During occasional visits to my ancestral village, I used to think, how family roots are more biological than emotional. ‘Blood is thicker than water’ may sound like a cliche but the genetic interconnections demand our attention.
Genes carry the uneditable irreversible source code of life. About the past, present and future. Doing a genetic test is unleashing critical information about you. About your ancestry, health risks and what makes you. The moment when you know where your genes came from, it can cause you to think for a while. Genes make us a heady cocktail of humanity.
If a visit to your ancestral village can make you feel the roots, genetic testing is a data-driven brutal unapologetic map of what you are made of taken from your saliva sample. It can help to trace your ancestors (maternal and paternal) even ten generations ago.
The genes hidden in you can reveal all of you. Genetic tests unlock the password and show you about what you are made biologically.
A self-respecting human may find it a humbling experience to see how genes control most of the lives including how we react to things to the reason for our dust allergy.
Humans want to control all aspects of life. We have the illusion of control. The understanding of genes may challenge that.
Companies like 23 and Me have become a go-to place for the eternally curious humans to know who their ancestors are and what our potential health risks are.
Your genetic history can unravel your biological future. It can also help you draw the map deep into human evolution and ethnicities. The religious and geographical boundaries disappear in the advent of genes.
The selfish genes fooled all human social constructs to spread wildly.
“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” – Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.