Striking Singular Wonderful Strange

One of those unanswerable and ever-controversial arguments you are likely to enounter when hanging around counselors, psychologists, or social workers is ye old nature vs. nuture debate. I had already been thinking about it this week, as we had been discussing the nature and genesis of evil in internship class.

I tend to think it's all a rather holistic and systemic affair - an intricate swirling dance of elements, contexts, and circumstances that blend together in an unrepeatable way to create a complex and variegated human being.

Then again, every once in a while you hear a story that makes you pause and question whether you're on the correct side of the proverbial and philosophical fence. Today's story, for me, was about Daniel Hope, a classical violinist (my age) whose musical journeys remind me of my brother's passions (that of blending musical cultures together).

Here is this insanely talented musician... who was raised around a violinist from infancy to age 7 because his mother was the administrative assistant to a world-class violinist and so he was surrounded by classical, violin music throughout his childhood. What is fascinating when you add in the fate vs. destiny vs. free will argument is how his mother ended up in that job (read here).

It's a funny thing to look back on one's life and wonder at the infinite number of things that lined up just so to bring us to where we are in the present moment. Some may see pointlessness, some may see order... other chaos, protection, purpose, or true randomness.

Whatever you may see, perhaps it helps to keep such things in mind with each new face you look into. For that person - that life - has just as many beautiful and chaotic complexities as your own. And there is something beautifully paradoxical in that unique commonality we share.