Tag Archives: genetics

Everything Will Never Be Okay

Leave a comment

“Everything in your life is explained away as part of a process that holds you back.”  —Fiction Plane

We are on a constant journey of perpetual incompleteness.

Regardless of the minutiae inspections and indefatigable detailed plotting and planning, there are endless sidewalk cracks sitting, waiting for us to drop morsels from our meticulous arrangements, letting the overloaded armfuls of structured checklists and neatly arranged ducks fall to the ground in pure, unbridled scattered chaos.

Just when it looks like the track is straight and navigable, an unexpected train comes rumbling from the fog.

Dive for the dirt or accept your fate?

Some of this is inherent programming, and genetic wiring that savors the sweet, sweet taste of tidy order doesn’t do well with romper room pandemonium or slipshod assembly. But there are always compromises that must be made to account for the unexpected variables and curveball ruses that kick us back on our heels.

Everything will never be okay…and it’s a tart lesson that needs to be tasted.

It feels like being draped in itchy wet wool or sliding sandy bare feet into bowling shoes. But accepting the unpleasant reality that no amount of painstakingly rigorous preplanning will ever be a wide enough tarp to cover all the bases is a skill we would be wise to acquire.

As I set up and arrange every item on this desk into perfect equidistant right angles while alphabetizing my digital photo albums and categorizing my Notes app in order of pressing priority, I may be the last in a long line to offer advice on this topic. However, this is not a forum to preach, but a springboard to start conversations about shared idiosyncratic musings and our mutual head-shaking confusion about the reasons we walk around this planet, completely unaware of how or why we’re here.

Maybe the occasional rejection of order is just as important as its worship.

But that’s a sticky band-aid to pull…and it’s never easy exposing an open wound.

Adolescence Interrupted

The Past Is Writing Letters to the Present

3 Comments

Lately, I have had a growing interest in the exploration of my roots, my past, and the road that has been walked by those whose faces I’ve never seen. It started as simple genetic curiosity, wondering where my family had been…and where it was most likely going. But it evolved into a headfirst obituary deep dive. Who were these people? How did they live? What pieces of the past were they passing down through the generations?

Based on a Yahtzee cup shake and toss, I was given a randomized mix of cells on a blank sheet of source code. A hand with tightly crossed fingers let the dice fly, and with that action, a tiny carbon being with multiple lifetimes’ worth of history behind him was let loose on the planet.

But how much of our journey is dictated by these former lives, specific hardwiring, and our core composition? Will the decisions we make and the path we think we have the power to choose ever be able to supersede a wet-inked blueprint just waiting for us to finish our scripted sentences while monitoring that straight-line slide from point A to point B?

I can’t remember my father’s face.

I keep trying to visualize what he looked like, especially at my age, but there’s a dark spot in my mind and I can’t complete the picture. I think that’s probably what pushed me onto this tangent. Then, as always, that small spark ignited an obsessive interest in exceptionally complex scientific information that led me down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. Ultimately, all I learned was that I probably need someone on standby with a mental lasso to save me from myself and pull me back into focus.

Still, the notion that we are all just pieces of the present delivering messages from the past is a fascinating and baffling concept. It goes beyond simply having your “grandpa’s eyes.” When you frame your entire existence in the context of human beings as living, breathing time capsules, it brings a greater sense of purpose and responsibility into focus.

So honor the past by making the most of the present…especially if you’re the last of your line.

Adolescence Interrupted