Some memories have no beginning because you were too young to notice anything becoming familiar.

The earliest things have no first time. You cannot remember becoming familiar with a parent’s voice or the shape of a room, because you were there before you were capable of noticing anything as new. Those memories have no edge, which is part of why they feel less like recollections and more like conditions.

It is worth knowing that some of what feels like your nature is this kind of material. Not accessible, not examinable, and formative. Where it causes trouble, working with the present effect is more realistic than trying to excavate the origin.