Born this way?

                I was watching Charlie Rose and he had a panel of guests on to talk about the brain.  This subject  is fascinating to me as I have given lots of thought to neurology and personality development over the years, especially when I worked on a Neurobehavioral unit.   Kerry Ressler, Joseph Ledoux, Antonio Damasio, David Anderson, and Eric Kandel were the panelists on Charlie Rose: The Brain Series, which originally aired on May 26, 2010.  They made mention of something which caught my attention, people who had a genetic predisposition towards addictive behavior were only “about 10%” more likely to develop that addictive behavior.  Genetics is only a small piece in the larger puzzle of personality; it is never the whole story on its own.  Therefore, my friend, for anyone to claim they were simply “born this way” is not at all useful as an explanation of any lifestyle.

  Environmental factors mold predisposition and both strengthen and reinforce the behaviors in question.  One can see an example of changing environmental factors illustrated by the difference between providing ashtrays on every table and having “Lucky Strike” ads in “Life” magazine and putting intentionally grotesque warning labels on 25% of the front of a pack of smokes and making smokers stand 100 yards from any shelter.  If I were born to smoke then no amount of deterring factors could cause me to stop smoking.

                One could say that race is a closer example of what one means in determining lifestyle.  This assertion, however, is obviously racist.  I would say that race is a very, very poor way to predict behavior.  In fact skin pigmentation itself can vary widely within families.  Race, color, and creed are very often so superficial that one cannot know any one of them without first asking, regardless of careful behavioral study, for example Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda or Jews and Arians in Germany.

                I have been drawing inspiration for my examples from the song “Born this Way” by Lady Gaga.  She asserts one just has to be oneself regardless of Religious views of morality.  Some of us have expressed their truth by murdering and eating people however and I’m sure she is not justifying that.  She is however justifying that.  She claims God made her perfect and further reading shows that nothing she does will put that perfection in danger, “I’m beautiful in my way God makes no mistakes.”

                The trouble is that my expression of freedom impacts others and their expression of freedom.  She asserts, “Different lover is no sin.”  This is an easy statement to make, but risk associated with this behavior tends to make individuals nervous and sad, not to mention the stat 1 in 5 people has an STD and about 20% of pregnancies end in abortion, unless you live in New York City were the rate is 41%.  Studies show that depression rates rise as the number of sexual partners rise and there is also a correlation between depression, binge drinking, drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity, which is not a stroke inducing shock.  If a person were to use all of their dopamine through artificial hyper-stimulation the result is a dopamine deprived brain.  Stability creates mental health and instability destroys that health.  We may wish humans experienced life differently, but our fairy-godmothers have not been returning calls of late.

What one finds is that when one lives a life with Christian virtue in mind, instead of ignoring other people’s reality so one can attempt to live one’s own, there is more freedom, more stability, and more mental health.  The closer our life reflects Christ’s the more we truly have the where-with-all of self expression. 

If we are addicted to drugs our life becomes rather predictable.  If we are addicted to sex the same thing occurs; we lose our ability to be truly individual and we become that creepy, shallow shell of a human being. The kind that leers at young women and makes them quicken their step.  God did not make us for addiction and addicts are not perfect, unless they are perfectly bound.    

Lady Gaga states that she loves her life, she loves her record, and love needs faith.  Why would love need faith?  The “love” described simply requires a warm and willing body at least for this moment anyway.

“Love” doesn’t it always come down to love?  Yeah pretty much.  If you haven’t heard, I’m sure you have heard, love is an action, no not that action.  If you wonder if you are a loving person try to insert your name in place of love in the following passage:

                1 Corinthians 13:4-8

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ^{7 [a]}bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
 ⁸ Love never fails.
            That’s a tall order but you can handle it and when we come through the trials of fighting the promise of easy happiness we will arrive at true happiness.