There's a lot of truth there. And let's not forget the influence of culture, either. Our upbringing and family carry a lot of weight and exert subtle pressures, even though when we are young, we tend to dismiss it, thinking ourselves as totally free and independent thinkers.

I know I was brought up in a culture that honored, even revered, intellectual and educational achievement, and was highly suspicious of and distrusted commercial success and business . Although we were working class, (my mother was a stenographer, my father a sheet metal worker) I was brought up with stories of my grandparents generation who had been skilled industrial workers in the cigar-making industry). Our heroes were the readers, who had been professional orators and readers, educated men like my grandfather, men respected by the working class cigar rollers who listened to them while they worked.

I am perfectly aware that much of what I am now owes to that heritage, not because of my intelligence, education or experience. In fact, the older I get, the better I realize it. Only the very young and foolish really believe they are self-contained, independent thinkers, that their every opinion derives solely from their cool and discerning intellect.

Most Americans are more separated from their European cultural roots, more embedded in the new culture that developed in North America, and often unaware of other ways of looking at the world. They were brought up in a culture that did provide totally unprecedented opportunities for success in the business world, an impossible dream for class-ridden European cultures like my own. They are more likely to trust and admire that life, that style. They are more familiar with it and more comfortable with it. Not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer, but anyone can be successful in business if they just work hard, right? So those that don't make it must be fundamentally flawed, somehow, right?

My father was born in 1910, over a century ago. Although born in Tampa, he spent much of his youth in Havana, and even spoke English with an accent. When he came back from the Army in WWII, and shortly after I was born, he left Tampa briefly and went to New York looking for work and for his health (he had an asthma allergy that affected him only in Florida, in fact, its what eventually killed him 4 years later). While in New York, broke, scared, homesick, and recovering from his asthma and a marriage in trouble, he wrote a long autobiography that I still have. Every few years I re-read it.

Every time I do, I learn again how much baggage we carry with us from the past, both in our genes, and in our culture and upbringing. I only have two memories of my father, both very brief and indistinct. But I know him, and I know how much he has influenced me, as have all the others in my past. We all see the world through others' eyes, and it is foolhardy to forget that.