A DEEP AND MEANINGFUL TUAREG PROLOGUE

THE WORDS OF A WISE ALGERIAN TUAREG ELDER, ALL THE WAY FROM THE SAHARA DESERT! Post No.6 (A 15 minute read) 

Good afternoon to ALL. Another rainy morning has changed my plans to take a trip to the local Friday market and so, after having spent a couple of hours tidying up my second book, I now put that labour aside and go back on myself in time, in the hopes that I can help encourage others to come along with my Trains of Thought series of books. But I am getting way ahead of myself also! In truth, I can remember so well all that I talked of in my first book but as yet, have not gone back and read it through myself.

The sheer number of run throughs during the typing up process, the mistake checking, over and over again, one actually gets rather fatigued with running over the same `OLD´ ground. If you could find a willing collaborator to type up your manuscript for you, I can assure you that the whole process of book preparation would be so much more enjoyable. Where your words seemed so fresh and first time at the moment of writing, having read back through them over and over again, remember that there are 266,000 plus words in this book, well, the need to move on just gets greater by the minute!

Like I have already said, I felt as though I had syphoned off a great load of stored up thoughts and ideas, along with many pent up feelings and emotions. I felt so much lighter headed and lighter hearted. This book was all my life up to that moment and so, all that was new to me was in fact COVID-19 and the trigger that was set off as a consequence of it. 

My confinement would have been no trouble at all if I had not had to contend with all of my near neighbour´s noises as well! The loss of my tranquil environment was what I really had to deal with rather than the loss of my fundamental freedoms as a Spanish resident to go out and about, as and how I choose to do.

The other great stress load was that brought from man-kind and his failure to make the right decisions on behalf of all of those that they supposedly represent! I truly did feel a real possibility of psychological damage being caused by this stress. I was not going to let man-kind destroy my own brain. I would continue as always, to make my own decisions based on what is righteous and worthy of consideration at the hour of my decision making.

As such, I still have not contracted COVID-19 and I shall continue to prevent myself from doing so! The fittest of the fit shall survive always but it will be because of the decisions that they make for themselves. One of the first fundamental steps to survival surely, is to try and eliminate all of the `risk factors´, as I see things. Do not deliberately put yourself in the line of fire, for example? 

Man-kind is a PUBLIC HEALTH and WELL BEING RISK! HE creates all the risk factors in this life! Do we have to follow his instructions though? No, not for the most part, no! That does mean though, that you have to think for yourself!

It seems to me, that is the point where far too many come unstuck! Think for myself? I do not do that! I follow their instructions! And so they do! No problem in essence but hey, let us have a look at those instructions first before we follow them blindly. The blind leading the blind and why? 

Why, when the blind are surrounded by those who dedicate their lives to penetrating the dark shadows of man-kind´s ignorant domination and shed light, into and onto, knowledge and understanding. Knowledge added to understanding, equals wisdom. That wisdom may be negative or it may be positive, that is what a wise person will be able to judge!

The wise filter the wisdom accrued by searching minds and decide with which wisdom they will work. If positive wisdom is applied by wise people, then surely we would all be living in a positive way. But of course, that is the ideal scenario not our real scenario! Yes, we do have our wise people and yes, we do have our searching minds, in fact we have evermore wise people and evermore searching minds, so why are we not evolving as human beings?

One reason only! These people are never in leadership, that is why!

Today though I am going to take you somewhere much nicer than man-kind and HIS ugly world of HIS making! The prologue in my book is so short and yet so sweet.

"TO KNOW THE TRUTH, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE TRUTH, ONLY THERE DOES THE TRUTH LIE."    The wise words of a Tuareg elder. 

Deep and meaningful words indeed. I have already said a number of times in these, my introductory blogs, that I did not know myself by a lettered personality type until very recently. I did though, know always that my thought patterns were extremely different to those around me. It was ever the focal points I think that were so different. As a group of young children together, all hearing or seeing the same, I could never understand why no one could see as I could.

Well, of course, this is part of what I am trying so hard to comprehend but I can see why now, it is simply down to personality types and those particular characteristics that define us all as individuals. Our parents, our teachers and our societies, all as one, try to mould each of us into becoming a certain type of individual. We are taught what is considered an acceptable comportment but we are also taught how to think. Sadly though, we are then taught what to think.

Herein the first major difference between the INFJ either A or T types, in childhood to the other types. It is the follow my leader game or NOT! Now, I would follow my elder sister´s lead without question, I did not even hesitate or maybe I should say, that I did not even think to ask WHY we might be going wherever or doing whatever. I just ASSUMED that my sister´s leadership was good and as it always was good, I continued to BLINDLY follow her lead.

Wiseing up as we do when we age, I refer to toddler to infant in this instance, I reasoned now and with my power of reasoning at that time, reasoned that, as we always had a good time and had a lot of fun and laughs, then why should I NOT continue to follow her lead? Still someway to go in wiseing up, as you can see! If her lead was at all times a positive and productive lead, then absolutely nothing to worry about. My sister came in at 100% judging and she was like that always.

As this infant moved into a junior, then my ideas started being put on the table for consideration too and well, blow me down, my sister could always see a flaw in my ideas! She could always see where we would trip ourselves up and so talk me out of the idea and suggest something along those lines, which was sufficiently stimulating to keep my enthusiasm up but did eliminate risk factors. Me with my wild ideas and she with the cool thinking head!

If ever I could give a piece of advice to a parent with an INFJ child like myself, it would be, NEVER SAY NO! Never say no, there are so many ways of saying NO without using the word, NO. NO has a very definite trigger effect. Both my father and elder sister never said "NO" to me and yet neither of them ever gave way to me fully. They both learnt to `handle me´ in a way that very few adults were able to do and all because of that word, NO!

"I WILL DECIDE WHEN AND WHAT I LEARN! DO NOT TELL ME TO SHUT UP SHOP! I DO NOT RUN AT YOUR COMMAND! I HAVE MY OWN DRIVER!" I would say when told, "NO!"

My father was Intuitive and my sister Observant, between the two of them they got absolutely the best out of me. My loss of them both is so ABSOLUTE! My first experience of travel abroad had come to me as a 10 year old, then as a 17 year old, my sister and I went off travelling together for the first time unaccompanied by adults. That was a decisive moment. We went to Morocco and from there, both of us went exploring on separate paths.

Our tastes were so very different and our personal interests were also very different. That is not to say that I did not find my sister´s tastes and interests uninteresting myself, no, not at all! It was wonderful to be able to share in all of her experiences even as I was having my own and sharing them with her. She though on the other hand, did not share many of my tastes and interests, hence we travelled separately as of our late teens.

BEAUTIFUL SAHARA - Photo by Zack Woolwine on Unsplash.

1988 saw me at last turn dreams into realities lived. I had ever wanted to ride camels in the Sahara Desert with nomadic Bedouin peoples. To boat up the River Niger to Tombouctou. To meet those beautiful Wodaabe ladies who I had seen in documentaries. I needed to FEEL them not just watch them on television. This is the difference between the Intuitive and the Observant and that is the need to FEEL something. Nothing means anything to me if I cannot or do not, FEEL it.

Here I was, travelling in an old lorry with two Algerian men who were transporting goods from Algeria down into Niger. Long stories of long beautiful hours spent with the most wonderful peoples that I had as yet, ever met. Such long stories and adventures that in earlier years, friends of mine had said, "You will have to write your memoires!" Well, at that time folks, I was just 19 years old! Even at the time I thought well, as you do not even want to hear about my travels now, I really cannot see you sat reading a book about them all!

That thought came back to me as I was writing my book because no, I really had not started writing knowing that I was going to write my memoires as well, I did not! It was the meeting with an African gentleman here in Spain that triggered my return (mentally at least), to my African roots. I found my African heart was still that driving force in my chest. It was not beating as hard and fast as it had in my youth but now it was given a kick-start!

That woeful phoenix remembered her real reason for living and for wanting to carry on living. AFRICA ever AFRICA! The real human beings, they were still there and in bigger trouble than me here. I still had every reason to live, yes, I did! But if I was going to be able to do anything to help at all, I would need money and a lot of it. Now seeing clearly my purpose, I launched into my writing with an altered approach, I needed to earn a living!

Working illegally for the benefit of others always, there is no pension to come for me and so, RETIREMENT, is what others do. I have to earn a living but how? There in the great question but I will keep trying to find an adequate answer.

Back to the Sahara and well, at that time the asphalted road surface ran out some thirty or so kilometres out of Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria. The Trans Saharan Highway as it is called, has now been completed and runs right down to Kano in Nigeria. For us though, it was piste all the way from there until hitting road again around Arlit, northern Niger. Slow going of course, around 20 to 30 km per hour speed. Frequently getting sand bound and the consequent effort required to dig the lorry free again. 

All part of the fun! Every territory in the world has its laws and the Sahara is no exception. Never can you pass by a human being without stopping to see if they are ok. What actually suprises you most is that you are actually crossing paths with other travellers who are on foot! ON FOOT if you please in the Sahara Desert! But of course, the Sahara Desert is home to many and has always been!

So it was, that the occupants of this lorry, spotted a lone figure with a camel and five goats in the distance. We stopped where we were and some 10 minutes later, the robed, veiled figure draws close. "Hello, well met my friends!" I love that, I do, "WELL MET MY FRIENDS!" In those 10 minutes, a small fire had been started, the teapot had gone on and some food items were being routed out to accompany the tea, mint of course!

The gentleman in this instance was a Tuareg elder. The Blue Men of the desert as they are sometimes referred to in english. The indigo blue dye which they use to dye their cloths, actually stains the skin with the sweat and rubbing. Here was a real life Touareg herding his goats and now coming to sit for a while with us and find out who we were and what we were up to and also to tell us of his news. Blissful reciprocal communication!

In Europe we cannot even communicate with those that we know let alone complete strangers! Not so in Africa folks, it is overflowing (quite literally), with righteous and worthy human beings who all want to share. This was not my first experience of Targui, the Tuaregs name for themselves but to meet one like so, by chance, by the way, was spectacular to say the least. My two Algerian companions, the lorry driver and his mechanic, who were giving me a free lift, were FEELING their way too and I learnt from them. They were my guides and their lead was good.

Daylight is the essence in the Sahara and as such, we could not tarry indefinitely. We had shared many thoughts with this Targui elder. I had asked him much about nomadic life and why he chose to continue with that life? I told him of my quest to find the truth of the world, of the human being and on parting he had said this to me; "To know the truth, you have to find the truth, only there does the truth lie!"

Even as I had met these two Algerian men, I had found some truth. This man was more truth. I had known only truth since I had taken off from Spain. I realized what he meant or I thought I did. Something along the lines of, if you do not see it with your own eyes, you cannot know for certain the truth of its existence. You have got to go and find those truths. But then you need to understand those truths and see which are good truths and worthy of cherishing. Those truths that are deemed negative truths, are truths none the less, but they must then be neutralized so that they no longer remain as negatives.

If you do not like the truth, you need to change it. First though, you must acknowledge the truth as it really is. Then you must understand why that truth is so. From that point of understanding, you can then plot a path of change. But if we ALL have to live in denial of OUR human truths on a permanent basis, does that not suggest that we do not like our truths? 

We have to be bold enough to acknowledge them as ugly truths first, therein our big stumbling block! We were never taught to tell the truth up in the north, man-kind was our teacher, HE never did the truth, did HE?

Thankyou for reading this post. I wonder if you are FEELING your way towards me or as so often, to not say always, the opposite and pulling your shutters down! Do you cover up lies systematically? Can you acknowledge your own truth? Or do you keep your mouth shut and just look the other way from what you know is wrong?

In my next post I will look at the back cover blurbs and choosing the cover design. Until next time,  please FEEL free to comment or make communication. These are the Amazon links to my book: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

There is a listing of other INFJ blogs here: https://lifestyle.feedspot.com/infj_blogs