Memory is weird. Interestingly language shapes memory. There was a study I read years ago (digging up that citation would be next to impossible) that revolved

Memory is weird. Interestingly language shapes memory. There was a study I read years ago (digging up that citation would be next to impossible) that revolved around psychologists asking adults to recall memories from their childhood. And what was curious about the study is that all of the participants reverted to using simpler, more child like vocabulary to describe the memories, because the memories formed at the time were formed along with the level of language they had. I have observed this in myself when discussing certain computing concepts, talking about projects I undertook 20 and 30+ years ago, and describing in language those concepts that today we would simply say "oh, that's this data structure" or a particular technique or algorithm or concept. You observe the same thing in certain cultures that do not have the words to describe certain concepts, e.g. complex familial relationships in English. And you observe certain things in gendered and non-gendered Romance languages. I grew up before there were camcorders and video recording in every phone or even instamatic polaroid cameras in every hand at every point in life, and I have "core memories", very distinct events in my life, where I describe them as "riding a bicycle" moment. One day you cannot ride a bicycle, and then something clicks inside you, and then you can. Learning to swim, learning to read, learning to ride a bicycle, learning to wire up a circuit, learning to stand up in my crib, learning to take my first steps, learning to get out of the pushchair. I have a recurring nightmare, that has lessened over the years, as I've gotten older, but still holds the same terror, that forms part of my earliest memories, I would say I have had that nightmare before I could even speak coherently. It's like a movie that plays in my head, the exact same way, the exact same sounds, the exact same feelings of dread. I also log a lot of my life, so I don't recall "yesterday" but I can tell you a lot of what was going on in my life on any particular day, from deaths of pets and family members, to changes to my workshop, to code I wrote, to algorithms I was pondering, to new stuff I learnt.