Do you remember when your story began? Not all dogs come when thay are called. Recall is like that.

I know I was there. I studied embryology in my medical degree. The ectoderm, the mesoderm, the endoderm. But was I me before the ectoderm?

We can learn so much about the brain and still not know a single thought that comes from it. My thoughts nowadays most commonly come as language yet at the start there were no words.

It was dark. Yet even in the dark with eyes closed there are patterns. When I watch the patterns now I can feel that I was there. There were also sounds. As I listen to the muffled sounds in the early morning dark I can feel that I was there. Remembering is like that. Not a dog that doesn’t come but a cat that appears on your lap. It appears suddenly but it is warm and cosy and sound asleep and you know it has been there for some time.

I saw my own babies sucking thumbs on 18 week ultrasounds. I don’t remember doing that but all babies suckle. Did I suckle and lose myself until all I was was a suckle? What happened to the world when all I was was a suckle? In those moments now the world appears to disappear and all there is is me. But back then that was my world.

Is that what genesis or the Tao speak of when distinctions arise? Are those stories really just us?

Is that what happens when we write it down? The earliest stories had no words. They were paintings on caves 40,000 years ago. We recognise them and can tell a story from them but all stories change in the retelling, even ours.