SONNET ON DETERMINISM

(Pictured at right, poet Robert Frost , 1874-1963)

When I was in my mid-twenties I received my very first creative-writing "byline" for a poem I'd written, which was published in an anthology of other verses. (Yes, in those early years as a writer I actually wrote verse.) The theme was a good one, I thought, despite the fact that the poem's rather rudimentary A-B rhyming scheme was not exactly the stuff of a Frost or a W.B. Yeats. But I had wanted to write a "sonnet": 14 lines of verse, as inspired by the sonnets of William Shakespeare, whose own sonnets are of course timeless.

Anyway, the following is my Sonnet on Determinism:

In what manner of clay art thou so encased?
Of what form could this mold have been otherwise cast?
And is not the flower that blooms in the Spring,
At the mercy of warmth that the early sun brings?
And if the sun to the flower gives not its full light,
How well can it thrive from the lack of its might?
And a man is eclipsed by the shadow of his youth,
That chooses the course of his fair life's book.
And had not the cradle been robbed from the first,
There might be a chance to quench thy own thirst.
But for better or worse, blessing or curse,
A man never writes his very first verse.
But leaves it to others to point out the way,
And hopes they resemble, the gods that they play.

(copyright Michael Hobren, August 1976)

The poem's theme is about parenting, and the role that parents play in how their children turn out in Life. A more recent work, my book The Gauntlet  (click on the title for shameless commercial "plug"), hits upon the same basic theme, only from an entirely different and convoluted angle which my publisher has categorized as a Suspense/Thriller, totalling some 97,000 words rather than a mere 14 lines.

The 'New' Determinism: The Endpoint

Since the late '90s, when the Clinton Administration first announced breakthroughs in the mapping of the Human Genome, large-scale "genotyping" research has been in motion. Genotyping is the techniques used to identify the genetic markers that make up a person. These markers can indicate if the individual has a predisposition toward certain diseases or even behaviors.

There is also what's been termed the Phenotype and the Endpoint. Many scientists have argued that human behavior is not caused by genetics alone, but is the sum of the genotype combined with the environment a person grows up in, and the manner in which someone is reared. Such things as whether a person was nurtured or abused as a child, the kind of neighborhood they grew up in, their relationship with their siblings are all factors in determining how a person turns out in life.

These determinants comprise what is called the Phenotype. The Phenotype is the interface, if you will, between an individual's genotype and their environment. The end result of these combined influences – that determine human behavior, even character traits – is what's known as the Endpoint.

Parenting, for Better or Worse

So where am I going with all of this? Obviously, this brief essay only raises a lot of questions: Does good or bad parenting alone (as per my sonnet) determine one's life course? What role does our genetic profile play in the total mix? How much of who and what we are is due to environmental factors versus genetic predisposition? And to take a side-step into the metaphysical, what roles do personal faith and even divine intervention play in this "Gumbo of Self" that we call US?

"They mess you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had, and add some extra, just for you." -- Philip Larkin

I don't know if there is any single, conclusive answer to what determines who and what we are. Surely there are a lot of people in universities and think tanks all over the world pondering these questions right now. The modern-day resurgence of Humanism in our culture would suggest that people are preoccupied with themselves and personal gratification. But certainly there are other factors that play a role in our being something more than a collective group of evolved apes, things that even Charlie Darwin couldn't have foreseen in his day.

I suppose some day soon, someone will write THE seminal work on the human genome and the Endpoint, attempting to do for genetics what Stephen Hawking tried to do with his books on the cosmos and time itself. Then, maybe a hundred years from now, other scientists will look back at all of the human-centric works of today, and with a disbelieving nod, wonder how anyone could ever have cast humanity in such a ridiculous and unfounded light.

UNDER THE MILKY WAY TONIGHT

(Picture courtesy of NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope)

When I was in my early twenties, my New Orleans yahoo friends and I had a favorite past time. When we weren't traipsing around the French Quarter, we'd often take a friend's old VW hippie van out to a quarry near the Pearl River, which skirts the border between Louisiana and Mississippi. There, far from the city lights, we could see stars by the millions, and we'd lie on our backs all night long just talking and watching the cosmic light show that seemed as close to us as our hands in front of our faces.

Lately my mind has drifted back to those magical times, and I find myself wondering when the last time was that I raised my eyes toward the night sky. The trials and travails of daily life here on Terra Firma keep me so earthbound, I'm reminded of a line from the movie Men in Black: "The stars...they really are beautiful you know. We never just look at them any more."

I recall how we could make out entire constellations so easily, without hardly trying, as if God had painted them up there just for our entertainment. Scorpio with its looping stinger tail, and the Libra scales -- they were all there for the viewing, all changing from season to season. These days the demands of work, family, and other responsibilities keep my eyes and attention focused on Earthly things, having taken the place of the magic in the night sky that had once fixated me so. Seldom now do I take the time to look up at the night sky -- but they are still beautiful.

As a boy I had two reflector-type telescopes mounted on tripods, and I remember the utter fascination I had viewing the surface of the moon at night, searching for the "Sea of Tranquility" where Neal and Buzz would one day walk. Both of my telescopes had special view-finder fittings that allowed me to attach a camera to the lens and take snaps of whatever images came into the scopes' tubes. (I remember aiming one of the scopes at the Sun one bright day, without any thought of using neutral-density filtration, and how smoke suddenly began to rise from the device. Okay...so it wasn't a genius move!)

These days my mind is focused on work, family, and an unending parade of responsibilities. Perhaps the worst part of growing older is having to leave the fanciful dalliances of one's youth behind. I work at a computer screen now, staring into a black monitor and racking my brain to resolve meaningless issues that present themselves to me as blips of light on a black surface: A far cry from that wondrous star stuff sprinkled across the velvety night sky at the quarry.

Those nights on the Pearl River, lying on our backs with weird music wafting from hidden speakers inside the VW van, and shooting stars streaking by overhead, were the things of my youth that I just don't get to do any more. The world's weight has dragged me down like the gravity of Jupiter itself, and has forced me to keep my nose to the grindstone and my eyes averted away from the stars that had once dazzled me so. It was a different time, life was newer then, and nearly "weightless" by comparison to the load that I carry today.

As Sia Furler sings on her rendition of Under the Milky Way, the bedazzling magic and mystery of the cosmos are the stuff of dreams and daydreams. It's too bad that life eventually comes along and gets in the way. Long after I am gone, those same stars will still be shining on brightly overhead, light years away from this world. Thus I've vowed to myself to pause every now and then and turn my eyes upwards. It's a direct thread back to my former me -- to my younger self -- that somehow got obscured by Life, but that still resides in my heart to this day.

THE WINDS OF GRACE

It is only three days until my wife's cancer surgery, and I sat on the back porch this morning just watching two butterflies in our backyard garden. They flitted and floated in seemingly aimless directions, paused for a moment to sample the nectar of a flower, and then quickly moved on. How free they looked, I thought. They appeared to be content just to live for the moment, I fancied, floating on the breeze, never minding where it carried them or where they'd end up. Why are we not more like them?

When its time has come the butterfly falls to the Earth and returns to His kingdom. Yes, I believe that God knows even the smallest of Earth's creatures. It never considers why it lives or when or how its days will end. Why is it we humans -- the crowns of His creation -- fret as we do about everything? Why do we complicate our lives, and in so doing, miss out on so much of the sacred gift of life that we've been given? Why can we not live free and unencumbered as the butterflies?

When our time comes, we exhaust all of our resources to gain just a few more months, weeks, days -- whatever it takes -- to hold on to life; hold on to a life that we may not really be living anyway. Why can we not accept that, we too, will one day fall to the ground or simply go to sleep, and awaken in His care, safe in His kingdom?

Perhaps Humanity's greatest curse, as well as a blessing, is that it's endowed with a profound intellect that is driven to ponder things too deeply for its own good. We busy ourselves with all manner of things that, in the end, will amount to little of any consequence once we're gone. We spend precious little time considering the simple things that life offers us for free: The blush of a rose, the sea breeze upon our faces, the sound of a newborn's first cry. It is the devil's own handiwork indeed when Man burdens himself considering his place in the world, his very purpose for being in it, making his days more stressful and complicated than they need to be, and worst of all, blinding his eyes to his Maker's grandest creations.

Being close to mortality these past few days has given me a new outlook. There is so much that I do that will not follow me beyond the final stroke of the clock. Children are suppose to be our immortality, and yet even they are not spared from the ravages of Time. I want to make my life count for something, as we all do, but mainly I want to live life -- take in as much of it as I can -- while there is still time. I've realized that time is not a friend to man but a mortal enemy. It is, by every measure, a merciless enemy to us all, and when it runs out there is no compromising, no bargaining for more of it.

I do not want to fret another minute about things that are beyond my control, things that just don't matter. I have wasted far too much time already playing that game. Time is God's gift to us, not to squander on aimless pursuits, but to savor in the brief span that He has given us. Life is like a breeze of wind that carries the butterfly aloft, but then, with its abating, drops it to the ground with little fanfare. May we all ride the Winds of Grace He has gifted us with while there is still time.