I Think, Therefore I Am, er, Not Who I Thought I Was. The Influence of Influence

I’m my own person. No one tells me what to do. My choices are my own. We’ve perhaps all said or thought as much at some point in our lives, but is it true? With genes establishing our template, from the day we’re born our lives are shaped by outside influences, starting with our parents, the culture we grow up in, the education we receive, the people we meet, and the events which cross and determine our path. There exists very little personal choice in it and so the person we become can hardly be said to be their own person.

The first 1001 days of your life are said to be the most important, with the brain and immune system developing through bonding, diet and nurture, influencing the rest of your years in a way few will appreciate. Meaning that when events and people cross your path, your decision-making is partially determined. This doesn’t mean you have no choice but you may be inclined to go in one direction rather than another. Think of it like the binary system and a tree. You always have a choice to do ‘0’ or ‘1’ with what is before you, but that is built on a trunk of hardened determinants shaped by those early years, and so what direction the next growth/branch sprouts from (0 or 1) is influenced by the size, shape or location of that trunk. Your eating habits, response to emotions or inability to behave considerately will all be influenced before you can even say the word.

There are still plenty of neural pathways to construct through our childhood, offering us the ideal time to absorb and learn. By the time we go to school we have a distinct personality but we’re then exposed to the social chaos of other distinct personalities in the shape of our class mates, all vying for attention, influence and dominance, when before all you had to cope with were your parent’s influence. The child seeks acceptance and so will walk a delicate path between fulfilling the values instilled by their parents and impressing their peers by acting the fool. A battle takes place between the gravitation pull of the former and latter, the mischievous winning out when one is too weak or the other too strong. We hope the education provided to our children allows them the strength to think for themselves but there is a certain depth of commitment one must reach in order to arm ourselves with the ammunition to critically think, and, for most, the allure of cultural ‘sugar’, the celebrity of entertainment or empty promises, keeps them in the shallows, aspiring for fame and fortune through the pursuit of style over substance. A teenager’s clothes will likely be ‘selected’ by a celebrity and, as time goes by, peer pressure will push them towards another trend, another influencer who inspires by appearing to occupy an elevated utopia at the end of a video screen (a modern day Wizard of Oz). Even those decrying the mundane existence of society and its automaton masses, declaring their desire to free themselves from its restraints and become an individual, will end up looking like the person who influenced such radical thoughts and all the other followers of the rebellious philosophy of the day.

Rebellion has a strange place in western society. Protestantism was born from standing up to authority (the clue’s in the name), the French like a revolution or two, and Hollywood always plonks a rebel in the lead role. So, is this not a sign of free-thinking? On one level this is true, but, in a historical context, rebellious upheavals are conjured or exploited by other members of the ruling elite manoeuvring for personal power, utilising a cause or ideology to justify their actions. A peasant would only become aggrieved if they had an empty stomach or paid too much tax, and this primordial behaviour, of demanding what we need and objecting to what is taken from us, remains true today. If rebellions are successful they become a narrative of future culture and that in turn influences the young minds to carry the same narrative in their own behaviour (think how the American Revolution and the Wild West fed into America culture and are expressed in those Hollywood rebels, who in turn feed into other cultures around the world). So, your average rebel is a product of the very culture they’re rebelling against.

The chances are your religion will mirror your parents’. You won’t have much choice in the matter, exposed and schooled from a young age. If you do change your beliefs during your life time, then you likely live in a culture that allows other influences to penetrate this oft inflexible domain. Even your favourite sports team will not be a free choice. A father will feel a failure not to have influenced his lad or lass to follow his own team, while you’ll want to keep in with your friends at school and support one of the popular clubs. And when, in later life, you’re watching your team lose their tenth game on the trot, there won’t be a choice to change.

When adulthood arrives, those neural pathways are pretty rigid and we’re set in our ways. With some irony, this is when choices fall squarely on the shoulder of the individual. Experience is the only advantage for us mature folk, because, other than that, our decision-making abilities are largely pre-programmed. But we’re still not beyond influence. From an advert to the politician, your kids or your pet cat, everyone is trying to nudge you in a direction. How you respond to that influencing will likely be down to that trunk and the main branches you grew back in the day. Will you bend in the wind or break?

Oh, and just when you understand this strange montage of influences that is the version of ‘you’, there’s the risk of a brain injury which completely changes your personality, making you question whether we really have any choice in who we are.