My inherent quest for knowledge naturally drives me into unusual and quirky conversations.
I do find solace for these conversations - although I am more of the listening kind, I do keep calling these conversations because I drop an unusual "Yes," "No," or a "Quirky Thought" - with only a few of my friends and acquaintances.
This was one of the coffee chats with an old friend, where on a warm afternoon we were discussing something in particular - while we navigate from the realms of everything under the Sun from Spirituality, to Metaphysical aspects of the universe and of people and nature in itself, to Yoga, to Food, and to Movies and Comics - this, in particular, was on Psychology.
In the middle of an hour-long conversation, I did check about the toughest question I could think of to impress her, "What's Psychology?" (yeah, I know you all can imagine that 🤣), and amidst her explanation to it all, there was a point that she mentioned "Soumya, your psychology and make-up of existence starts right from the time you are a single cell in your mother's womb, and while you carry your Impressions of life from your ancestors (parents and forefathers and foremothers of course), your nurturing in the womb and your formative years in your early life play a huge role in shaping you as a person.
This also impacts how you interact with people, and the world, and take your decisions... Of course, that led me to ask another question, "Do you think, that it's Nature that is dominant in a person or it's the Nurture?" and of course, that answer by my friend was "It Depends," it set me off on a trail of thoughts.
Like a true Gemini, I keep on having conversations with my Alter-Ego frequently, in this case, I kept on taking both sides of Nature and Nurture:
Soumya (Original): Of course, it's Nurture, that makes you the person you are, just see Harry Potter, when the Sorting Hat was placed on his head in the colossal dining halls of Hogwarts, the thing that he said was "Not Slytherin please" although he was quite capable, and that forms the belief "You are what you think you are!"
Soumya (Doppelgänger): Come on, you can never side with True Nature. Just look at Dexter Morgan, even after 10-12 yrs of exile. he does embrace his "True Nature," do you think your few months of nurture can wipe off your millions of years of hard-coded existential nature?
Sometimes, I just give it a rest, pick a hobby (something else) and let my Dark Passenger (the hard-hitting Doppelganger) just take some rest!
But I am worried that the question might revisit me after 10-12 yrs just like Dexter, and I might miss a lot of its application - maybe a new idea, in some existing Products, and in their UX🤓.
So the existential question still remains: Nature or Nurture?
P.S. The views here are mine alone, and do not represent any organization or community. References are from a few of my favorite characters in movies, series, or life. Or it could be completely hypothetical as well, it was a warm summer afternoon!