What is your first memory? How old are you? For reasons explained below, most people have no memory prior to age three. My first memory is of around 18 months. I remember being pushed in a stroller through a park, the trees lining the path, the sun, feeling safe and happy to be outside, hearing peacocks call out and being startled. What was that noise?!
“Research has puzzled over the lack of recall most people have for their first three years of life and the fact that functional memory with some recall doesn’t begin until age three to four. This is because the amygdala, which is the module primarily involved in memory of these first three years, is fully engaged in registering our survival strategies. The hippocampus, involved in long-term memory subject to later recall, undergoes its major growth after the first three years. Thus very few of us can actually recall our survival training; we simply act it out, particularly when dealing with our own offspring.” (The Biology of Transcendence, Joseph Chilton Pearce)
Is it possible that this is why I am so keenly aware of enculturation strategies? Is it possible this is why I want to teach critical thinking? The call of the peacock set the tone for my life: wild curiosity and joy coupled with bewilderment.