COLUMN: Shape your life and who you are
One of the most profound moments for me this past year was holding the hand of my grandfather as he lay ready to die. Reinheart Theodore Kowallis was a native of Cache Valley, a boy from River heights. His father, Karl August, was a printer from Germany. In my grandfather’s boyhood this valley was young, Utah State University was the Agricultural College of Utah and most of our lives here were yet non-existent.
Little, perhaps, did Grandpa think about this day when life would be still and cares past. A war veteran of WWII and a graduate of the Agricultural College (’41), perhaps my grandfather’s mind was often occupied with the heavy matters of his time. War, work, school and a new little family – all of these were my grandfather’s concomitant concerns. To look at his old hands and tired face gave me a reason to consider my world from this future perspective, and to ask a few questions that I wish to extend to the reader who happens upon this article.
This moment with my grandfather was profound for two reasons. Never before had life appeared to me to be so quick, so fleeting. It reminded me of the point John Keating makes for his students in “Dead Poet’s Society,” when he takes them to the pictures of students long past and has his students listen to their words. Pretty soon we’re all going to be there, immortalized as it were, by pictures on a wall. The thought is sobering, but Keating’s point is one of encouragement. This time in our lives is ours because it will be what we make of it. These are philosophical thoughts. They cause me to hope, to want and to do.
Holding my grandfather’s hand was profound to me in another way also – in a way that is less philosophical, less passionate and less cognitive. Within my grandfather’s hand flowed blood. Within each cell of his body were contained blueprints, instructions for every jot of his physiology. Within my hand flows blood, and within every cell of my body there are pieces of genetic sequencing that exactly match those passed to me from my mother who received them from him. My grandfather has been immortalized not only by pictures and journals, but also by the fact that he made me … in an indirect sort of way.
Little do we know about the genetic transfer of personality and character, not to mention potential. How much of what my grandfather thought about, how many of his oddities and quirks, his geniuses and passions do I carry? How much of who I am is a result of genetic interplay and how much is uniquely mine, never before seen nor expressed in the lives of my progenitors? Perhaps most important to me now, how much control do I have in shaping who I am, given genetic programming? How much control do you have? Well, I think the answer is this: We have a lot of control. With this confidence may I give you three questions of introspection: First let us ask, ‘Who am I now?’ Secondly, ‘Can I improve?’ And thirdly, ‘What am I going to do while here at Utah State University to make it happen?’
Darin J. Humphreys is the ASUSU science senator. Comments can be sent to djhumphreys@cc.usu.edu.