A few years ago I was watching a tv program about the mind’s of killers – was there biological basis for their behavior, and does  killer’s brain differ from yours and mine ( working off the premise we’re not killers ).

A Neuroscientist named James Fallon scanned his own brain after being told by his Mother that his Father’s family was ‘ little cuckoo’

Fallon learned from his moth that s one of  his great-grandfathers, Thomas Cornell, was hanged in 1667 for murdering his mother  and that Fallon’s family line of Cornells produced seven other alleged murderers, including Lizzy Borden.

At any rate, Fallon scanned showed that his brain was similar to killers and that had to have been a hell of a thing to discover about himself.

What the scan showed was that he may have been wired to be a killer, but he was not.

He was raised in a loving family, his life experiences were positive,  though I remember one interview with a friend of his who said with a somewhat pained expression that sometimes James would say or do something and in that  when James wasn’t connecting with them-to coin a phrase, his mind was elsewhere and that place was out of character for James.

The switch as it were was never thrown in his head,  unlike the switch that flipped in his cousin Lizzie Borden’s brain.

I wonder, if someone scanned your brain and gave you the news that James Fallon got,  how would you feel and at the end of the day- would you be surprised?

Midjourney creations and styles by Irina Shamaeva

WP Prompt:  Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?