A spherical rock is sitting atop a hill. The hill has a gentle slope and shallow channels going in all directions. With a slight nudge, the rock begins to roll down the hill. Gently guided, first by the direction of the nudge, then by the shallow channels. As it moves forward, the channels become deeper and deeper, making it harder and harder for the rock to switch from one channel to another. Hence, as the rock rolls forward, the choices of channels it can switch between also diminishes. Ultimately, the rock is left with only one channel and its tributaries to follow.
We are all like that rock, rolling down the hill of life. Our natures are the channels and where they lead are our fates.
We are born with certain tendencies that are decided by our genetic make up – the slight nudge in a certain direction. As we grow up, we learn from our surroundings and from others around us. Those tendencies direct the quality of what we absorb from our surroundings. As we continue making choices and taking actions based on those tendencies and influences, it slowly transforms into our natures. That nature then decides the path that we will follow in life. As we grow older, that nature becomes more and more settled. It becomes harder and harder to go against our natures. Thus, our fates – our journey and our destinations, are mostly determined by our tendencies first and then by our natures.
Our brains are designed to optimize its decision making capabilities. Once we make few similar conscious choices in similar situations in our lives, those choices will no longer be made consciously. The autonomous processes in our brains, in order to optimize the decision making, begin to make those choices for us. Our conscious processes are no longer involved in the decision making. That is how our natures are formed. The initial decision making may be driven by our tendencies, however, once similar decisions are made, those tendencies solidify into our natures.
A child is misbehaving. The mother yells and screams at the child, when that fails, the mother tries to invoke some fear that the child has in order to make him behave. This process continues over multiple instances of misbehavior. Nothing seems to be working. The mother is out of ideas. In the end, during another instance of misbehavior, the mother strikes the child. That seems to work for that instance. The next time, the mother follows the same pattern, making a conscious decision to strike the child, since that is all that seems to be working. Over a few such incidences, striking the child becomes an unconscious action. It becomes the first, and perhaps the only tool in her arsenal, to make the child behave. While striking the child was initially the last option, it becomes the first choice, made unconsciously.
This is how our autonomous processes take over and slowly solidify our tendencies into our natures. Decisions that were made consciously become unconscious. In most cases, we become aware of those decisions only after acting upon those decisions. We may then come to regret those actions later. In spite of that, in many cases, we still continue with those actions, unconsciously.
Therefore, unless we make a conscious decision to go against our tendencies and our settled natures, the direction that our lives will take, barring some fortunate or unfortunate life altering events or influences, are just about determined at the time that our genetic constitution is confirmed.
To be continued …
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