As far as we know, no human can consciously remember the process of being born and the first few moments of life outside the womb. There are plenty of external witnesses. Mothers have observed the process in the midst of labor since time immemorial, and have been attended by midwives and doctors who have also become experienced in the process. We can speculate about the process for the one being born, but there is much that we cannot know for certain.

The process must be overwhelming. The amount of new sensations has to be a challenge for the brain to process. Ears that have only heard through amniotic fluid and have listened to the rhythm of the mother’s heartbeat and the sounds of her body suddenly are confronted with a host of new sounds that are vastly different, traveling through air instead of water and without the filter of the mother’s body. Eyes receive light for the first time and send signals that have not previously been received to the brain. It is widely speculated that infants are born without the ability to focus on specific objects and have to learn over a period of time to distinguish what they are seeing. Sight is as much brain processing as optical acuity. Infants are delivered from a precisely controlled temperature into a world with variable temperatures. Initial experiences of being too warm or cold are new and don’t yet have meaning. A body that has received all of its nutrition and expelled all of its waste through an umbilical cord now has to learn how to suckle for nutrition and use its brand-new digestive system. It is amazing how quickly an infant learns new information and masters the process of living.

Humans, however, are much slower than other animals at acquiring skills and becoming adults. Many mammals learn to walk within hours of being born. Some creatures become sexually mature in the first year of life, while others develop that ability in just a few years. Humans require more than a decade before they are ready to live on their own as adults. It takes nearly 25 years for the human brain to be fully developed.

We have a grandson who was born with binocular vision dysfunction. Early in his life, we noticed that his eyes struggled to work together correctly. Each eye has six muscles that control eye movement; in his case, they had difficulty coordinating. His eyes were routinely misaligned. The condition can lead to headaches, double vision, and difficulty focusing. It was obvious that he was working hard to see clearly and was slow to develop some other skills because he was working so hard on his vision. Fortunately, his condition was diagnosed early. Treatment included microprism glasses and using patches to cover one of his eyes. When he was old enough, a relatively simple outpatient surgical procedure improved his condition significantly, enabling a growth in other skills. Being better able to focus freed up brain power for language development, increased physical abilities, and more, restoring him to a more typical developmental curve.

His experiences and the teachings doctors have done to help us as a family understand what is going on have fascinated me. I have worn glasses since I was six years old and have been aware of how dramatic vision can impact a person. Since he was a toddler, one of my brothers has had a fantastic ability to spot animals from a distance. He can look at a hillside and see deer that I would not have seen had he not pointed out where to look. We used to go fishing, and he would point out fish beneath the surface that I never did learn to see. I now know that part of the skill is learning where to look and what to focus on. So much visual information is available to our brains at any moment that our brains sift and sort. We don’t see everything in our field of vision. Instead, our brains make unconscious decisions about what is most important and focus our vision on a limited number of things. An example of how our brains focus on different things is that the same brother has difficulty finding a specific book in a library.
On the other hand, I can walk between the stacks in a library, scan the books, and not only find what I want but frequently spot mis-shelved books. When I volunteer at the library, I not only shelve books that have been returned but also correct mistakes in shelving generally caused by patrons removing a book and returning it to a different place than where they got it. Vision is, in part, learning what to look for.

I have lived where great blue herons are relatively rare for most of my life. In mountain lakes and streams, herons tend to live far apart from others of their species. I learned to look for a second heron because two are required to raise chicks. In the fall, I would look for fledglings. I didn’t know how social the birds are until we moved to our current home. A rookery is within walking distance of our house with dozens of breeding pairs. When we first arrived, I would identify three or four birds when we went for a walk. After a while, I learned to see more. Now we will identify a dozen or more scanning from a single location. When I expect to see more birds, I do.

We had to learn what to look for to spot the gray whales when they came into our bay. We didn’t notice them at first and might not have seen them had others not pointed them out to us. Now that we know that looking for their spouts is how to recognize them, we can identify them without a guide. Last week, we were able to point them out to others walking along the shore who had not previously been aware of their presence.

The human brain is an amazing organ capable of processing incredible information. Fortunately, it can also learn new skills and ways to sort information. Now in my seventies, I am still learning. New learning brings great joy.