At War With Myself

It recently occurred to me that I am in serious danger of catching the psychiatric disorder known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

While I have never had any difficulty getting along with myself in the past, close examination of my genetic heritage exposes areas of discord dangerous to my ongoing congenial relationship with me. Eventually I could even end up locked in mortal combat with myself because of past injustices perpetrated upon some of my genetic heritage by other of my genetic heritage.

The cause of this potential turmoil is my paternal grandfather who emigrated from Denmark to the Virgin Islands where he met and married a woman of Spanish-Scottish descent. This produced my father who, so far as I know, got along with himself pretty well. But that was because his generation was unaware of the potential of professional victimhood. They were too busy fighting World War II.

My father emigrated to the United States where he married my mother, a woman of English and Irish heritage. This resulted in my mishmash of genes, chromosomes and DNA that are expected to coexist in a time when victimhood has become a cottage industry. (Since my Spanish great-grandfather originated in Spain, not South America, he is considered European which means his genes don’t qualify as being Hispanic.)

I am, in short, a European-American, a WASP in the vernacular, and, as such, am responsible for much of the misfortune in the world.

For example: My fondness for red meat has resulted in the deforestation of the rainforest, nee Jungle, in South America, a continent I have never visited. I’m also greedy for wanting to hang on to my earnings and not fork over what I earn to the Feds so they can give it to someone who deserves it more than I. According to someone named Bono, who earns more in a day than most people do in a year, we Euro-Americans (I shortened it) are responsible for poverty in Africa, another continent I’ve never been to. Why the Africans aren’t responsible for their own poverty, Bono didn’t explain.

Among our Euro-American panoply of sins is a connection, albeit tenuous, to Christopher Columbus who, by bringing Europeans to the new world (apparently it wasn’t built at the same time as the old one) destroyed a thriving civilization. (Why this thriving civilization didn’t discover Spain is beyond me.)

But all that pales when you consider that we Westerners wantonly assaulted the South Pole with hair spray, breath freshener, Freon and underarm deodorant, resulting in the fryanization of Planet Earth. Never mind that the globe got a lot hotter during the Medieval warming period, that this warming period also coincides with increased solar activity or that Mars is heating up, too. It’s us. We did it with automobiles and central heating.

This is heavy stuff. Just ask Bono.

But those are not the reasons my genes are in an uproar. The reason I’m not getting along with myself  is that parts of my genetic code have determined that I should make full restitution to other parts of my genetic code for ills perpetrated in the past.

Here’s how it goes: In the 8th and 9th centuries, my Viking ancestors sallied out of the frozen fjords in fearsome-looking dragon ships and wreaked havoc on whatever country they happened across. Unfortunately for my British ancestors, that’d be Britain, although one particularly inept navigator (Lief Ericsson) overshot Scotland, Britain and Ireland entirely and blundered into North America where people he called skraelings sent him packing.

The Vikings were an unsavory lot similar to Klingons on the old Star Trek series.Rather than just taking in the sights, they spent their time ashore raping, maiming, murdering, plundering and pillaging. Those they didn’t maim, rape, murder, plunder or pillage, they enslaved.

To rub salt in the wound, they also colonized parts of Britain and forced those they didn’t rape, maim, murder, plunder or pillage to pay protection money called Danegeld. And that’s the rub. My British genes want the money back. My Viking genes claim they don’t have the foggiest idea how many Dangelds are in a dollar. Frankly, it’s a dilemma.

My other European forebears cut up a little, too, but those particular genes generally have forgiven each other. My Spanish ancestors went so far as to send an armada against my British ancestors, but my British genes don’t hold that against them. Probably because they didn’t make them cough up Spaingeld. And despite the fact my British ancestors cut the head off the Scots’ queen, my self insists these altercations come out pretty much a draw. Except for that little Inquisition thing. But then again, none of me is Jewish or Moorish and Protestants hadn’t been invented then.

If only these double helices were as open-minded when it comes to the Vikings. The English, Irish and Scottish chromosomes remain incensed. Probably because of the slavery thing. Apparently raping, maiming, murdering, plundering and pillaging is small potatoes when compared to slavery. Never mind that every group has either enslaved or been enslaved since the first apes climbed down from the trees. The Viking genes further claim that no Dane living today took part in any of the Vikings’ bad behavior, that what happened centuries ago can’t possibly be pertinent today. But the British and Scottish genes aren’t buying it. They demand payment.

To make matters even more complicated, I married someone of French-English descent, and if our son should happen to elope with a Russian, one can only imagine the conflict in their children’s cells owing to that Imperialistic little dwarf, Napoleon Bonaparte.

But on the bright side, it could be worse. I could have Macedonian genes and owe reparations to the descendants of the entire known world in the time of Alexander.