Free Will?
What really calls the shots.
Let’s play with this idea a minute.
You did not ask to be in this world, and yet, here you are. You did not choose your genetic makeup, your parents, nor your environment. We know that the combination of these three can have lifelong consequences on our development as individuals, good and bad.
From birth, psychologists can deduce a child’s temperament. Think, did you willingly choose to be an introvert, ambivert, or extrovert? These innate tendencies alone affect how you interact with the world.
Clinical Psychologist Dr. Terri Apter, in her article The insidious Legacies of Trauma states,
“The child may not have experienced the traumatic event, but nonetheless re-experiences it through a parent’s unconscious reenactment. The parent’s touch, gesture, and tone inform daily interactions and communicate to the child the essence, if not the particulars of the trauma.”
We’re talking about cross-generational trauma now, and I’m sure no one asks for that. The complex variation of parental presets does not need to be traumatic for transference to have taken place onto the child. This example was utilized merely to drive a point.
Children unconsciously pick up subtle, contextual information and model their behavior after what they witness. Not to mention the vast underbelly of our unconscious at play.
In our developmental years, we are incredibly impressionable, and we internalize cultural norms as our own.
Lest we forget, this is the case for every person on this earth. Not to include what they, too, have absorbed from their models of behavior and innate temperament.
Thus, we are subject entirely to predispositions.
But, what about Choice??
If I were to ask you three movies you’ve seen in your life, what comes to mind?
What you will find is three movies will emerge itself. Yet, you have maybe seen hundreds of films, why those particularly?
Someone approaches you. Whether you like it or not, you make a judgment on this individual. But, what makes the judgment?
Is it your temperamental predisposition? Imprinted positions of your parents? The environment in which you were raised? A combination of all three?
Ah alas, where do you lie in this if you did not choose any of the above?
Links below if you care to investigate more!
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/deep-dives/gene-environment-interaction/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/domestic-intelligence/202005/the-insidious-legacies-trauma
