Free reign of the skies

I was at a lunch today (Japanese BBQ, quite tasty...and fun!) and towards the end, conversation turned towards childhood development. I largely listened because I was the only childless of our bunch, but thought my different view on the matter was interesting.

The general take (derived from the Literature, best as I could tell) was that somewhere around the age of seven, the structure of a child's brain fundamentally changes. It's at this point, my friends said, your kid is basically who they're going to be for the rest of their lives. Accompanying this idea was a stat that parents only have something like 6% of an impact on their child's development. The chat traversed nature and nuture and the trials and tribulations of parenthood.

This group was a smart and analytical bunch, so I'm not surprised that's how the topic was talked about. But the very idea of relying on Science for rearing children strikes me as a cope. Well-meaning, Very Good parents want to know that they're OK, and that they have some agency with their children, but not much.

More broadly, it feels like this is a very deterministic attitude towards not just raising children, but towards life. If you accept the kind of terms I laid out in the second paragraph of this essay, you're not far from also applying the same idea to you yourself. It's not a stretch to say I have been this way forever, and the Science says I'll never change, so I don't have to exercise any will to change my circumstances.

And with that attitude, maybe your future is determined for you. Something something definition of insanity, you know? It is precisely when you are conscious enough to start thinking along these lines when you actually gain the agency to truly change.

To be frank, I hate the way we psychologize everything about life. And even if I was OK with psychologizing-as-cope, I think the substance of the arguments are bunk.

We hardly know anything about consciousness. Nature versus nurture is a very elementary way of looking at childhood development. We are so naive, so ignorant of the immense plasticity of our bodies. And ignorant is a good way to put it, because it may very well be a good thing that we don't know much. Knowledge can be power, but that power is often destructive.

Lately, my interest in perception is growing. Like, most of our studies on the matter are done on humans, and maybe more broadly, mammals. But how do insects experience the world? What about birds, who have free reign of the skies?

My point is, Life exists in many forms. And while we may not be able to inhabit those forms, it's helpful to realize that there is an Other which we have not yet explored. So maybe don't be sure sure of yourself, ya?