A long time ago, someone pointed out that we all know what everything in our environment tastes like. The floor, mirror, curtains, denim, carpet, shoes, dry wall, toothpaste tube, brick, polished furniture, Tupperware, door handle, all of it. We know that window glass tastes different from mirror glass. We know that hoodie strings are oddly delicious, way better than shoe laces. We taste everything when we are babies and we retain that information.
Shortly after moving into our all white house with all white carpet, Joe and I were given a free laminate floor. Free is good. Getting rid of white carpet is priceless. We installed it ourselves and did a fair job.
Then the other night Joe said, "Hey, wait a minute, I have no idea what that floor tastes like. Do you?" And together, for about 90 seconds, we thought. No, neither of us know how that floor tastes. Textured floor laminate had not been invented when we were babies. And then Joe asked, "Isn't that cool, what we both just did with our brains? Imagine how much information we just processed, and how quickly. And what, exactly, were we doing? Did we instantly just reassess everything we've ever tasted?"
Point in fact, no one really knows how children learn. But my my, our brains, even my simple and broken one, are amazing. Look what babies do with no help at all.
7 comments:
You know what? I never thought about that. But you're right.
Wow.
That is one of the coolest thoughts I've encountered in a long time. Amazing.
Did you lick the floor? :) I'm tempted now, cause I don't know either...
Girl, you KNOW I am so tempted! I just can't quite bring myself to do it. I've clean up too much puppy poop this year.
What mommylion said...I mean, I am SO floored that you had this discussion with your husband ...there is SO much to it! Thank you for sharing...and I'm off to think about "tastes" and that knowledge we have deep,deep down. We learn so much don't we...? In ways we don't know..? or still know...and yet, we only use HOW much of our brain?? Imagine...imagine...if we used m ore...?
My husband and I were discussing this at dinner and my boy chimed in and said, "I know what a wall tastes like, because I licked one!"
Just think of how much something like this plays into culture shock. I mean, obviously, different sights, smells, sounds. You expect that from a new place, but sometimes it is that overwhelming underneath feeling of not 'knowing' a place. Could it be because we don't know what the stuff around us tastes like?
So interesting.
I mentioned this post to my husband. He looked at me like I had grown another head, shrugged and said, "ooookay....." as if he thought I may have lost whatever brains I once had.
But you know, he used to eat lead paint chips as a child. (Not kidding.)
Perhaps he forgot what things taste like?
That's crazy !! I dunno when textured laminate was invented, but when I thought about your question.. it's like I instantly remembered the feeling of laying on it (though, it must have been a great many years since I've laid on a laminate floor) and what it tastes like. Strange. OK I looked it up, and I was a baby several years after it's invention.
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