I never gave much thought to the scientific study of how particular qualities or traits are transmitted from parents to offspring. Deep contemplation on this subject, like most in my realm of existence, doesn’t happen often.

It’s okay. I know myself. I just kinda roll with the punches and see where I land.
Since I never have given much thought about “me” I came to my own conclusions about “self” in the most Neanderthalistic of ways.

Quite simply, you are who you are, a solitary sentient being, an individual who takes his or her own path through life. Each of us is the minority of all minorities. The minority of One.
I went happily through life thinking things this way: Heredity, schmedity — especially if you consider that learned folks say each body has between 20,000 and 25,000 genes — and only a pair from your ma and another from your pa. From your parental units you “inherit” your nose shape, eye color, skin pigment, whether or not you’re prone to something like cancer and a couple of other physical traits. But, the essence of yourself — that which makes you, Mr. or Mrs. You, has nothing to do with how your DNA stacks up.
I reckon I was happily ignorant until that stupid thought clanged the inside of my head like a clapper inside a bell.
Rats! Genetics are stronger than I first anticipated.
A thought just hit me one day. And, then another and another, different memories along the string of my life started to relate to each other. Never one confused for being a brainiack, I kinda’ just figured this out. The clapper hit me as I harkened back to one of those memories, back to those thrilling days of yesteryear at the old Rush homestead in the ghetto’s of Clarkston (also known as Independence Township.)
B-O-N-G! 
I remembered one of Daddio’s 2,874,000 directives given to me when I was but a lad.
“No singing at the dinner table.”’
And, then whilst eating recently.
B-O-N-G!
I don’t know if the link is strong between Pops Rush and myself, or between myself and Number Two son, Sean. But . . . the young man made musically sounds from his mouth recently while we were dining. He hummed something, non-chalantly. I don’t think he even knew, or would remember he did it.
B-O-N-G!

I went back and searched my memory. I have had this thought before. Figuratively I moved away the shrouds of time blocking my view of the past and there it was . . . I believe a Sunday dinner, at the table, the boys’ mom, Shamus about six or seven eating, talking; Sean, four or five . . .
“No singing at the dinner table,” I heard myself say.
Crap.
Was it a specific Rush DNA sequencing that has caused Sean to sing and make musical noises at the dinner table as I used to, or was I genetically predisposed to giving Sean the same what-for my dear old dad gave me upon hearing tunes at the table?
Is it some sort of mind-blowing Karma or merely a coincidence?

* * *

When George Orwell penned his now widely read novel, 1984, in 1949 he wrote of an oppressive, tyrannical government. He affectionately called this governing body, Big Brother.
I, like many, read that book while still in public schools. I don’t have a copy of it, but, with today’s technology I was able to go on-line and find this quote from the book:

“People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your onetime existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.”
Zip forward to 2017 and boy, how the times are a’changing. Were Orwell just now writing his futuristic nightmare, would Big Brother be a bloated and oppressive government, a puppet government actually run by corrupt corporate types, or by a shadow bureaucracy of intelligence gatherers who can pick and chose who they like or wish to destroy?
Interestingly, that book and other “dystopian” works of fiction are flying off the shelves these days. What does that say?
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  1984, don rush, don’t rush me, george orwell