The Power of Knowing One’s Past
Knowing where we have been is how we know where we will go next.
Services such as 23andMe have gained such popularity in recent years that they have raised $82.5 million in early December 2020, even though layoffs have happened earlier in the year. In October 2012, Ancestry.com, another popular DNA testing company (who has been profitable since 1996!) was sold for $1.6 billion. The global interests in the horoscope, dated back thousands of years, further confirm our shared obsessions over where and when we come from, and the meanings of such information. With the current accelerating rate of technology and increasingly lowering costs, it’s easier than ever to expand our self-knowledge of the past.
It’s certainly common for someone to be interested in genetics when it’s for a medical reason. And yet, not only knowledge of ancestry allows us to prevent certain genetic diseases early, but it’s also a window into how we become who we are and how we connect with others. By making connections with others from similar backgrounds, we have the opportunities to gain better self-acceptance, which consequently leads to improvement in life quality.
10,000 years ago, the concept of family trees began to take hold in our shared consciousness. Since we’re more likely to trust those we share our genes with (a…
