PAUL:	When the past becomes the present, it's a worry.  
	When the past becomes the future, it's time to bail.

	Roots.  History.  Parentage.  Lineage.  Where are we 
	coming from ?  Where are we going ?

	Nature or nurture.  Are they not one side of the same 
	coin ?  There's no escaping either.  But can they be 
	changed, or massaged ?  The collision is perhaps unavoidable, 
	but how can we lessen or limit the damage ?

	I've often considered an interest in past generations as 
	a sympton of minor brain damage or terminal idiocy. 

	What huge wads of money that could be properly streamed 
	towards feeding and housing the kids are spent instead on 
	trips to "the auld country" in search of the barn where 
	some ancestor or other of yours rolled around in the hay 
	long enough and with someone fertile enough to ensure that 
	you ended up where you are today ?

	Who cares about their great great grandfather ?  Is that 
	where he was born ?  Burned at the stake right there, hey ?

	Fine.  Where's the bank book ?  What did he leave me ?

	Of what possible significance to my life is the knowledge or 
	first-hand experience of some geezer's last resting place or 
	site of their ritual slaying ?

	Does it make me a better person ?

	Okay, so some famous guitar player said "Progress, far from 
	consisting in change, depends on retentiveness .. those who 
	cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfil it."

	Yeah, but if it's in your genes, maybe it's better you don't 
	know about it.

	Or maybe that you don't know all about it, anyway.