One thing I love about Eli is that he doesn't hold his past or carry it with him the way the rest of us seem to. He takes in every person he encounters with the same friendliness and openness, no matter who they are or what they look like. It does not matter what kind of day he is having, either. Though he might just have been crying or frustrated, he leaves that experience and turns toward the new experience of this person before him with a smile.
This quality allows Eli to remain emotionally open to experiences (though he usually does need a little introduction) without the baggage of associating it with other things. There are exceptions to this, but not many.
Another effect of Eli's lack of history or baggage is that he doesn't carry shame as intensely as we do (or sheds it more easily). He does respond to conscious efforts to shame him (such as the rare event when he might hit his sister). He does not seem to shame himself, though. He will sing, play, dance, laugh, and tell stories without embarrassment. This allows him the gift of facing the world without the same social inhibitions we have.
On the other hand, Eli's lack of history means we never have "do you remember . . ." conversations. There is no context for new encounters. There is no extrapolating on old feelings or old experiences to inform new ones. I can recreate previous events for him as a preparation tool for something coming up. But I am never sure what he remembers on his own and he certainly never initiates this.
I have been pondering history because it is part of this process. But at the same time, Eli's history does not at all have to be a limitation. We are the ones who carry his past and his limitations around with us. We don't have to. What Eli could't do before or how he reacted doesn't really inform what he does today. It's all new to him. Dude, it's history.
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