Manipulating the Product: Genetics, Blogging, and the Power of Metadiscourse

I WISH, as I begin this new "blogging adventure," that either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in consequence both equally responsible for the act that led to my conception, had thought for just a moment as they conceived me -- had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing: that not only were they creating a rational being (one may hope), but that possibly this being's physical entire self: mental acuity, potential genius, and, yes, the very cast of her psyche (not to mention her future fortunes gained and lost) would depend on the ability of these two very human humans to raise her [yes, me], manipulate (out of necessity) decades of genetics, and somehow -- somehow -- not totally fuck up the entire "product" in the process.*

Had they sincerely weighed and considered all of these pressing and complex issues of child-rearing, and proceeded more cautiously in my upbringing, well, I am, today, convinced that I should have made a quite different impact on the world -- different, for example, than the PhD'd, middle-America, humanities professor I lay bare before you.

Believe me, good readers, this brand of discourse is not as bizarre a thing as many of you might think; we are all, I am duly persuaded, on a path to becoming our parents. And we hate it. Every minute. Oh, of course we deny any such "nonsense." But, as the old game of logic demands, "If you call a dog's tail a 'leg', how many legs does it have?" Naturally, we all long to scream "five" (if I say you are a liar, for example, well, then, you are a liar), but in truth, you cannot turn a tail into a leg by merely wishing it so. My own life is proof. Likewise, you cannot deny your lineage (nor it's unavoidable impact on you) by simply claiming it has had none. Blood will out. Or something like that.

Take my word... nine parts in ten of any woman's sense or nonsense, her vanities or neuroses, her joys and her sorrows -- indeed, her very successes and failures in this world depend upon this immovable genetic make-up; add to this the remaining one part made up of the different tracks and trains parental guidance lures us into, and well, you quite likely have a mess.

Yet, somehow, no matter how diminished or increased we find our circumstances from that of our parents at a similar age, we do not seem to ever escape youthful imprinting; we become our parents -- if only in reverse. Yes, those who *think* they have escaped this tragic fate, are, without exception, a walking mirror image of their parents. Of course, a "mirror image" is, by its very definition, wholly reliant on the original it mimics; it exists at all, because the original image made it so. Reaction against our parents, in my opinion, generally results in the same outcome as outright mimicry. Naturally, mimicry is more annoying, but you see my point.

Nevertheless, what is perhaps more disturbing, is that we repeat this process, I've outlined above, generation after generation. We procreate without so much as a second thought; and, by treading these same steps over and over again, we eventually beat down a road -- one that appears to be as even and as smooth as any downtown, asphalted surface. And, as we all know, once we do something often enough, the Devil himself is hard pressed to drive us from our chosen path.

I write all of this by way of introduction. Having spent a considerable amount of my life cloistered in the ivory tower of academia, now I seek a different education. I look for life -- for questions rather than answers; I crave a deeper understanding of my fellow humans -- of this fucked-up, mean, beautiful world in which we are all forced to live. I have finished my formal education, yet now I find that I thirst for my real education to begin.

In the meantime, I should make transparent (no pun intended) my belief that any journey which seeks a more complete understanding of the interconnectedness of all beings, must first begin with a smaller journey of self-awareness. To that end, I began this blog at the beginning. My beginning.

I was born. I live. I hate. I have loved. And I blame my parents for all of it. On nights when I find myself awake and alone, I often shudder silently in the darkness when I consider what foundation my parents have laid for the thousand weaknesses of my body and mind -- weaknesses which neither physician nor philosopher will ever set thoroughly to rights. Today, doctorate in hand, I look inward for the correction to the mental and physical maladies life has dealt me. This blog is step one.

In the Cause,

Dr. T. Shandy


*With apologies to my godfather, Larry Sterne; likewise to my namesake, the "original" Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.