Nature, Nurture, Or Mere Coincidence
Why are we the way we are? Why do we do what we do? Is choice an illusion? Can we not change our fate?
Something happened at a computer store where I went to fix a faulty laptop.
There was a particular young man on the hot seat; the young man was standing but still; “he was on the hot seat.”
Everyone was insulting him, his mother, his sister, his boss, and other people in the store who I couldn’t figure out the relationship they had with him. He took everything they threw at him like a champ, smiling mischievously without saying a word.
His boss said he is unserious, lazy, and too fixated on his phone. His boss checked his WhatsApp status one day and saw him in a video rolling weed. His mother said his father has planned to send her out if the boy does not return to the house. The others said their own, a lot of things were said, everything they said is pointless to this story.
They brought out a lot of things from under the rug, but only one thing touched the young man. Imagine that one thing the mother could have said to make the young man that seemed unaffected by words to start stammering, his mischievous smile changed to a frown.
He understood it, felt it, couldn’t hide how he felt.
One thing got me thinking, the mother talked about how good, talented and hardworking his younger brother is. The mother put the young lady, his elder sister, the one who sat down on display for the people to see “the elder sister of the standing young man on the hot seat” the woman was in pain and she could not hide the bitterness on her face.
To be honest, none of the emotions really got to me. I mirrored any emotion that was brought past me, the experience had me thinking, it brought questions I couldn’t answer, I mean tell me, what determines the way we think and behave? Personally, I think knowledge and experience over time do, but we both know what I think doesn’t matter.
Before I left the store, my mind brought back those questions that once bothered me, why is this boy like this, I had to ask myself, I had to know the answer to the deeper question that was subtly asked in our gathering. Is it nature, nurture, or mere coincidence?
