There's a fairly new show on the telly called "Who Do You Think You Are?" where they send celebrities on a road trip to uncover their genealogy. Now, I'm not particularly fond of celebrities doing anything on television that doesn't involve their trade (I'm looking at you, Bono and countless others. I really don't give a fuck about your political views and what you're taking a stand for, okay?), around the time Tim McGraw found out his 8th great-grandfather once lodged George Washington, it got me thinking:
Why do we put so much importance on genealogy and family history? On some level I understand that people are curious about who their ancestors were and where their family came from. But it all boils down to a sort of haphazardly-placed pride in the achievements of people who you've never met.
Direct relations are one thing; My father and his father before him are (in Grandpa Swift's case, were) interesting characters and certified badasses, to boot. I'm happy to know my old man and happy I knew Charles Swift for as long as I did, though I wish I knew him better. But am I proud to know them? I don't think "pride" is the right word.
Happy is more appropriate. I'm happy that these two men shaped my life, along with countless others, to make me who I am today. I don't understand where pride comes into it. Pride is something you reserve for personal accomplishments, isn't it? Proud that you aced your test, proud that you broke your best score on Katamari. Proud that you mustered the strength for that extra lap on your morning run, if you're into that.
What I'm trying to get at is people take pride in their heritage. They take pride in their ethnicity. People take pride and identify themselves with far too many things that end up happening purely by accident.
Why take pride in things you had nothing to do with and no control over? It seems quite silly and presumptuous to me that people are proud to be Irish or Italian or Latino when it was sheer luck and genetics that got them there. Seriously, what the fuck did you have to do with it? And by researching your genealogy, what does that accomplish? Is this thing responsible for people's over-inflated sense of identity? Does finding out some distant relation of yours met some ancient celebrity change who you are?
Not for me it doesn't.
My dad was into genealogy for a little while, and while it's interesting, I felt it didn't affect me. What my ancestors did and where they came from is of little consequence to who I am as a person, in the present, save for the fact that they setlled where they did and passed along some genes.
It's all part of a larger problem with our culture, I think: this sycophantic longing to somehow gain a measure of celebrity for ourselves by associations with powerful, 'important', famous people. So when we're not too busy posting videos of whatever bullshit we got into over the weekend (or hoping people give a shit enough to read their blogged ramblings, perhaps? Touche, self-deprecation.) or tweeting that we just took a shit, we're looking backward now for some sort of affirmation that our ancestors mattered and that, by extension, we matter.
Hate to break it to you, folks, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter whether you're Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, African, Egyptian, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Taoist, or whatever. We're all just people, different breeds from the same species, and at the end of the day, unless you end up being the guy with your finger on the button that starts nuclear war and ends it all, nothing we do really matters, because our race will merely be a footnote in this planet's history. Optimistic, right? Okay, not a happy thought, but I think if more people realized how fleeting everything we do is in relation to this planet's and galaxy's longevity, maybe we wouldn't have so many idiotic problems regarding how we look at ourselves and each other.
So, enough of this pride. Be humble, goddammit. Just be fucking happy, wouldja? Save the pride for the things you work hard to do instead of taking pride in random acts of your grandparents fucking. Think about that, the next time you have these 'pride' thoughts floating up to the top of your brain like turds: your grandparents, great-grandparents and every ancestor you ever had going back to the Bronze Age, Fucking.
That'll keep you from taking too much stock in where you came from. Be happy where you came from. Don't be proud. Or be ashamed where you came from, even. I know a lot of us have shitty family out there. Just stop this pride bullshit.
-Swift
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