Nature v Nurture x Two
These two humans made their entrance on April Fool’s Day—which is symbolic to their father, as you will read below. But his words feel equally appropriate to Valentine’s Day, when we celebrate love and fertility and all the accompanying messiness.
I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to share Jeremy Nulik’s heartfelt writing. He is not new to fatherhood, but he is new to being the father of twins. This was first published on LinkedIn, but it’s much to beautiful to be limited to that platform.
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.”
—Octavia Butler
No one ever told me this, but I somehow made it into my 40s believing that humans (myself included) were empty vessels. Emerging less than half-formed, we are born dependent. Someone has nurture this mini-beast. And so I had this belief that we are largely a product of raising, of environment, of circumstance.
On April Fools' Day this year, Erica and I welcomed two of these aforementioned mini-beasts. These were not our firsts. We have another one who achieved the milestone of his first day of school as well as others old enough to no longer share our dwelling. These two are the latest in the series. Ironically, one of the first utterances that Erica said to me was, "Twins scare me." And this Fools' Day delivery, now, is our comeuppance.
It is in the spirit of hoaxes that I happened upon something unexpected. Something that had existed as a theory, but was not tangible for me. And that something was this: We are more than half-formed. In fact, we are mostly done on day one.
These two people, opening their eyes into the world on the same day, from generally the same set of raw materials, have an entire universe of meaning packed into bodies weighing less than eight pounds. Immediately, they behaved with such independence and distinction. Music preferences, humor, and mannerisms are radically particular to each.
I did not like this nature-forward notion. Mostly because I have witnessed profound change in myself, in communities, in culture. And I felt like nature-first ideas were wrought with biases.
I began to reflect on the times when I knew I had developed in some way. And those were moments, generally, when some external force revealed something already in me. It was not the classics I have read in school or the challenges in my life that have changed me. But it is what those works or circumstances exposed about my vitality, how they performed some consilience with erstwhile disparate ideas within me. That was the transformation.
This revelation is not string theory. Oh, yes, the Tinman always had a heart. But it is one thing to find that insight cute. And it is another to live from it. And that is perhaps my intention in sharing this with you, my dear folk of Professional Status Seeking Oz. Because I think that what we are really doing here. Even on as crass a medium as LinkedIn, a medium breathlessly obsessed with AI and our lock-step march toward singularity. Our greatest work as humans is to reveal that vitality, that exceptionalism in ourselves and to inspire the same in others.
Already in motion, at your work or in your home, is some form of transformation, and a deeper meaning is being revealed. And the real transformation, for you, lies not in your ability to manipulate it to your sundry, fickle moral code, but rather, to inspire revelation. Thankfully (especially for a father of some mini-beasts), the work is mostly done.