Nature or Brick

Comments4

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  sorenbarrett September 5th, 2026 17:38

  Nature or nurture always a question and it seems that bricks themselves made of clay and fire are themselves nature and so it may not be a question at all, all being the same. Nicely written with a great metaphor my friend.

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    soheil khodaparastiSeptember 6th, 2026 00:21

    Thank you. I really appreciate your thoughtful comment.
    
    And by “nature,” I mean intrinsic nature—the essence of a thing, the quiet truth of what it is before we begin to shape it. Perhaps that is the part we are given, rather than the part we choose.
    
    We arrive with a certain clay in our hands, but life gives us the bricks one by one. Some are shaped by fate, some by circumstance, some by the hands of those who came before us—and sometimes, through our own choices, struggles, and acts of becoming, we make the bricks ourselves.
    
    We may not choose the clay, nor control every brick that finds its way into our hands. Yet there remains a mysterious freedom in what we do with them: how we place them, what we rebuild, what we allow to fall away, and what kind of house we create from what was given—and from what we ourselves have made.
    
    Perhaps, then, nature and nurture are not two answers to the same question. Nature is the essence we inherit; nurture is everything that touches that essence—shaping it, challenging it, awakening it, and sometimes giving us the hands with which to shape ourselves.
    
    We are neither entirely made nor entirely self-made. We inherit the clay, we receive some bricks, we make others. Fate gives us the material, life gives us the weather, and our hands give it form.
    
    And perhaps that is the quiet mystery of becoming: we do not choose the clay, we do not command the fire, and we cannot control every hand that helps build the wall. But brick by brick, choice by choice, we participate in the making of the house we call ourselves.
    

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    sorenbarrettSeptember 6th, 2026 04:29

    You are most welcome. I got the general sense of what you are saying I took it slightly different that the clay is provided by nature that the labor is provided by the those around us our learning from environment and we are the product of the two

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  soheil khodaparasti September 6th, 2026 05:18

  Yes, I see what you mean, and I really like that perspective. Perhaps the clay is given to us by nature, while nurture provides the hands, the environment, and the experiences that shape us. And as we grow, we sometimes begin to shape the bricks ourselves.
  
  We are neither simply the clay nor the hands that shape it, but the becoming that emerges between the two.

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  Thomas W Case September 6th, 2026 07:45

  There’s a damn thoughtful philosophical core here, using clay, brick, and the brickmaker’s hand to wrestle with the old question of nature versus destiny without settling for either one. The closing “brick by brick, / still / becoming” is the keeper—it brings the whole argument back to agency, suggesting we inherit the material, but the house is still something we build.

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    soheil khodaparastiSeptember 6th, 2026 08:45

    Thank you. That is such a generous reading of it.

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  Friendship September 6th, 2026 16:47

  Nicely written

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    soheil khodaparastiSeptember 6th, 2026 16:54

    Thank you very much.