EARLY LEARNING IS ESSENTIAL FOR A YOUNG CHILD!

WHY EARLY LEARNING IS SO IMPORTANT TO AN INFJs HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT! Post No.8 (A 13 minute read) 

Good morning to ALL, it is another fine sunny day here again and my desktop thermometer is telling me that currently the outside temperature is 21ºC. Being the 21st of November, that is a bonus of sorts. Whilst I have still had no communication from anyone, I do not give up hope that maybe that will occur. I do feel that I am on a path of sorts. I have to be my own leader but I know that somehow I have to back track on myself and understand now, what really am I trying to achieve? 

I am in effect, confirming all that I knew previously and doubted. Lack of evaluation, I am needing to be considered as a human being first and foremost. Yes, I know what kind of human being I am but as yet, I have found none who were willing to consider me as a real human being.

If I want any one person to read my books, as I see it right now, first they have to know that I exist. So, I need to become visible in some way. Or as I would prefer it, audible in some way. I FEEL that I know that I look for kindred spirits. I am saying it all through my own life story. It has been my quest since I can remember. I try not to think obsessively about it. I try to accept invisibility but when you FEEL that you have so much to offer, well, then being invisible is a hindrance to say the very least.

I am revealing myself and my thoughts in words and sending myself out for inspection. I no longer think of who may inspect me, or do I? Of course, I do! But for want of close support, do we not have to look further afield, which is what I am attempting to do? So, to continue my personal insight into my own first book, staying in chapter one, I will talk now of the importance of early learning and the influences that I found in my formative years.

CHAPTER ONE - WHO AM I?  -  KEY INFLUENCES.

My home teachers I have already introduced to you but if you are fortunate, you will have extended family members too. That was my case and in these early years of my development, these were all new relationships that required learning new character traits and personalities. My extended family were all good, wholesome people and I was able to share many holidays with them, which gave both my elder sister and I, a whole new sphere of learning. 

ME, MEASURING UP TO THE WILLOW TREE!

They were all teenagers, so were all about the latest tendencies in clothing and music in particular. At home we had 50s rock and roll, jazz and blues playing around us. The 60s music coincided with my language learning. As such, I FEEL as though I have known unwittingly, The Beatles and their song lyrics, since I could talk!! Our father played piano too and so we were exposed to classical musical as well. 

Our aunts and uncle though, were into the music of the 70s. I think of my young years in musical terms. It has been my permanent backdrop to life. All of these new musical additions gave me such a deep musical scope and yet, these were all the personal choices of others.

In the UK, I believe that our music stars are our pillars of society. These are the people that we can easily look up to and admire. Little people doing big things!! Though I never even once entertained the thought of becoming a music star myself, no, that was never my chosen path. Music was though to ever accompany me on my walk through life. It still does! It was in my own teenage years that I began to make my own musical choices.

There was so much `message music´ being written and performed in the late 1970s and it was written by `MY generation´. The foundations of the youth were ever built upon our music and words. Now though, those words were gaining ever greater meaning. Songs were coming charged with truth and meaning. At last there was a generation who were prepared to challenge the PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE (man-kind) by confronting HIM with his own ugly truths.

Punk rock was born and the gloves were off! Man-kind, you have been rumbled!! This generation will not bow to your ideology which is so flawed as to be totally non-void. We can see through you and we will not accept your word as gospel just like every other generation before you. Oh, no!! Their influence in our uprising as non-conformist youths was great indeed. Somewhat sadly I have to say, that these songs ring with the same tone today as they did now some forty plus years ago. That is because nothing has changed since then. The same system continues to exist. The THEM and US!!

The non-conformist becomes a permanent character trait only because you can find little with which to conform. I do not wish to conform to blinkered, short-sighted males leading me up dead-end streets on a permanent basis. I still believe that we could live so much better than we do but if we will conform happily with the little that we are allowed to have in our lives, then we do wrong. We all sell ourselves short of what we could know by way of prosperity, happiness and self-achievement. We settle for very little indeed.

My musical pillars have never let me down, therein their importance to me and their continued influence upon me. They are still the best pick-me up therapy that I know. I was never stuck into any particular musical genre. I am so happy that I was exposed to so many different musical styles and musical folk from so many different eras too.

My watch with mother sessions were very influential too. Oh, wow! Mr. Benn, who knows Mr. Benn? One of my greatest influences for sure! Mr. Benn would go out for a walk into town and there he would go into a fancy dress shop. The shop keeper was dressed in Arab pants, babouche and also wore a fez!! So exotic to me!! Mr. Benn would choose a costume and go into the changing room. On putting on the costume, he would then step through a door and into an adventure that was related to his costume. 

Truthfully, Mr. Benn is one of my biggest influences. He showed me what it is to walk through a door with your eyes wide open and feel your way in a strange new land!! I have been a walker through many doors into many strange new lands in real life and just like Mr. Benn, I had no fear at all. I FELT my way, I followed my instinct just as he did. He had no knowledge of that world, he just followed his natural human instinct to resolve the conflicting issues of this land and restore peace and harmony.

TING!! As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared, "This way, sir!" and Mr. Benn would go through another door and find himself back in the changing room. He would be somewhat dazed, something that I struggled with too. We know it as CULTURE SHOCK! We have spent time with peoples so different to ourselves, their lives and lands are so different to ours, their ways of thinking are so different to ours and yet it was us, little us, who were able to cross over all those barriers and help resolve those people´s issues. 

The only job that I ever wanted to have! The only job that I have ever FELT was mine! Each visit to the shop would see Mr. Benn try another costume and so have a new experience. Just as I did, he got to like doing this regularly!! But walking home again, seeing all the typical activities going on just as normal, he would begin to doubt his own reality. "Did that really just happen? Did I really just do all of that?" I would undergo the same process, sat on the train watching the rolling countryside of east England going by, FEELING as though I had just dropped in from another planet.

He would put his hand in his pocket and smile, yes, it was all true, it was! His fingers would close around some little object, just a keepsake, just a little reminder of where you have just been! It would be the same for me. I would have henna painting on my ankles and feet, wrists and hands. I did not know how to do that then!! My new rings, bracelets, earrings, no, they certainly do not make them like that here!! Oh, no!! It was all true. So truly beautifully true!

The wonderful, `The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe´ children´s story, continued with the `through the door into a new unknown land´ fancy. The doors of perception! I had no fear of doors and even when taught to fear particular doors, the result was a burning need to investigate!! I was insatiable as a child, so curious about anything new, until it lost my attention. What strikes me as unusual maybe, is just how all of this chapter one, my early years, has never lost my attention. Never! I can sit and be enthralled by Mr. Benn today! The explorer in me was always there!

Colour television came into our world in my early years and so I saw the world in technicolour. Yes, I can just about remember a few programs in black and white but my favourites were in colour. The Herbs were a brightly coloured bunch but it was the human character of Pashana Bedi, an Indian snake charmer who really had me totally mesmerized. He sat and slept on a bed of nails (the stereotyping!!!) and would leave a note tied to a nail if he was away!

MOWGLI just continued to build the desire to talk with animals and understand them. I had been talking and communicating with a dog all my life, it did not seem like a strange concept to me! To add to all of this there were the documentaries. My mother enjoyed so much learning of the wider world and all that lived upon it. I adored watching too all of these incredible colours and sounds, what a wonderful world we had to live in.

Mr. David Attenborough has spent his working career attempting to humanize us all by bringing knowledge and understanding into our homes via his documentation. My partner has commented that the only time I stop talking is when I am watching a documentary. Engrossed, enthralled, stimulated and just loving the passion of my guide through this maybe new, territory for me. Actually listening to real, solid information and facts coming from someone who knows.

The truth; I have always sought the truth of all things and I still do. Lord David Attenborough as he now is, has become a stalwart pillar of our British society and is so representative of all that is good in a male human being, that I consider him to be one of my great influences and a person who I greatly admire, along with his incredible catalogue of natural history classes, as I think of them. These should be used as course material in schools and colleges!

The love of nature was firmly embedded in me as of day one. I long to see the world recover again natural spaces and remove much of man-kind´s concrete jungle world. I was given the pleasure of visiting zoos and wildlife parks, so having the close up experiences but even as David Attenborough was teaching us that these animals needed to be able to roam free, I could understand their change of life from natural to the behind bars. Animal prison as I can now call it!

I had no fear, I was not taught to be afraid of natural spaces and all that lived within, quite the contrary, I was taught to know and understand it all. Knowledge and understanding equal wisdom! The wise do not fear, it is the ignorant who carry so much fear on board. It is the ignorant who shy away from learning, they fear the truth! They fear their own ability to cope with new knowledge, which is why we need to be guided gradually and steadily through our toddler and infant years.

Gradually increasing the depth and importance of our new found learning and being shown how to apply it all as well. Ali Baba and Tales of a Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Back to those baggy pants and babouche again, flying magic carpets and minarets! Oh, I did so want to go flying on magic carpets, I did! Just as the Asian images were so exotic to me, the same can be said for the Arab world. 

Then the film Lawrence of Arabia was seen by me and from that day to this, I knew that Bedouin life in the Sahara was what I wanted. I wanted to marry a beautiful Arab chief like the late actor Omar Sharif and wear my robes and ride camels. My love affair with Arabia was added to my growing love affair with Africa and Asia, I could see clearly my purpose in life. 

I would be like Mr. Benn, I would be as he, a chameleon who could always blend into any surroundings and just like him, I would go and solve everyone´s troubles, wherever they were in the world, providing that it was in Africa, Asia or Arabia!!! 

No, I never really FELT in tune with my fellow countrymen and women outside of the musical fraternity. In spite of the wide availability of learning material, it seemed to me that few people were interested in learning anything beyond the bare minimum, which would enable them to `get by´. Prepared to settle for very little, as I have said. 

Not so I and my quest to explore and find other human beings began. First the circles had to increase in dimension and when born in deep countryside, that is inevitable anyway. You begin with primary school in your home village. Then secondary school in a neighbouring town. Then college in a city and so on. We are destined to increase our circles of exploration as country dwellers. David Attenborough had shown me that wherever I went, if I wanted to see it, I would find the beauty of the natural world and he is right.

As you will maybe see on reading my first book, these were not silly childhood phases, no, these became the essential pillars of my own existence. If it is man-made, then question it? If a male is wearing trousers, question HIM? It is an incredible world that we all live in but how little of it so many of us really know. My mind will be ready and open to learning of the real world until it switches down definitively!

That is what makes a wise person wise, they never stop learning and never stop wanting to learn!! If only we could apply all our accumulated wisdom to the real world instead of wasting our lives trying to adapt to the man-made world, I have no doubt that each and every one of us would be sitting a lot happier!

Thank you for reading. Please FEEL welcome to comment or make communication. I have a comment space below and in the right-hand panel you can see a contact box and a follow tab, should you wish to keep up to date with my trains of thought. Where have your influences come from? Which have been positive influences and which have been negative influences? Have you like I, stayed the same character always? I am happy with the way I have been influenced. It sure beats following the blind up a dead end street!!!

This book is available on Amazon: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

In my next blog, I shall launch into my second chapter entitled MONEY, MONEY, MONEY. Until then, happy thinking!!

Other INFJ blogs can be found on this listing: https://lifestyle.feedspot.com/infj_blogs