Circumstance

In the last two months of Statistics, I've learned a great deal about margin of error, 'p hat', confidence intervals and standard deviations. But I haven't learned a thing about what makes me most curious - explanations that aren't excuses, effects that aren't correlations. I'm thinking primarily about Nature vs. Nurture. Not the specifics, just the most general view possible. It seems to me, increasingly, that the truth might look a bit like this:

--------------Personality Types--------A----B

Life Experience Types----------A ---AA---AB
--------------------------------------B--- BA---BB

With AA, AB, BA, and BB all completely different. This seems most likely to me.

Although other times I wonder if the life experience, or the personalities, one or the other, are invented... a reason invented by the human mind, obsessed with such things.

Because it's so complex, so difficult, to imagine why hard times make some people harder, some people softer, some more empathetic, some more thoughtful, some bitter, some easy to please...

And you wonder. How would my life be different if I had suffered more? If I had suffered less? Am I prone to my sensitivities or have life's circumstances handed them to me? Why have I been able to combat trouble with sarcasm and humour in some cases and not in others?

And I wonder these same things about others, but I have less license to do so, and less data to work with. I do know that numbers say precious little about infinite combinations hiding their origins.