TO WHOM DO I DEDICATE MY BOOK?

WHO DO YOU MENTION IN YOUR BOOK DEDICATION AND WHY? Post No.4 (A 13 minute read)

Good afternoon to ALL, in a bid to distract myself from turbulence today, I will sit and talk with the wider world for a while and restore my status quo. In my last blog, I explained my long run up to actually getting pen to paper. For most creative INFJs, whether they be ASSERTIVES or TURBULENTS, or like myself swaying between the two permanently, they will most likely have found that like I, the writing was the easy part of a book. I did not think, I just wrote. I did not think structurally, I used no established guidelines. I just followed my trains of thought and wrote them down.

What that has given me as a result, is a book which is ME ALL OVER. My words, with no taboos, expressed in my way, told in my order, as and when they came into my path purely by rambling. I did not go looking for pieces very often. This was about placing all of my own pieces and building my own clear picture of my life, not the life of others. All my own thoughts, no one else´s, which is just what I wanted. No one will put words in my mouth unless I deem them wise words. But I will be my own judge always. I will have NO TABOOS. How many of you are your own judges too?

Having hand-written a manuscript of 266,000 words, you can well believe that the typing up process was going to take its time and it did. Slow, laborious, tedious, really hard work indeed. I will not go too deep on this as I explore all of this in my second book, which I began to write just three weeks after publishing the first one. The void in my life was so great that I reached for the pen and paper again as my life line. It kept me going for another year, it did.

On opening any book if it has been laid out well, you will see on the left inside page the copyright details. That first up I must say feels wonderful. Your own official book code number. It is a reality. Your book has become a reality, a real living being. You have laid out your very own thoughts and life in words and beyond that, you have organized it all into a real life book. Yes, I have done it! Because right at the beginning and five chapters into writing, then at page 200 and page 400 and page 600 and beyond, you still do not know that this is going to become a real life book.

For now, you are the only one in the world (very nearly true for me), that even knows that you are writing. These are secret, solitary hours of blissful intimacy with your paper friend. Your writing becomes as a child. You planted the seed, it germinated, you began to nurture it and care for it. Even as it grew, you could feel the beauty that you were feeding into this new life. The budding felt inevitable, the flowering would occur, it was already. Thick, heavy, perfumed blooms were in the making and all in semi-secret!

How painful then, that after one and a half years of pouring your love and care into 805 pages of real life book, that amongst those who you can tell, you find zero interest, not only that though, you feel their disdain, their scorn, their derision. I will not say much about this here either because I write much on this at the beginning of my second book. And of course, my partner who has no knowledge of it all. Rock and a hard place, who knows that one?

Next page into a book generally has a dedication but of course you add this part at the laying out stage, that is to say after you have finished writing your book. My book being my own story of real life lived and my own trains of thoughts, having re-visited my years lived as I did in depth, had me see so clearly who I needed to dedicate this book to.

Living in the hope that someone will read my books one day and read my blogs here, in preparation for that day, I am going to tell all of you future readers why my dedication reads as it does. Here is the dedication:

"This work is dedicated to all those who have loved me and still love me, my beloved family. To all the teachers in my life who have shared their knowledge with me. To each and every brewer of mint tea, who has shared their brew with me, along with their time and company and to each and every wonderful person whose path I have crossed and who has shared their pearls of wisdom with me. To Mr. John Lydon and `All The Young Punks´, The Clash, the late Bob Marley, the late Peter Tosh, UB40 and The Specials, whose pearls of wisdom have shown themselves to be just that! And to my favourite troubadour Mark Knopfler for taking me away with him on his travels and soothing my soul for the last four decades! Thankyou all, life just would not have ever had the same beautiful shine without you all!"

If you have read my blog regarding my VITAL STATISTICS, you will be able to see very clearly why my own family just had to be the first mentioned. Those who have loved me and still love me, in spite of being the strangest person that they know, they still have not cut me off! Those remaining make no effort to contact me but hey? They are not communicators like me, they have to keep their FEELINGS under control, underwraps!!! THEY do not suffer from emotion! That is what they think, but we know otherwise, do we not INFJs?

Next the teachers in my life. I have ever seen a teacher as a light bearer if they choose to be that way but they can just as easily snuff out the light too! My own mother and father were both teachers to me and my sisters and they were very competent at their labour. My own sisters have both taught me much. Along with just a few really competent teachers who were able to lead me and all my class of the day, to realms of light. These were the teachers who led the way, helped us build confidence and not have fear of the unknown. These were the people who helped us to thought process, the most valuable skill of all, along with writing and reading.

MINT TEA!!!! Blissful mint tea!!!! I have had more cups of mint tea well accompanied by at least two thousand times, than I have shared a cup of english tea well accompanied!!! I have shared mint tea with so many beautiful, righteous and worthy people in African and Arab nations, as well as sharing with those nationals who find themselves in Europe but never lose the mint tea custom! Enlightening conversation is always guaranteed and much learning will be done, free education from real human beings.

On my travels, no one HAD to talk to me, no one HAD to share anything with me but of course, in this part of the world, sharing is automatic as I quickly found out! I learnt to share everything whilst travelling and living with these incredibly deep, goodly peoples. I came back a much better person. They enabled me to see so much of what was missing in my own peoples. I could see it so clearly. It is the HUMAN part that is missing. They are no longer human only man-kind´s tools. Real life zombies who follow instructions and orders. Ask them to think for themselves and you are in trouble!

There have been so many thousands of people far and wide who have shared all that they had and all that they knew with me and this part of the dedication is for all of them. Yes, there have been a few, a few I stress, so few that I just need the one hand to count them but yes, there have been a few nearer and closer too. 

SOME OF MY YOUNG PUNKS!

Teachers and guides come in all guises and next in the dedication is Mr. John Lydon, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols punk rock band. This man without a doubt was an extrovert, he challenged man-kind with HIS own truth. This was a first for my nation full of man-kind. Young males were prepared to stand up and call man-kind by his real name. Cheating, lying, conniving, deceiptful, cruel, callous, cowardly, bullish, murderous, despotic, savage, corruptable! Sick and sexually perverted to add to the negative characteristics of man-kind. 

Mr. John Lydon was talking about famous male presenters and males of import, along with their sexual deviations. Referring to the rape of children, both boys and girls, rape and sexual molestation of teenage girls and boys. It was not so much the musical lyrics that got man-kind so worried, oh, no! They are all just true statements. No, they could see the danger here, their cover could be wrenched off them if they did not act quickly and decisively!

The Sex Pistols were banned from playing live, from tv, from the airwaves, their recording contract was cancelled. They were turned into `OUTCASTS, POTENTIAL H-BOMBS´. Man-kind made us all potential human bombs. All like walking time bombs, all ready to explode at any moment from our own impotency and frustration. We had no guides but each other, this was a first for my nation! A whole generation of educated minds that were calling their truths out loud. WE HAD TO BE SILENCED!! 

Brave, bold men make brave, bold decisions and Mr. Richard Branson, now Sir. Richard Branson, had just started up his Virgin Records Label and signed up for an album with the Sex Pistols. `Never Mind The Bollocks´ was the title, that being in 1977, brilliant year as it was for music! Punk rock was message music and the words ring out the same today as they did then because we have not made any headway since!

Man-kind won but were we ALL subdued? Not I! But I have lived all my life as an `OUTCAST´ and I continue to be a `POTENTIAL HUMAN BOMB´. Have no fear readers, I would distance myself from others prior to explosion!!!! The Clash were another favourite of mine and their music, much the same as all punk music, continues to be some of the truest words ever sung by a generation of visionaries who had x-ray vision and saw through man-kind. 

Over Jamaica way, the late Bob Marley and the late Peter Tosh in particular, were with their Reggae beat, bringing us the truth of life over in Jamaica, where the brown skin was suffering so badly at the hands of the white man-kind! Timeless words until they become resigned to the past! I could so wish to live to see that day. A day when the meaning belongs only to yesteryear, those awful, ugly days of MAN-KIND´s dominance and subjugation. 

EVER LIVING, EVER FEARFUL, EVER SURE!

That Reggae beat came to my island along with the Caribbean peoples and ska and rock steady began to blend and our youths blended too. Music, we lived for our music; OUR TRUTH! Not what man-kind would have us believe, oh, no! Mirror images; HE labelled US PUBLIC ENEMY No.1! He saw himself painted by our words and so did the Reggae and Ska boys like UB40 and The Specials, continue to slate man-kind. At last we had young men of all complexions coming together and recognizing that we all had just the one common enemy; man-kind!!! They were my teachers, my pillars of society, where I can believe and place my faith and so never give up hope completely.

Finally, Mr. Mark Knopfler, just to balance out all of those message bearers and teachers, well, Mr. Knopfler has been able always to distract me from my own thoughts on life and take me off with him and explore his thoughts and observations of life. Such a rich catalogue of music and words with a myriad of themes and flavours. I mention him often throughout my writing. He and all the other musicians and singers are my medicine. The best medicine in my book because they NEVER let me down!!!!  

PICTURES OF LIFE IN MUSIC AND WORD BY MARK KNOPFLER.

THE DIRE STRAITS ALBUMS

So friends, credit where credit is due. These people have all had an important part in shaping me to be the me I am today. I have enjoyed looking back at this moment. In the next blog, I will take you on the next step, at least in the order that I did it, probably all wrong according to others but it is MY book and accepting your own guide is a positive sign. I am after all 83% INTUITIVE and 74% FEELING.

Thankyou for taking the time to read this blog. Please FEEL welcome to comment or make contact. For any interested in reading my book, you can find it on Amazon with these links: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

Any interested in other INFJ blogs check this listing: https://lifestyle.feedspot.com/infj_blogs