Does your Heritage matter to you?

[P.C.]

However, I'm interested in personal family history (without patriotic, nationalistic connections) and have engaged in lengthy discussions with my Mom on who was who, and who did what.





Thanks Raging Poodle......THAT'S what I was trying to say.  You did a much better job.  [img style="CURSOR: pointer" onclick=url(this.src); src="vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/more/bigs/c014.gif" border=0]

[tenkani]

I wonder what color Raging Poodle is.  

[Sportsdude]

 okay there are other ways that connect me to my grandparents I have their outlook on life and so on.  If I were to blame it on anything I just have to look at my uncles and my dad, they all married into big huge families.  my hungarian side is very fractured.  I ignore that part and just mainly focus on what my grandparents were about.  So I do feel connected in that way, but that connection more has to do with politics and way of life.  But if I look at it that way then yeah I'm pretty much a carbon copy of them.

I don't know anymore, I think this is just a family thing everyone goes through until they start their own family, but I've just always wondered.

But it really goes further then just oh I'd like to know my second cousins.  I've lived my life expierencing other things.  Like I've said before I've shopped in places and gone to places that the average thinking person wouldn't do.  I've been to a mosque, a hindu temple, jewish synagogue, I've done all these things to experience something different.

Its more about culture then heritage I guess, those things fascinate me, drive me.
   

[Sportsdude]

family history thats what I mean I just want to know who is alive and such.  Just to say hey i'm so and so grandkid.  Thats all I'm really looking for. If it sounded something different then oops. Family history thats what I strive for.  My other side of the family can be traced back to the 1500's, I've got the book.

Its like a level in a video game. Its a locked level and I've got to find the key to open it or something.
 

[P.C.]

Well if I were you SD....I think it might be of more value to you, to spend your energy just being SD.  Allowing yourself to be shaped by what your past is, alters what your future could be.  

[Sportsdude]

well its not being shaped by my past.  Although I'd like have my kids learn german (i'd learn with them to make it fun) because I heard kids and people who speak more then one language are smarter.  

Well for me there are lots to learn from the past.  I'm a family from peasants grandpa grew up a dirt floor.  Grandma was in a concentration camp.  So I'm anti facism, and I'm a big on labour and unions.  My grandmother taught us that we should be thankful we aren't starving to death and had to scrap mold off of bread like she had to do in the russian gulags in order to survive.  My grandpa for 7 years lived in a barn stable where he was a migrant for some rich count dude in austria.  Meals every night consisted of soup in a giant kettle that 15 people ate out of at the same time.

Things like that won't ever leave me, they shaped me.  So in that sense the past has helped me grow.
 

[purelife]

because I heard kids and people who speak more then one language are smarter.

  I don't think that languages make someone more smart, but I do think that knowing and learning another language gives you an "upper-hand" in society.  Also, depending on the language, it would also help understand English words.  ie. Latin, Greek, etc.  This makes the person a little more well-rounded, but I don't think any smarter than you or I.  

[Sportsdude]

My mom is in brain studies for things and they have said bi-lingual kids use both sides of there brains more or something like that.  

[Moolah!]

tenkani wrote:
I wonder what color Raging Poodle is.  

 LOL. You can talk about that [A href="vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/index.php/topic,4000.0.html"]here[/A].

 

 

 

 

[P.C.]

Things like that won't ever leave me, they shaped me.  So in that sense the past has helped me grow.

  I think I disagree with that.  It certainly shaped THEM and of course that will have a spin-off effect.  It doesn't seem like it IS helping you grow (with all due respect).  I think it's keeping you stuck in a world of misery that wasn't yours.  

[Sportsdude]

no its helped me a lot.  I care about the poor, human rights, social justice and things like that. I would not have gotten those ideas if they were not passed down from my grandparents to my father to me.  

[purelife]

Yup, why carry a burden of your heritage?    

[Sportsdude]

I dunno I've felt this 'burden' to prove something since I was little. Don't know why.  

[P.C.]

Maybe if you defined to yourself exactly what you're trying to prove (and why), you may have more success ?

[Sportsdude]

I got confused with what I was trying to say and then Raging Poodle basically said what I was trying to say.