SO, WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
I am a reflective mildly intellectual person. I’m timid at relationships and perhaps too quick to air my views. I am a technical person with three engineering degrees, and am self-taught on the piano…playing by ear. I was fortunate in having had two loving parents, and fortunate in growing up in Minot North Dakota. Now, I have become who I am…a writer. I have only recently realized the process that has gotten me here. The few paragraphs to follow give a qualitative view of the process I’ve experienced.
All world cultures are structured to provide both an identity and a touchstone for each person. Whereas animals are programed with instincts, humans have freedom of choice and any person’s psyche requires these two items. A person is compelled to find them somewhere if they are not available within their immediate social environment, they may go to peer groups or elsewhere, often undesirable in nature.
My father was writer and a scholar; but, he spent very little time with me, and out relationships depended very much on my initiative. So I identified with academic, science, and technology. My touch stone became ham radio via my best friend. But following a successful engineering career I became who I am…a writer, with a touch of music in deference to my maternal genes.
But, our social structure in America is now diverse and family units are more often that not blended. Crassly speaking, an American family often consists of one or more adults and children cohabiting, In a complex society like a typical urban environment, children have difficulty in defining who they are and what capabilities and opportunities are available and within their reach. Over several generations, the ‘identity’ mantle has been passed from the family to the school and then to the church..or else even to nefarious groups such as gangs. Often both schools and churches expound views that are to idealistic, or esoteric, or simplistic.
I was fortunate in that I found myself because of the simpler life when I was young, and because I knew and love my parents even though I struck out on my own.
Critical thinking is the main tool for assessing talents in the search for who we are individually. This used to be taught by first teaching common sense. Traditionally, such thinking was a toolbox for enabling children (and adults) to experience the cause and effect of real life as it unfolds.