Has the nature versus nurture debate been settled already? I don’t really feel like reading all the research on the matter, but I do have a theory related to my own behaviour. Which part of me is nature and which is nurture is very obvious. My true self is revealed when the sun suddenly begins to shine when I am riding my bike after a bout of rain. There is a small tree on the corner of the (dreadful) Jumbo bike lane, which is blooming pink this week. It is beautiful in the sunlight, and this morning, a blackbird was singing in the sunlit tree.
Because I was looking at the spectacle, I failed to notice a car which rolled out of a parking spot in front of me, and I slammed into it. It’s not the first time this has happened, so I think this is my nature. Without being tethered to the earth by gravity, I would float off regularly. It is a Looney Tunes-like characteristic, seen in cartoons when a toon smells something good, and the scent has him float towards the warm apple pie on the window sill while the rest of the world fades into oblivion.
My true self is revealed when the sun suddenly begins to shine when I am riding my bike after a bout of rain
Luckily, there is also my nurture, the unwavering part of me. When I was young, my mother would use pedagogic card games to teach my sisters and me that girls can say “no”, that girls are better at maths than they think and that they are perfectly capable of taking charge, among other things. These two parts of me are the cause of a constant internal conflict between the part of me that would rather float away and the part that registers to become chair of the study association and manager of my ACT (Academic Consultancy Training for the non-initiated) group. I made it as chair, and the role of manager will hopefully follow.
After the almost accident at the flowering tree near the Jumbo, I make it to the campus in one piece. Our ACT group is doing personality tests to see what your teamwork style is. I don’t really like these tests, as I let the situation determine what I’ll do, so how trustworthy can they be? My test tells me I am both chaotic and concrete; it works! Perhaps everyone’s nature versus nurture can be determined by such a test.
Ilja Bouwknegt (25) is a master’s student in forest and nature conservation. Ilja is interested in the relationship between humans and nature and prefers to try every hobby at least once. Currently, that is crochet, but writing remains the undisputed favourite.
