R: Circumstance Make the Man

There's no doubt that our lives are strongly influenced by circumstances we have little or no control over. The town where we were born, the music lessons our parents paid for, the teachers we've had, even our acceptance into Yale—there's no denying the role of contingency (or maybe some secret preordained plan) in all of these areas. But while our biographies are intertwined with forces external to us, to what extent—if at all—do these circumstances actually shape our persons? Does the self precede experience? Even if we learn to nurture our souls in the face of adversity, we might merely be responding to the adverse circumstances themselves (albeit in a positive way). And don't circumstances only matter in how we react to them—which is in turn dictated by our character? And yet character is itself a product of circumstances, especially genetics, which lay out a blueprint for not only our physical traits but for many aspects of our personalities. Is it fair to say that genes are themselves consequences of chance, or are they more intrinsic because their selection precedes our existence?