less likely to come true, be those dreams be of a loving family, a safe home environment, healthy social relationships, or any number of other things one can desire.

Therein this we can find the solution to alcoholism and or drug usage. Find an alternate way to satisfy these desires. Find a way to create a loving family by getting your parents, siblings, spouse, etc., help dealing with their problems, expand outside the home and create strong social connections, etc. as the desire requires. However, it is also necessary to point out that sometimes, the Happiness Rule can be broken so well that one cannot fix it on their own and that another person must help them achieve their dreams in order to fix their depression and thereby their addiction or familial's addiction (and likely pending personal addiction). Some people can be so far gone that they don't know that they need help and may even become irritated or violent because of their depression. However, by understanding the underlying causes for alcoholism and drug usage, a breach of the Rule of Happiness, one can help them cure it or one can cure it for themselves if they are not too far gone.

How do you keep a person who has family members who are addicted and/or depressed (tending towards addiction in time)? Find out what would make them happy and make it happen. Sometimes, just fulfilling one or two of these desires, say for a stable home life or a strong social life, can boost them enough so that they can fix the rest of the problem themselves.

Also be aware that alcohol and drugs are not the only addictions. Anything that obscures one's sense of reality in any way is an addiction. I contend that anyone who uses these things at any point whatsoever has some level of depression and some internal problem that they desire to fuzz over. Perhaps they drink socially. They aren't satisfied with their social life or they feel too introverted. Perhaps they smoke for the pleasure it brings them. They are lacking true pleasure in their lives, particularly in an emotional or sexual sense. Regardless, on some level they feel empty or missing something.

POLITICAL AFFILIATION
Those who have a weaker Natural Rule of Survival of the Fittest tend to be egalitarian. The Natural Rule of Survival is the precursor to the Natural Rule of Reproduction (survive to reproductive age). People with a weaker Natural Rule of Survival of the Fittest when acted upon by outside stimuli showing others who are less advantaged then themselves or less advantaged than they believe one should be (even if they too are disadvantaged, perhaps even more) will attempt to help them. Likewise, a second Natural Rule could exist to the same effect, the Natural Rule of Society. This Rule states that man will help his fellow man so that society as a whole will rise up and profit. Consider it a big example of sharing excess if you will. These people will be designated Type A or Survival of the Fittest Weak or Society Strong. As near to an actual political group as I can designate them, they would be equivalent to post-Napoleon French Liberals. Warren Buffett, Ted Kennedy, and Oprah Winfrey would be examples of these people, those who tend to care for the common man.

Those whose Natural Rule of Survival of the Fittest is stronger than stimuli tend to favor personal well being (and perhaps familial well being) over the well being of Society as a whole. These people have a weak Natural Rule of Society. In today's society, these people tend to care more about money and other tradeable assets than anything else. They are today's stereotypical Big Business Executives or (equivalent to) French post-Napoleon monarchists and nobles. People who are good examples of this are Adolf Hitler and any number of other dictators or absolute monarchs.

HOW TO SWAY POLITICAL LEANINGS
The only way to sway political leanings is to satisfy enough of one's Nurture's desires to overcome the difference in their Natural Rule of Survival 0f the Fittest / Society. It is the same method used to decide sexuality and the same to foment happiness. However these Rules are weaker than the other two mentioned and therefore are easier to influence.

OVERCOMING AND MAKING UP FOR RULES
Overcoming a predisposed Nurtural condition, say unhappiness, is done by finding factors that will make them happy. The process of doing this is called Making Up for the Rules. Making Up for the Rules is the process by which one uses other Rules to Make Up for a weakness or strength in another. The example of a stable home and strong social life is an example of this. However, it can be taken the opposite way as well. You can make someone unhappy by removing Nurtural stimuli that fortifies the Natural Rule of Happiness.

WHAT THIS MEANS
This means that we all play by the same type of rule book, Nature. Each person's Nature is different, because Nature is your genes. Each persons' Nurture, that is the content of your life from birth to death, is different because it is processed through the rules of your Nature, which as I said are different in everyone, and because you do not receive the same stimuli as everyone else.

Furthermore, people's Nurtural being can be influenced if one knows which stimuli to use. All people are able to control and manipulate all people if they have the ability to comprehend other people's Natural Rules with some accuracy by providing stimuli and understanding the Nurture produced and the context within.

And finally, given the right stimuli resultant from the accurate knowledge attained from other stimuli about another's Nature, one can manipulate them at will. It is done subconsciously and consciously (especially by politicians) every day. Therefore, we must be constantly vigilant that we are not being exploited by others for their means, and although we cannot change our Nature, I hope sincerely that this stimuli has in some way affected your Nurtural being in a way so as to make it possible for you to realize that you have the power to resist exploitation.

FLYFREEFOREVER!

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