The Impact of Lineage and My Astonishment

I didn’t believe in genetics.

I mean—here’s the thing: I acknowledged that heredity was a fundamental factor, of course. Eye color, height, metabolic rate. The physical platform. But character? Predisposition? Skill? These were learned, environmental, matters of choice. The body was a door; the soul would chart its own path while passing through. In this regard, I believed humans were born as a completely blank slate. In other words, tabula rasa: I thought the environment and the will wrote everything, and genetics were merely a physical platform. Perhaps I was too much of a nurturist. I viewed genetic determinism as the scientific version of fatalism—though fatalism that excluded genetics was essentially the same thing.

Then, I learned the stories of my family, one by one, name by name, trade by trade.

And now, as I write this, I stand upon the wreckage of my old belief system.

I. Maternal Side: Fire and Screwdrivers

Radio Mehmet

On my mother’s side, there is one of our family’s legendary figures: Radio Mehmet.

He was the man who, on his own, with no one to teach him, driven only by curiosity and courage, cracked the codes of the first radios and televisions to arrive in the region. The man who, while touching electrical appliances—even as people warned him, “Don’t, you’ll get shocked”—proceeded anyway, and eventually got the first television in the entire neighborhood working. Not just working—he repaired, modified, and built them.

But that’s not what makes him truly legendary.

He’s the man who beat up some of the most authoritative figures in the region in his own office. He was constantly in trouble. So much so that he was the favorite of the local women. Everyone in the family tells stories about him. For him, the term “uncontrollable” wasn’t a compliment; it was a mode of existence. He didn’t follow rules, he didn’t bow before authorities, and he’d throw a punch if necessary. But he got the job done. Just in his own way. At his own pace. With his own understanding.

And in addition to this—perhaps most strikingly—he was a man who built and played his own violins. Thinking of those hands that held a screwdriver now also tensioning strings and carving wood with the same precision makes perfect sense to me. For him, craft and art were two movements of the same hand.

And I never thought I was growing up in the blood of this man. I only heard of him as a “cool great-uncle.”

Great-Grandfather: The Cold Commander and Master

My other great-grandfather was Müşir.

Before he was exiled, he held an official position in Russia. After exile, he opened a shop all by himself. He was a man with a very stern face who traded weapons with the TSK (Turkish Armed Forces). So much so that he would grow special walnut trees himself just to make the stocks for the weapons. The TSK would bring their weapons to him for repairs or to purchase new ones. He wasn’t just a repairman; he was a manufacturer. When he took a weapon into his hands, he was an artist at the junction where wood meets metal. He was the “He spoke, and it was done” type. Cold, precise, knowing no boundaries. But what he spoke of was an order considered down to the finest technical detail, perfectly calculated. Because no flaw ever left that man’s hands. He spoke the language of the screwdriver and the walnut tree.

And his brother, Master Muhlis, was as kind and merciful as his name suggests—and a master carpenter.

So, on my mother’s side, along the branches of the family tree, there is the same motif: Learn. Do it yourself. Build strong, reliable, and mutually unshakeable collaborations. Take a tool in your hand. Construct reality.

Literally a family of craftsmen.

By the way—everyone in the family has an interest in music. I suspect that’s not a coincidence either. Building a violin, repairing a radio, manufacturing a weapon—they are all different faces of the same hand, the same auditory-motor intelligence.

II. Paternal Side: Discourse and Depth

The paternal side is like the exact opposite of the same geography.

The region has well-known scholars. People who had seen madrasa education, who understood theology, jurisprudence, and rational sciences to their depths. When giving directions in the region, their names are still used today.

The Arabic notes written by my grandfather Molla Abdülaziz still sit in our home. A heritage of knowledge passed down from generation to generation, with blackened pages and the scent of ink. I used to pick them up and look at them when I was a child—I didn’t understand, but I could feel it. That weight.

This isn’t about popularity. This is a community, over generations, accepting you as an authority on knowledge. Speaking with the weight of discourse. Convincing with the subtlety of evidence. Not “I said so, and it was done”—but by saying “Think about it this way, see it like this,” ensuring the mind charts its own path.

So, on the paternal side, along the branches of the family tree, there is the same motif: Learn. Deepen. Understand. Explain. Construct reality with discourse.

III. Collision and Union

And then there is me.

I was born at the intersection of these two lines. And for years, I didn’t realize it.

As a child, I wouldn’t let go of broken tools or old electronics. I would break them, try to understand them, and sometimes actually fix them. But at the same time—at the same time—I couldn’t do something without understanding it. I wouldn’t just settle for “as long as it works.” I had to know how it worked. And not just how, but why. Why this frequency? Why this current? Why this logic?

In university, I wandered the triangle of chemistry-electronics-physics. Then software. But every time, the same pattern: Learn something deeply, then translate it into your own reality. In other words: First understand (paternal side), then construct (maternal side).

But I didn’t explain this with “genetics.” On the contrary, I told myself: “I am interested in these things because I saw them around me, because that’s how I was socialized.” I told myself an environmental story. And this story aligned with my old way of thinking. The body was a platform; I had chosen the interest, I had determined the direction.

IV. Astonishment

The astonishment came suddenly.

A few months ago, while listening to family stories in more detail and poking around the family tree, I suddenly noticed a pattern. That pattern was thousands of kilometers away before me. That pattern was hundreds of years before me. And without knowing it, I was living that same pattern.

Radio Mehmet’s “uncontrollability”—my own refusal to hand over a project to any authority other than my own understanding. My great-grandfather’s “cold precision”—my own refusal to stop or argue until I am certain of a technical issue, but then remaining uncompromising once I am. The paternal side’s necessity for “deep understanding”—my own refusal to ever stay on the surface of a system, going down to the sub-layers, and the layers beneath those…

I hadn’t chosen these. Because choice implies awareness. And I had never questioned where these behaviors came from. I simply said, “That’s just who I am.”

For instance, there is a strange tradition in the family: only sons wear a single earring. Regardless of age. I noticed it as a child, and as I grew older, I grew curious. And now—no matter my age—I wear one too. I didn’t question why I did this for years. I said “family tradition” and left it at that. But now I think: this, too, like the screwdriver, like the violin, like the pattern—is a fingerprint I carry without knowing.

But who is “I”?

V. The Collapse of Old Belief

My old belief heard a crack at this point.

Because I realized: The same interest, the same predisposition, the same urge—it exists not just in the generation before me, but in those before that as well. And that urge, that predisposition, carries more than just a physical platform. The nervous system has a tendency. A default setting.

This is not “genetic determinism.” Meaning, this predisposition doesn’t force me. But this predisposition places me on an inclined plane. And on that plane, walking in certain directions is easier. Walking in others requires constant resistance.

But it’s not just craftsmanship and knowledge that come from this lineage. There are other things carried in the same body, the same molecules, on the same line. Reflux. High blood pressure. The body reminding us that it has its own memory. Not a strong digestive system, but a tense one. The organ that reacts first under stress. These are inheritances too. The negative elements in the same package that arrive alongside the positive talents.

Now I think: Perhaps the greatest astonishment is seeing not that genetics condemn us, but that they wrote a story before us. And realizing that that story is the opening chapter of our own.

VI. A New Agreement

I cannot change genetics. But I can read it now.

And to read is to become aware. To be aware is to establish a conscious relationship.

The maternal side’s “uncontrollability”—for me, is no longer just an attraction, but also a risk. Because that urge sometimes makes collaboration difficult. The paternal side’s necessity for “deep understanding”—sometimes delays action. Saying “I won’t do it until I understand it” sometimes means “not doing it.”

But now I know these things. And knowing is a difference from before. Because a pattern that repeats without being known, when repeated knowingly—if they cannot be stopped entirely—can either be controlled knowingly or continued knowingly. But the worst is repeating it without knowing, and mistaking it for “my will.”

VII. Same Soil, Different Fruit

But I must also say: There are dozens more people from the same lineage. Same geography, same stories, same influences.

Same predisposition, same stubbornness, perhaps same intelligence—but they encountered a different direction, a different era, a slightly different combination.

The common pattern is this: There is no submission to the rules of the System in the family’s genetics. Everyone found a place in the System according to their own nature, arrived by clawing their way, and held on there on their own terms.

Actually, each person—that is, each combination—has its own beauty, strength, and weakness. However, the common predisposition is the same.

This reminds me of the question of why Einstein’s or Michael Jordan’s children aren’t like them. And the famous joke between Einstein and Monroe.

The answer is simple: Because a perfect storm cannot be copied. For that storm to form, thousands of variables must meet simultaneously, in the same place, in the same way. Genetic predisposition is merely potential, and how that potential manifests is random. Furthermore, for potential to turn into reality, the environment must be able to read it, protect it, provide a base for it, and it must be noticed.

Genetics are entirely a game of chance. But genetics *mean nothing on their own.** What gives them meaning is what, where, and *when* they encounter something.

Understanding this creates a kind of… cold gratitude instead of fatalism. And in the face of that gratitude, the responsibility of writing this text.

VIII. Last Word

In my lineage, craft and knowledge, hand and discourse, fire and reason—have walked together.

I carry the tools of both at the intersection of these two lines. And perhaps, the blind spots of both. I don’t even know exactly what I took from which.

Genetics gave me a starting book. It wrote the first chapters. But the rest—it is not.

Only now, while writing, I see an old fingerprint between the pages. And seeing that print makes me write the book more carefully, more consciously.

My old mind learned the thing it was most astonished by:

The impact of genetics was greater than I thought. The maternal side has much more influence. I think, from mitochondrial effects. It determines the way the body works. It determines the way the brain works. And the most striking thing: When you don’t act in accordance with these predispositions, the brain shuts itself down. The nervous system becomes tense, the body sends an alarm. Nausea, high blood pressure, the brain actually stopping, intense boredom, and that familiar contraction. These are not just “illnesses.” They are also the noise of an engine trying to limit itself with serious effort in an unsuitable environment because it cannot act as it is. In any case, it doesn’t take long for me to start acting the opposite way. Because this is me.

In conclusion, I realized that;

Not everything is genetic. Likewise, not everything is something that can be achieved later with the environment. It is a graceful dance of the two.

The body is not just a container. It is also the first sentence of a story from long ago. And it is up to the person alone to continue that sentence.

EOF.