Patris est filius

No, I'm not trying to learn Latin. The phrase in question means "He is his father's son" and I think this is true for all of us. Perhaps more appropriately it should say "He is his parent's son".

Yesterday, on a long distance flight, after watching a very nice documentary on Steve Jobs, I was generally thinking about life in general and my tiny daughter in particular. I figured that a lot of her mannerisms, preferences and reactions to situations were very much like her mom's or dad's. And then I got to thinking about myself, and the same held true as well! As I grow older, and start settling into predictable ways of thought and action, I realize that I am very much like my parents.

This, of course, is not surprising. All the DNA that I have comes from the 2 fantastic people who have brought me into the world. Still, it is a bit humbling to know that most of my actions and reactions are hard wired, and that what I thought was my free will is actually the genetic code of a long chain of people before me. Some minor differences here or there, but substantially similar. Feels quite comforting at the same time as being disturbing.

Is there such a thing as free will? Or are we prisoners to our destiny?