Imprinting

It means an indelible impression in the biological memory of the individual. In 1935, biologist Konrad Lorenz demonstrated to the world the phenomenon of imprinting: that brief, critical period during which the newborns of certain animal species – particularly birds – identify the first moving object they see as their “mother,” bonding with it to ensure their survival. The images of Lorenz followed in a line by his goslings have entered the history of science. However, that bond has a biological expiration date: once that time window is surpassed, the animal learns to see the other as a distinct individual.

In humans, imprinting does not end with childhood. It continues to work in the shadows, shaping who we are. Anyone who has ever observed a dog replicating its mother’s bizarre habits knows this well, or anyone who has been told, with a hint of surprise: “You move, speak, and behave exactly like your father.” This emulation also imprints itself in the way of being and thinking, that is, in character, and therefore in destiny. Even when there is a hostile rejection of one’s parents, they still leave their indelible marks on the subject who hates them.

Many of our most unique habits, our posture, our tone of voice, all the way to our thinking style and ideas, are nothing more than the emulative reflection of the people we have lived with and who, in some way, have cared for us and helped us grow. Imprinting can also come from a teacher of culture and style, or from those we have admired and loved.

It is a biological fact that makes us familiar to ourselves and to others, bearers and heirs of that “small ancient world” that we often miss. It is from this cultural and emotional imprinting that nostalgia arises: the painful return of the past, the heart-wrenching desire to find a distant “elsewhere” that was once familiar to us, exactly as we left it. This is why the memory of the places we have loved, and that we sometimes had to leave behind, never leaves us.

However, human imprinting hides a painful trap. Those few lucky ones who manage to return to the places of the past soon realize the great deception: everything is different, everything is unknown, nothing has remained as in memory. Time distorts spaces.

And so there is nothing left to do but the only possible thing: to wish to return home. To our new home, where, paradoxically, we will continue to nurture the nostalgia for what has been and will never be again.