So it’s World Cup time, and as you read those words you will have a reaction to that tournament which may vary from enthusiasm to instant dislike. Around the world people from the 32 countries taking part will already have had moments of joy and woe, of thrills and fears, all centred around a couple of dozen men running around a field kicking a ball.

We like to support our team if they’re taking part. Some countries’ involvement mean nothing to us. Others we may actively dislike because of their regime or government or historical events. Russia is the host nation. I have a friend who is not watching the tournament because Russia is hosting. He likened it to Hitler’s Berlin Olympics in 1936. He is Polish.

It’s like the Eurovision Song Contest where you can predict one country’s vote for another, depending on how friendly or unfriendly these two countries have been through history.

Will England fans support Argentina, with the Falklands still in people’s memories, and Maradona’s hand of God incident against England in 1986? For that matter Scots have not traditionally wanted England to do well in the World Cup.

This is all about identity. About who we deem ourselves to be, and about the mental invention of a sense of me, us, and others. So who am I, the person who is writing this? In terms of national identity my immediate thought is, I am Scottish. I was born in Cambuslang, Scotland. I was raised here and spent most of my life living in Scotland. I speak with a Scottish accent. Anyone with a passing understanding of Scotland and the Scots would immediately on meeting and hearing me think I’m Scottish. The fact that my name and my father are Polish doesn’t count. My mother, born in Scotland to parents also born in Scotland, is however one hundred percent Irish in her genes, going back to when Thomas Murphy left Ireland in the 1840s. So in terms of my DNA I don’t have a single atom of Scottishness in my body.

Interestingly had this been the exact same scenario but my ancestors had hailed from a country where people’s skins were not what we call white, people may have viewed me differently. My accent could be the same. My depth of understanding of Scottish life, culture, history, and geography could be just the same, but somehow in the minds of many, though not all, I wouldn’t be really Scottish, or I’d be Scottish but only after they had thought about it. They wouldn’t think I’m what I’d call Scottish Scottish or Really Scottish.

It’s interesting that my Polish and Irish labels are rendered invisible by an accent and the colour of my skin.

Labels are useful and necessary but we have to be careful or they start to define us in narrow, exclusive terms. Labelling others is also useful and necessary, but the same caveat applies. Just like an axe is useful, we don’t want to just leave it lying around because it is potentially dangerous. Treat your labels and labelling with care.

What does it actually mean to be Scottish, British, European? This is an important question but as soon as it is raised it becomes loaded with political implications and suggestions. The very fact that I raise it as a theme in this column might cause all sorts of people to think I am trying to send a political message, that I’m a crypto-nationalist, a narrow-minded British unionist, or a Remainer.

We are all accidents of birth and circumstances. You who are a pro-Union Brit, or a pro-independence Scot, a pro-EU European, or an anti-EU European – or any other label you like to attach to yourself – could, with a simple twist of fate, have been Canadian, Spanish, Thai. And if so, you might view yourself as none of these labels. You might not even know or care about the seemingly trivial politics of Scotland, British and Europe. Your mind and political labelling would be focused elsewhere.

You are not who you think you are. These labels are all just conditioning, and the conditioning is just the result of pure chance. You didn’t choose your parents but you got your genes, which are like computer programmes, some set from conception at ON, others at READY but requiring life experiences to either switch them on or keep them switched off. Among these genes are ones which seem to deeply influence our political persuasion. So your dearly held national and political labels may be the result of nothing more than a bit of chemistry triggered by a couple of passing experiences.

This is easy to understand intellectually. You just need to read a credible book, check out the research and you get it. But at an inner level it’s an entirely different matter. Most of us are so deeply and emotionally embedded in our understanding of our sense of self, of what we are, and what we’re not, that what I am writing about here represents a profound, and seemingly threatening and dangerous, challenge to your deepest views about yourself. All of our views about ourselves are just a bunch of prejudices, a set of delusions created my that fascinating and mysterious combination of genes and chance life experiences. So, keep your labels if you feel you need them, but wear them very lightly, and don’t let them harm you or those around you. And enjoy what’s left of the World Cup.