I watched a documentary this past weekend called ‘Three Identical Strangers’ which follows the rather surreal story of three identical triplets separated at birth and how they found each other 20 years later. I don’t want to spoil the film, but for the purposes of this newsletter, all you need to know is that it brought up fascinating discussions about the interplay between nature and nurture.
This has long been a hotly debated topic in scientific and sociological circles.
How much of who you are is because of the characteristics you inherit through your genes?
And how much of who you are is because of the upbringing you have as a child?
It’s not an open and shut case by any means and it continues to have implications for how we think about parenting, societal expectations, and even free will itself. There are whole schools of philosophy that will run with these ideas to their extremes.
What is safe to say, I think, is that we tend to pass on certain characteristics, worldviews, and values to our children. How we raise them has a large influence on the people they become - for good and for bad. Children are incredibly impressionable and when in the bubble of their parents, they don’t know any other way. They model the behaviour of their parents.
In this vein, I loved this quote from Tim Urban:
"When parents raise a child, they instill elements of their psyche in them. When one of those elements is damaged, the damage is usually passed on. So self-improvement isn't selfish - it’s repairing the 'family psyche' which improves the lives of all the generations downstream. Human growth is a multi-generational collaboration."
No matter how perfectly we try to parent our children, we are going to screw them up in some way because we are flawed human beings with our own demons, insecurities, and weaknesses. That’s why every one of us today carries the baggage of our family forward into the future.
Self-improvement represents an attempt to fix those holes and become a better person for the good of your children and those who are to follow. It’s not selfish to focus time and energy on improving yourself because any benefits you’re able to accrue in terms of your character and how you see the world is going to be passed on to those you interact with.
This goes beyond your immediate family as well. If you are able to turn yourself into a patient optimist, you are going to have an influence on your friends and colleagues - passing forward that internal work and letting others leverage what you’ve been able to do.
When we focus on making ourselves better people, we encourage and inspire others to join us. It’s how society makes progress, through one small interaction at a time.
This is why doing the internal work is so important.
It’s not just for you, it’s for everyone. It’s the domino that you can push over.
It’s being the change you want to see in the world.
New Podcast: Freedom
On this episode of the podcast we talk about the UK’s easing roadmap, controversial vaccine passports, the AstraZeneca blood clotting controversy, new music from Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber, the Louvre at home, Discord Stage Channels, and Chad opens up about some of the stuff he’s been going through this past week. It’s jam-packed, raw, and real - we hope you enjoy!
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
Links:
Self-control is one of those characteristics bandied about in the habit-building communities that is held up in great esteem as a crucial part of the process. This article does a great job at demystifying some of the poor thinking in these debates and lays out a much more realistic assessment of what self-control actually entails. (Link)
GPT-3 was one of the most significant breakthroughs in natural language processing and blew all of us away with how sophisticated and detailed it’s written responses could be to fairly simple inputs. This post lays out some of the more interesting applications of the algorithm and it makes for some fascinating reading. So much to come from this space. (Link)
I heard this short piece from David Whyte on the ‘Making Sense’ podcast a couple of weeks ago and it still sticks with me. It’s a wonderful ode to friendship. (Link)
Do it daily. (Link)
I watched an incredible documentary this past weekend called ‘Three Identical Strangers’ charting the story of three identical triplets separated at birth in some rather controversial circumstances. Highly recommended. (Link)
There we have it! I hope there was something in here to get you thinking. Thanks again for letting me into your inbox, I’ll see you again next week - same time, same place.
Be kind to yourself!
Barry