Which aspects do you think makes a person unique?
Our family is a large one by current standards as we have four grown up children. What makes me absolutely sure that the most important factor in what makes us unique is nature is that all four are as different as it is possible to be.
We have raised four human beings in one household so the nurture part is as similar as you can make it, although, of course, you evolve as parents as you get more experience. I remember one of my friends in Japan, Pip, who was the oldest of three complaining about the fact that her youngest sister in particular could get away with behaviour that her parents wouldn’t have allowed from her. They said it was a process of being worn down by the older children, and from our experience the parents were absolutely right š!
The second part of the nurture is of course the social circle of friends, the impact of school and the impact of social media. As children get older their main influences have always come from friends rather than parents. For me, that probably started at 14 or 15, but as I have mentioned on many occasions the school influence on my personality was wholly negative especially in terms of mood and behaviour. I would say that the parental influence is shorter lived now than it ever used to be because of technology, and, here in the West at least, children probably outgrow their parents in the latter years of primary school and the process is set in stone by early secondary school at the latest.
So, bearing this in mind, I come down firmly on the side of nature in this debate. If we say the same thing to each of our four children they will react in four different ways. This comes down to their genetic inheritance, which has different aspects and different effects. I would say that in terms of the genetics, the importance of the parents’ social and economic situation as well as diet and where they are living play a role in what genes get passed on and which are the most important. This is my own theory and genetics is not my area, but I look back at the way that our life journey had taken us around the world and given us totally different experiences and I can see the way that this may have affected the blueprint for each of the children. Our two boys were born in the UK before we left for Japan, so we had a meat and potato heavy diet and a traditional living arrangement for the UK. The two of them have always been quite traditional in likes, dislikes and outlook, although their early experiences of life in Japan obviously had quite an impact on them, and indeed all of us as a family. Our two daughters born during and not long after our time in Japan had the impact of us having much more of a traditional Asian diet with rice, vegetables and occasional white meat and a completely different lifestyle giving us a very different starting point in terms of the genetic inheritance they were given. They have been more non-traditional in their mindset, by UK standards, and I firmly believe that this is because of the influence of living abroad at the time or not long before conception.
So, my theory is based on nothing more than personal experience and observation but it seems logical to me and the ongoing differences between our four children makes me ever more convinced that I am onto something. There is probably already a lot of research in this area which I would definitely be interested in reading. Perhaps that is an area I can look into now that I have more time.
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
When I see a prompt like this, I wonder why anyone, or at least anyone without a very inflated sense of their own importance would want anything named after them. The idea of a building or a foundation or even a charity being named by you and for you strikes me as, in all but a few cases, incredibly self serving. Whether it is a politician or a celebrity, the naming of anything carries with it the risk of becoming a lightning rod for controversy as a certain orange politician proved. Now, of course, if your only aim in life is to upset your opponents and put yourself front and centre of everything, you won’t care about controversy and you may even welcome it. Actually, if that is your only aim in life you are perfect for the job of a modern politician where helping people is the furthest thing from your mind. So, anyone naming something after themselves is by definition the type of person who I instinctively dislike.
There is, however, a very different example of this that I can support. It’s the naming of a charity after someone who has died or been hugely affected by a medical issue or similar. Sometimes it happens in the face of a personal tragedy. We have seen so many rugby players, from both codes, affected by Motor Neurone Disease. Their foundations have raised huge amounts of money and led to much higher awareness of the condition. In this way, they have taken a dreadful situation and made it a catalyst for amazing goodness. Sometimes it happens after a tragedy. I knew Derek and Jennifer Phillips for a number of years. I rented a room in their house and was treated with kindness and compassion. Jennifer was an excellent cook and baker made our wedding cake which was absolutely amazing. They had a daughter called Demelza who worked in a hospice in Birmingham. She tragically died after a brain tumour and Derek and Jennifer set up a children’s hospice in Kent called Demelza. The incredible work they have done in the past three decades has been genuinely life changing for so many families, and their mission is to, as the charity says, ‘Add life to years when years cannot be added to life’. Demelza would no doubt have been incredibly proud of her legacy and the way that her short life has made such a difference to so many other lives. To be honoured in such a way should always be the decision of the family and friends of the person, but when it happens it is a fitting tribute.
If you have been inspired by the story of Demelza please look at their website and consider supporting them in any way you can.
IāmĀ David, a former teacher of English to non-native speakers for 30 years. I have beenĀ an avid reader for most of myĀ life, andĀ haveĀ a huge rangeĀ of genres and subjects I enjoy. Recently I have beenĀ very interestedĀ in PopularĀ CultureĀ and I always look out for books that will help further my interest and self-education in that area. Having stepped back [ā¦]
David Pearce
A series of questions that I tackled that really made me think, with many thanks to book blogger Books by your Bedside. Her reviews are always excellent and I thoroughly recommend following as your new favourite read may be just around the corner.
What makes you laugh?
For quite a while I was finding it difficult to laugh in the way I used to. It seemed as though I had to be in exactly the right mood and have exactly the right stimulus. Like so many other people I found it became a real effort. Part of it was a job that was no longer enjoyable in the way it had been. Part of it was getting older and thinking that laughing was something that just naturally subsidised over the years. To be honest I still think that to a certain extent because it just seems weird to watch older people, of whom I am now one, burst out laughing at the drop of a hat. It seems to transgress some unwritten rule of nature! I tell jokes and enjoy the laughter they occasionally elicit but I tend to restrain myself where possible when reacting to jokes from other people. I think that the final part of the puzzle is my own nature. Even as a kid I wasn’t encouraged to laugh by the society I grew up in. I mean, it wouldn’t be true to say that I didn’t laugh a lot but I was conscious of needing a proper excuse for it.
So, what am I doing to bring some unforced laughter into my life? Well, I am more relaxed which helps, and I am definitely not trying to stem any episodes of laughter. However, I will still only laugh at specific things like comedies and usually I will not do so in public, apart from perhaps in a theatre or on the very rare occasion I go to a film. There is something stopping me and I think it’s practice. Maybe like Scrooge I need to be visited by three spirits as that is what unlocked his laughter! Society seems to write a script where if you don’t laugh you are humourless and if you laugh too much you are immature, so I feel like I need to strike a clear balance. Also, I often think some laughs are too loud, too long or too fake and are designed to be a ‘look at me’ signal so I want to avoid being ‘that person’! I know that this overthinking is what is holding me back, but I can only say I am a work in progress. Last week when I celebrated my birthday with a trip to the Crystal Maze, I laughed unselfconciously on many occasions in the company of my family. It’s a good sign and one to build on.
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I have more recall than most of my childhood experiences, and I have built my blog around that in many ways. However, I sincerely doubt that anyone can genuinely remember what they wanted to be when they grew up at the age of 5. I know that more expert writers than me have written about memory, but I have a few theories based on my own experiences.
My first memory appears to come from a traumatic experience I had when I was six months old. Yes, you read that correctly! I was in a car with my parents in the days before seat belts and baby seats and I had a vague memory of falling out of a car. I mentioned this one day and it was confirmed that this was not made up, it had actually happened. So, I came to the conclusion that, for me at least, that memory was real and triggered by an event that was as far from normal as it was possible to get. The next memory I have was from a year or two later of being carried onto an aeroplane by my Mother. It was in an Arabic country, and it was confirmed that we had indeed flown via a gulf state. Why did I remember that? Well, as a child of under 3 the act of getting on a plane would not be particularly normal even when your Dad worked for the Diplomatic Wireless Service. Other memories from before my fifth birthday include a visit to a zoo in Malaysia where I saw this tiger in a deep pit and I was really sad for it. That feeling of hating animals being kept in captivity never left me. Finally I remember that we had a house in Singapore and two or three memories stick out. One was seeing a massive moth in the house, another was watching the moon landing with my parents and their friends and finally our last Christmas there a few months before my fifth birthday. I had been given some Meccano, which really didn’t appeal to me as I had no coordination and no logic to help put things together – something that has never changed!! – but my Dad and his friends sat there and built some amazing models from the kit that I had abandoned!!
So, if the memories you have reflect really important times in your early life, and things that are very much out of the ordinary, it’s perhaps quite natural that those memories stand out. During the year following my fifth birthday I can remember elements of our trip home from Singapore, but then we came back by ship so that shouldn’t be too surprising! I don’t remember much about ship board life, apart from shutting my finger in the cabin door! However I remember many of the ports and places we visited, Australia, Fiji, Tonga, Acapulco and Florida in particular. From the first year back in the UK I remember very little as my life started to move in much smaller increments. Odd incidents like laughing at the name of the town, Towcester, in class and being told off by the teacher have stuck. I couldn’t help it because it was pronounced ‘toaster’ and I had this vision of a town full of bread! My humour always has been considered odd though!! Also, as I found out when I did my Singing Together post I could remember a couple of the songs.
So, I don’t remember what I wanted to be at 5 but I hope you have enjoyed this trip through my earliest memories.
Read more: The Persistence of Memory
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 