Why You Cannot Remember Being a Baby

The drawing lines a childhood against a stretch that stays dark before about age three or four, then draws four guesses for why: a brain part still being built, new cells crowding out old wiring, no words yet to write a memory in, and a family that did or didn’t turn the day into a told story. Its twist: some “early memories” were built afterward, out of photos and retellings, never actually recalled at all.

Before you start. Nothing technical needed, only your own memory, or the total lack of it, from before you turned about three. If you’ve ever tried to recall your first birthday and come up blank, you already have the mystery in your hands.