Ancestors & Poll

Paul McCartney - Don't Stop Running 

Moon and Clouds, Sept. 1, 2022

Q: I'm considering changing the name of this blog to "Deed, not Creed." If you have an opinion, please let me know in the comments, via email, or through this contact form. Thanks in advance.

While visiting some friends, Anne and I watched an episode of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr's "Finding Your Roots." My reaction was simple:

I just don't care.

Yes, I know this is the privilege of the middle-class straight white male. But I really, really could not care less about what any of my grandparents did, let alone my fifth grandmother.

Heck, I don't care what my dad has done. He could have murdered someone or had a second family, and it would not influence me in the least. 

Heck^2 - I don't even care what Anne did before we met. We've been with each other for more than half our lives and the vast majority of our adult life. 

The past is past. What you do going forward is what matters. 

PS: As I wrote in Losing My Religions:

Look back just 27 generations, to the fourteenth century (where the current U.S. Supreme Court is taking us) and you have over a hundred million ancestors. (2^27) For those of us with European ancestry, that number is about twice the population of Europe at the time. To put it bluntly: we’re all interbred if we look back far enough. This is how one in every 200 men alive today are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Unbelievable, huh?