Nature and Nurture

Writing always involves people. People are writers. People are the audience. And very often, people are the subject material. As such, a significant part of writing is understanding people. Therefore, we should weigh in on the nature versus nurture debate.

Is it our genetic code that makes us who we are or is it how we are raised? At this point in time, I'm fairly sure that everybody will say it is a combination of the two. So the more important question is what ratio of nature and nurture are we?

Personally, I believe that nurture has a lot more influence than nature. For one thing, I look at my family and my friends. My family is close and I am pretty similar in one way or another to all of the family members I know of. But the more time I spend with them, the more I notice the differences between us.

My friends, on the other hand, are completely unrelated to me, but are still very close. Although they are different, the more time I spend with them, the more I notice the similarities between us. We ended up having similar circumstances and developing in similar ways because of it. Of course, none of them have lived an identical life to me. And where our lives were different, we have grown to be different because of that.

I understand that observation is far from an exact science, but nothing involving behavior and emotions is an exact science. I still stick by the fact that a person's experiences in life will shape them far more than their DNA will. Just because your dad was a serial killer doesn't mean you will be, too. Of course, if your dad raises you to be a serial killer, well, that still supports my point (I just won't show up to your house to say so).