Robert Heinlein espoused the belief that our genes belong to the entire human race, not just to ourselves. It’s true and I’ll tell you why. Our genes are a gift to us from someone else. We in turn give them to another, proof our genes aren’t really ours in the classical sense. We’re merely the caretakers for a tiny fragment of allotted time on this planet.
I stand on this world in no small part because my parents managed to hand them off to me in a configuration that, along with environment, allowed me to live so far into my 40s. But they didn’t own theirs either. Both inherited them, for good or ill, from parents who gave no thought to ongoing saga of DNA Hand-off. We’re all players in this game, even if some of us spend our time on the bench. Team Earth is winning so far and our playbook is pretty simple; pass the ball (genes).
The rule book changes over the years, though. Bio-companies have managed to patent gene segments using various legal rationale, but you own the genes that reside in your body. You own them in the way you own a child you make. You must care for them, raise them, keep them from harm as best you can, and hope they outlast you. You answer for the things they do and must pay to keep them up. Without them you’d die, which makes sense because your body is pretty much a gene factory. Therefore how can someone own something your body produces on its own naturally if they can’t own you personally?
People worry a lot about their DNA too. They worry about someone stealing it, which is funny in a way. We leave tons of DNA behind us everywhere we go. Humans ooze and slough our way through every day, leaving tell-tale traces of “us” on every doorknob and chair and toilet seat. Our own homes are practically covered in our goo. Don’t do the blacklight experiment in your own home unless you’re prepare for how disgusting you really are. It’s like discovering those dust mites that live on your eyelids. You know they’re there, but you don’t think about them.
No need to be a slave to your DNA either; DNA doesn’t define you. It’s more like the schematics of how your body is put together. It’s a program filled with subroutines, all written using bits from your parents and their parents and so on. You get more from the recent relatives, which makes it easier to make generalizations about your body. We can get eye color, ethnicity, sex, and many other facts from your DNA. It can’t always tell us if you were a sinner or a saint.
In some ways your DNA is more about your parents than you. You get half your DNA from each parent. In effect you’re getting half their potential for sickness and health, good or bad. The rest is connected in a way that makes you unique, due to the randomness of some of the processes. In the end out pops you.
And DNA isn’t the entire story when it comes to who you are. Once born you live a life. That life grows and expands, wearing on the machine that is you. You’re different at 20 than at 10, physically and mentally. Conditions we share with our parents don’t always result in the same outcomes. Imagine being blind or deaf today versus 100 years ago. Even identical twins still develop separate personalities, regardless of the amount of identical DNA they share. And a clone of Hitler won’t necessarily grow up to kill millions of people.
Shouldn’t we guard our DNA against threats? Sure! Safeguarding how you use it helps you keep control of your identity, but you can also use your DNA for cool stuff. It’s actually a great tool in shedding light on our past. With DNA I discovered a story about my father’s family no one knew and opened a whole new world to us. Knowing our real roots we found ourselves connected to a city that always called to me, always held some fascination for me and my siblings. But like with many things, it came with a price. My father’s family felt disconnected from other relatives, never knowing anyone from their father’s side. The truth came with it some sadness over all the missed family gatherings, never knowing our real name.
Sometimes it shines a light on things not said, and when that happens you see things scurry into the shadows. Discovering things about your family once hidden is never easy, but with the light comes truth. It’s what we do with the truth that matters most.
Your DNA isn’t who you are so much as what you are. It only tells us about the human, not the human being. Until they can come up with a test for the soul gene I’m going to relax. If they can create a soul gene we might have some issues. Like GMO products what if they produced high quality soul genes, but legally they owned your soul?
I think I just peed my pants.