What was going on when I was born?

IT was not a good week for President Reagan on Capitol Hill. As the frenzy to end the 1985 session accelerated, Republicans ambushed a package of tax revisions that Mr. Reagan considers the centerpiece of his domestic program and prevented it from reaching the House floor for debate. There was still some chance that enough Republicans would switch their votes to revive the measure this week, before Congress recesses for the year, but that would not erase the stark image of a President embarrassed by members of his own party. Then Mr. Reagan signed into law a bill mandating that Congress balance the budget in annual steps over the next five years. The President had originally embraced the concept as a way of forcing Capitol Hill to cut domestic spending. But now White House officials acknowledge that the law could also wind up forcing the President to accept sharp slices in military spending, or a tax increase, or both. Mr. Reagan rejected advice from some of these officials to veto the bill, but he signed it in private, with no ceremony or fanfare.

''What has always troubled me about 'King Lear' is that Shakespeare gives his characters no past. We are plunged directly into the agonies of their present dilemmas without knowing how they came to this point.'' Unexpected criticism of the Bard from an unlikely source, but the thought takes on greater meaning as Akira Kurosawa pursues it in discussing ''Ran,'' his newest film, which has been called an adaptation of ''King Lear.'' ''How did Lear acquire the power that, as an old man, he abuses with such disastrous effects? Without knowing his past, I've never really understood the ferocity of his daughters' response to Lear's feeble attempts to shed his royal power. In 'Ran' I've tried to give Lear a history. I try to make clear that his power must rest upon a lifetime of bloodthirsty savagery. Forced to confront the consequences of his misdeeds, he is driven mad. But only by confronting his evil head on can he transcend it and begin to struggle again toward virtue.''

More than two and a half years after President Reagan broached the idea of a space-based defense, many Administration experts and critics alike remain uncertain about the consequences of such a defense for nuclear strategy and arms control. Yet almost all in the Government are going along with the program and, as a result, it has moved forward significantly in the past six months. Indeed, the prevailing view now is that it will become harder and harder to turn back - even though Administration officials and legislators acknowledge that there is deep confusion about the purposes and consequences of ''Star Wars,'' as the proposed system is popularly known. Despite the gathering momentum, key Administration officials say the program has not reached the point of no return. They say they are waiting for the opportunity to get the President to authorize measures that will take it even further before he leaves office in 1989, so his successor will be more or less compelled to forge ahead.

The Reagan Administration leaned on Israel last week to satisfy United States demands for evidence in the case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American Navy analyst accused of spying for Israel. American investigators met in Israel with Foreign Ministry and intelligence officials.

The banners had been hung in the Fort Campbell, Ky., gym. The base band was prepared to play. But last week's welcome for members of the 101st Airborne Division returning from a five-month peacekeeping stint in the Middle East turned into a wake. A chartered jetliner carrying the 248 soldiers and a crew of eight crashed in the Newfoundland woods Thursday, killing everyone aboard. It was the worst crash in Canadian history and brought the aviation death toll in 1985 to 1,948, the worst year on record.

On the eve of his first visit to Eastern Europe as Secretary of State, George P. Shultz today attacked the postwar division of Berlin and Germany as ''unnatural and inhuman.'' He said the United States rejected the incorporation of Eastern Europe ''into a Soviet sphere of influence.'' Flying to this divided city, which has often symbolized East-West tensions, Mr. Shultz made a forceful restatement of the American position on an issue that has contributed to those tensions for 40 years - Soviet control over the nations of Eastern Europe that the Red Army marched into toward the end of World War II. 'We Will Not Be Bullied' In a speech tonight, Mr. Shultz said the determination of the United States, Britain and France to remain as the protecting powers in West Berlin through the 40 postwar years was proof to the Russians ''that the democracies will stand firm against pressures.''

Wages Will Weaken The new year's wage increases will not exactly have workers breaking out the champagne. Low inflation and a less-than-robust economy will keep real wage growth below the level of 1985, says economist Joel Popkin a Washington consultant. In 1986, workers' raises will average about 5.2 percent, he says, with inflation - as measured by the Consumer Price Index - at about 4 percent for the year. That would leave workers with a 1.2 percent average real wage gain. For the current year, he estimates, raises have averaged roughly 5 percent, against a C.P.I. of about 3.2 percent - a real wage gain of 1.8 percent.

While residential development on Long Island's South Fork moved along at a fast clip throughout the 1970's, the Island's North Fork was largly overlooked by builders of waterfront condominium projects. Now such North Fork Villages as Greenport and Southhold are witnessing some of the East End's newest residential projects.

House and Senate negotiators tonight reached agreement on the 1985 farm bill, ending eight days of deliberations. The package, which is intended to set the nation's farm policy for the remainder of the decade, called for near-record spending on the Government's programs that subsidize the prices of a dozen major commodities. Members of the conference committee also agreed to raise spending for food stamps by $1 billion and to make homeless people and working families with low incomes eligible for the program. $52 Billion in 3 Years According to an estimate by the Department of Agriculture, the bill calls for $52 billion in Government spending to support commodity price and farmers' incomes over the next three years. President Reagan has insisted that he will veto the bill if the costs of these programs exceed $50 billion. John R. Block, the Secretary of Agriculture, was on Capitol Hill as the lawmakers concluded their deliberations tonight, but he declined to speculate on whether or not the President would sign the bill.

IN weather more suitable to a freezer than a Refrigerator, the Jets learned why the Chicago Bears are the National Football League's best team. Winds that gusted to 29 miles per hour created a wind-chill factor of 4 degrees, then the Bears' defensive unit created a 19-6 victory. While the Jets' chances of finishing first in the American Conference East were imperiled, the Bears' chances of sweeping through the National Conference playoffs to Super Bowl XX were improved, considering that both their playoff games in Chicago might well be played in even colder weather. Bear weather, as their players call it.

She may be a neophyte politician, but Corazon C. Aquino handled herself like an old pol last week. Three days after her unity ticket opposing President Ferdinand E. Marcos fell apart, and moments before the midnight filing deadline for candidates, the widow of Benigno S. Aquino Jr. -and, it is widely held, his successor as Mr. Marcos's strongest foe - convinced her chief rival in the Philippine opposition camp, Salvador H. Laurel, to climb back on her Presidential ticket as running mate.

ANNA SOKOLOW delves into pain to cathartic effect in her best-known dances. Madness, chill alienation and the coruscating loneliness of urban life are her special provinces. But few have depicted these worlds with such sharp focus and simplicity. And a performance by Miss Sokolow's Players' Project on Wednesday at the Theater of the Riverside Church offered a shining example of her art in ''Scenes From the Music of Charles Ives.''