When I was 22, which was 6 years ago I read a book called Quarter Life Crises. Although I don’t remember which one, it was true stories of young twenty something’s that committed suicide or other atrocities on themselves based on stress caused by life after college.

Student loans and perplexity on the purpose of life or career were one of the major causes of this “quarter life crises,” according to the book. I don’t remember why I chose to read that book; it probably was because either someone recommended it or was given to me as a gift.

At any rate, what I read reinforced my conviction on the “nurture” aspect of the nature vs. nurture debate. Especially Sigmund Freud’s postulation that emotional problems are traceable to forgotten psychic traumas created in early life.

Though that is negative, it applies to positives as well, as in human being a product of their environment. What I found is that people steer their life intentionally or unintentional towards a certain direction; and their environment plays a role.

We say things like ‘he is very black, she is very Ethiopian, they are pan-africanist,’ and ‘he is very hip-hop.’ The fact is that these descriptions are somewhat accurate descriptions on a variety of character traits.

Personally, although the environment during my teenage years didn’t allow me to be as Ethiopian as I am, there would have been a point in my life where I chose to steer my life towards it.

The only time a personality trait is unattractive is when a person forces themselves to be a certain way even though they inheritably are not that.

We’ve mentioned this before a la Marcus Garvey’s quote;

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

I was at a bookstore recently when I saw a cover of this book. So powerful the imagery, the connotation the feeling stirred with me. I reflected upon the black power, I thought about a photo I had seen long ago when two African American Olympians raised their hands in the Black Power Salute.