"Shaping" Our Personalities

Last week, John and I had what I think turned into a most interesting discussion.

We have this routine wherein he goes to the end of the lane to collect the newspapers and then we sit in bed while he reads the National Post and I read the Ottawa Citizen.

He has his tea and I have my coffee (from which I now enjoy easy refills with my new thermal carafe). 

And we get to enjoy the gorgeous sunrises that we witness from our bedroom window:

Anyway, I digress.

As we read our respective papers, of course, we usually share comments with each other about whatever one or the other is reading.  On this particular morning, John was reading about the recent passing of J.D. Salinger.

"Did you ever read Catcher in the Rye?" he asks.

"No," I replied, "I haven't read most what would be considered 'classics' that are often discussed around tables at various social gatherings."

"Neither have I," he said. "Perhaps we should get a copy and read it."

"Why?" I asked.  I was truly perplexed as to why I should be interested in reading it now if I didn't ever before have any desire to do so.

"Well," he explained, "it turned so many people into murderers ..."

I assured him that I most certainly didn't want to be turned into a murderer because he might have to be my first victim!

Anyway, there then ensued a discussion about the idea that "what you read as a young person having more to do with moulding your personality" than any other single influencing factor in your environment.  The theory that what you read has more influence than parental guidance; more than religious upbringing.

I was trying to put the lie to that theory.

"Oh come on," I offered, "I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys!  Are you trying to tell me that those books moulded me into the ..."

And John said, "Just think about that for a minute.  Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  What exactly were you learning from those?"

And as fast as he's asking me that, I'm getting to the same point.

And I'm seeing that perhaps I made his argument for him.

So through my laughter, I say, "OK, so I'm a justice-seeking, truth-at-all-costs, fairness-for-everyone-no-matter-the-cost-to-me kind of person.  And I love solving puzzles.  So what I read as a child helped form my personality ..."

John is nodding his head with that I told you so kind of tone in his eyes.

" ... or the person I was (even as a young child) helped determine what kind of books I chose to read?" I quickly added.

Ta da!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps it's a little of both.

Something has to explain the differences between siblings' personalities within the same family.  If they all grew up in the same household, with the same parental guidance and the same religious upbringing, but each child is uniquely different in personality, what exactly contributed to developing the difference?  Literature (or, "what one reads") can only have an influence if the child is a reader to begin with.  There are too many homes where illiteracy is the very issue that caused the delinquency; in those cases it would be what the child is not reading that moulded the personality.

Obviously, I'm creating a debate that could become quite involved.  I think I'd better quit now because, as usual, I can too easily argue both sides of an argument (comes from working in politics for too long).

Anyway, I no longer read Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, but I do still love to read mysteries.  I've read the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes, and anything by Agatha Christie, and of course Erle Stanley Gardner was a favourite (in print and on television). 

Don't get the wrong impression here.  I do read other stuff too.  I just really enjoy reading mysteries.   Just like I really enjoy watching mysteries on television.  I've gotten pretty good at solving them too!