Our Secret Susan Griffin Analysis

Factors developing Life
For centuries the question of how a human being’s personality comes to be has been questioned. Susan Griffin’s, “Our Secret” explores the theories of a “larger matrix”, the “determining field” and our “common past” as she attempts to answer the question. Griffin’s larger matrix explains how everything is interconnected affecting people to establish different personalities depending on the time, place and family they are brought up in. The determining field Griffin is describing in her essay explains how humans are greatly influenced by specific events that have occurred causing a person to react in a certain way. When Griffin writes of the common past she elaborates on how people are influenced by what their ancestors have seen and experienced. Throughout Griffin’s essay she explains several situations where one can see any of the three elements influencing the people she writes about. All lives are influenced by either three of these elements
In this sense like Bill Gates my family has had a very fortunate larger matrix. In 1841 two of my ancestors, Clemens and August began a family business within selling textiles. Were it not for these two ancestors of mine, the history of my family would be completely different. As my family’s larger matrix developed itself, it influenced my family to become very international. The retail business that was founded as C&A in the Netherlands became international as it grew to several countries within Europe as well as a few others in different continents. As it was in several different countries, family members had to move to certain locations. There they met their future wives and increased the diversity within the family. If my father, Erik had not been part of the family business he would have never had to travel to Brazil where he met my mother, Nara. My father would have married a completely different woman making sure that I would never have been