Here in the United States, the incidence of ABO blood groups is estimated at approximately 44% O; 42% A; 10% B: and 4% AB. Whether one finds oneself in a majority type - O or A - or in a minority one - B or AB - goes a long way, I find, toward determining personality factors. In other words, bloodtype personalities are "the way they are" not only because of intrinsic factors, but also by virtue of their being embedded in large/extended or in small/isolated clans of typemates.

Both O's and A's harbor expectations that the world sees things the way they do; they're accustomed to a certain understood-ness amid society. Very simply put, O's want to win at the world's game, and A's want to be accepted within and facilitators of community. Both know that B's and AB's are "different", "quirky" in some way; O and A can't imagine being that out of step with the broader world.

B's and AB's, for their part, are accustomed to their differentness. But I have a theory that distinguishes the inner comfort and self-acceptance of the B from the apprehension and inner turmoil of the AB.

I posit that B, operating independently, skirting the larger, customary byways, is contented in that state and role, wearing it well, but that AB has trouble with such desires because of the A allele. AB's would like to be as straightforward in their unusualness as B's are, but they have this A-voice gnawing at them - A, the one who wants to fit in, to get along, to create community, to enjoy security. AB sees that B isn't as compromising or as equivocating, and envies B. AB wishes s/he could ditch the A self-expectation, the inner A's criticalness of inner B, in order to shine like the B, riding the wind -- OR -- that s/he could "outgrow" his/her B-differentness altogether and be included in the larger A-compliant world. You might find AB's alternating in their behavior toward B's: projecting orneriness against free, autonomous B acquaintances and family at times, and expressing a yearning to take off and run with the horses, too, at others.

Speaking of horses, anthropologic bloodtype archetypes portray this subtle variation too: B the utter nomad, AB the gypsy. The nomad is out there in the wilderness - deserts, steppes, mountains- watching stars shoot, clouds morph, dunes shift - while the gypsy is the oddball closer to civilization: The family washing clothes in the stream by its caravan at the city's edge, the accordionist with the dancing bear on the midtown corner, the fortune teller at the gate.

These archetypes also show how B and AB can find their level and contentment: B in not caring to justify himself to society, confident that the latter will use/absorb/ignore/reject what it chooses to of B's offerings and wares, and AB being pleased to amuse, or find a unique role within, the majority's society while proudly upholding its very staunch policy of caginess/aloofness. Playing by his own rules, as it were, within the larger system. Keeping a foot outside the box.

Both AB's and B's are passionate critters. AB's for their majority-wannabe A allele, however, are more conflicted, I think. If you're an AB or you love one, try these insights on for size. If you're, like myself, a B, your drifting isn't aimless: It may simply conform to patterns that transcend the era and the culture and the family you inhabit. Be true to it.

Blood Group anthropology supplies a way to frame a modern crisis: The divorce of human diet from our own species' natural habitats and place in the food chain. The advent of neolithicity signified Man's assuming control of the earth and its wildlife, eventuating in our associating fish with the Seafood Department, meat with the butcher's shop, grains with boxes and sealed plastic bags, and vegetables and fruits with "Produce" bins.

Paleolithic man, we are taught, was of the O blood group, hunting and gathering meat, fish, greens and berries, co-participating in terrestrial life with other life forms. Blood group A mutated to facilitate a wholly different (and "modern", regnant) manner of living on earth: The mastery of plant and animal life, which has defined the history of Civilization. B mutated later, and in small numbers, as shepherds migrated further into the wilderness with flocks and herds, becoming nomads with infrequent contact with settled communities. AB was generated, appearing a millennium or so ago, of the cross-breeding of migrating Asiatic B's with, on the west end, settled Europeans, and, on the east, Japanese and western Asians: A thoroughly modern development.

My previous Blog treated of AB's as yet indefinite anthropology; in the mystery of AB's vocation lies, I believe, the solution to our profound environmental malaise: Where do we go, as a species, as a "civilization", from here?

B reacted versus A, one could argue, by altogether leaving the farms and towns; but the 20th century witnessed the veritable annihilation of B's nomadism by technology, which replaced the various animal-relationships upon which B lifestyles depended, whether with horses, camels, or even yaks, and, by extension, sheep and goats. Motorized transport, mobile telephones, refrigeration: These increasingly, and now quite finally, halted B's unique adaptive relationship to the earth and its dominant cultures.

I posit the human/animal relationship-type as fundamental to blood group differentiation, and my own blood group, B, as arising from a rebellion, if you will, of shepherds against agricultural and urban hegemony. There were just enough of us ready to depart from cities and farms, courageous enough to throw in our lot with animals chosen for their ability to supply us with numerous products and services in exchange for our finding pasturage for them in ever more remote locales. During the first centuries A.D., however, as our blood group's populations returned to the cities, we abandoned more and more of our geographically nomadic ways, spinning-off the next era's groundbreakers, the AB's, who, since nomadism's very recent decease, may hold the key to the resolution of Modernity's ecological dilemmas, as we study its developing relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom.

When we look back at the disappearances of more ancient civilizations, we are baffled as to how these highly developed centers simply ceased to exist. Yet, in our own lifetimes, numerous peoples amongst earth's humans, have been forced by technology's encroachment to integrate themselves into alien predominant ways of life, especially to the high-tech juggernaut. Animal-rights concerns and environmentalism may turn out to have been the distant precursor of AB's unique (and technologically sophisticated?) stab at an answer, one that shall singularly encompass and represent the strivings of all of its blood group forebears. In the meantime, while A supplies the older, settled, established human-dominant community allele, and B (which FOUND a solution but, since AB's technics era, this was squelched) contributes the minority "outlaw"- mutual-subsistence allele, it is O's primaeval memories and stories that haunt, drive, and even inspire us all.

What AB shall make of the melange, and the opportunity, is Posterity's Secret.

Poor AB. S/he must be understanding when O's and A's and B's are described and addressed and explained at length, with the tag "and AB is A plus B, and even has such-and-such pattern in common with O", etc.

We don't really understand AB yet: There's the crux of it. We can see the anthropologic progression from Pale-O-lithic to "A"gricultural neolithic to B's pastoral nomadism; this necessitates the kind of sweeping perspective to see history in 10.000-or-so year eras. AB, on the other hand, only appeared on the human scene - in relatively small numbers - approximately 1000 years ago, and we don't really know yet how our native 10+ millenia epoch will play out.

Of O's we know: They hunted and gathered and sweated.

Of A's we know: They settled and planted and civilized.

Of B's we know: They traveled and pastured and milked.

The A and B mutations manifested massive cultural pattern-shifts. As for AB, the blood group is unique in not representing a mutation, but rather a blending of A and B types (both genetically dominant), springing from the westward migration and A-cohabitation of B-bearing Asians.

Is it possible for us, so early in this as-yet-unnamed modern era, to speculate as to AB's cultural influence? What is the significance of A combined with B, of civilization combined with perpheral unrootedness?

One of the ways we can characterize the earlier three blood groups is vis-a-vis the animal kingdom:

O killed and ate them, often with animal assistants, sometimes with reverence.

A harnessed them to plows and carts, and, like O, set them against one another to human (in this case agricultural) advantage.

B led them to remote pasturages and used their every product (wool, milk, hide, meat, urine, dung) to sustain themselves along the way.

What is AB's relationship to animals? I daresay history will define the new connection. Meanwhile, most of us do not hunt and forage for our food. Nor do modern farms depend upon animal labor, instead favoring engines for farming, and chemicals and barriers for dealing with various vermin. And with the automobile and cell phones, pastoral nomadism has, as of the late 20th century, become obsolete.

Am I deducing that the AB epoch is that of the new non-relationship of humans and animals for obtaining food? All I can be sure of is that it is one of globalism, of East-meets-West, of intermarrying and global cross-racialization, far surpassing any preceding age's patterns. AB might also be poised to survive some future plague that shall decimate either A or B populations, thus substantially, and rather suddenly, increasing AB's representation. It'll be many centuries before humans will have the perspective to see The Pattern.

In any case, what do you AB's think?