Genetic Inheritance
Nature or nurture? What are we born with and what do we learn?
Personally, I feel let down by genetic inheritance. Most of what I got really isn't too exciting: brown hair, big nose, and ultra-sensitive skin. What I wish I'd inherited is all the generations of carpentry skills my family possessed. The conventional scientific wisdom is carpentry is a learned skill. Unfortunately, we are not born with a full knowledge of how to cut a perfect miter joint, frame a house, or calculate the correct slope for a roof. Instead, all we get is a crappy sucking reflex.
If the laws of nature could be flaunted in my favor, I would have been born an uber-carpenter. Both of my great-grandfathers were carpenters. My maternal great-grandfather was a Norwegian boat-builder turned carpenter once he came to the U.S. He worked on the Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park (suburb of Chicago), Illinois. My paternal grandfather was a master-carpenter, a contractor, and a lock smith.
Since then, my family has migrated from crafts and trades to white collar professions. Some of the old carpentry skills have tricked down (I remember my dad teaching me how to toe-nail when I was about 4 or 5), but it's been a pretty feeble inheritance. Even though we share the same ancestry, I am bear as close a resemblance to a master-carpenter as Chihuahua does to a wolf.
Even though I enjoy building things, I don't honestly want to spend my life working as a professional carpenter. Having the skills of one would be very useful though.
Personally, I feel let down by genetic inheritance. Most of what I got really isn't too exciting: brown hair, big nose, and ultra-sensitive skin. What I wish I'd inherited is all the generations of carpentry skills my family possessed. The conventional scientific wisdom is carpentry is a learned skill. Unfortunately, we are not born with a full knowledge of how to cut a perfect miter joint, frame a house, or calculate the correct slope for a roof. Instead, all we get is a crappy sucking reflex.
If the laws of nature could be flaunted in my favor, I would have been born an uber-carpenter. Both of my great-grandfathers were carpenters. My maternal great-grandfather was a Norwegian boat-builder turned carpenter once he came to the U.S. He worked on the Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park (suburb of Chicago), Illinois. My paternal grandfather was a master-carpenter, a contractor, and a lock smith.
Since then, my family has migrated from crafts and trades to white collar professions. Some of the old carpentry skills have tricked down (I remember my dad teaching me how to toe-nail when I was about 4 or 5), but it's been a pretty feeble inheritance. Even though we share the same ancestry, I am bear as close a resemblance to a master-carpenter as Chihuahua does to a wolf.
Even though I enjoy building things, I don't honestly want to spend my life working as a professional carpenter. Having the skills of one would be very useful though.
posted by John | 8:45 PM
2 Comments:
You need to summon Greg's fairies! Better still, summon Greg!
(That is "Petch House Greg" in case you aren't a houseblog reader.)
Is there some sort of ritual I need to perform for that? And, what do I need to throw in so he'll bring a case of Downtown Brown with him?
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