Sequence breaking my social development
This is something I've been thinking about for a while, an interesting fact about my life that explains a lot of where I am right now.
When I was about nine years old and moved to near Salem, I was kind of taken out of my normal social development, because in Battle Ground I was just starting to kind of become aware of my world, and in the happy days of the 1980s me and my friends could walk around town. So suddenly I am in a place where I can't walk, where I don't have any friends, and where I am not participating in many things. Those years (8-12) would also be the years that some kids would be developing nascent economic skills, by participating in activities and getting some type of early jobs, as well as just having connections with their community. And I had none of that. During those years, my social skills and knowledge of the world really faltered. In one way.
In another way, looking back at it, I was steps ahead of kids my age because I was aware of the world around me. I had a set of encylopedias that I would spend hours staring at, looking at the maps of all the different places. But many of my inspirations weren't as obviously intellectual: I also loved war books (fiction and non-fiction), and also when I got a computer, I played F-19 Stealth Fighter endlessly. All of this taught me a lot about the world, and even given the narrow focus of some of my organization, I was aware of the world well beyond the scope of my peers, and even of adults around me. And over the years, I've realized that this isn't just a theoretical thing, especially living in a foreign country, where I am meeting a lot of people from around the world, having a background knowledge of the world has really helped me.
Still, it really took me this long to realize that for most kids that age, learning about the world is a matter of learning about what is in front of them, literally and figuratively.
When I was about nine years old and moved to near Salem, I was kind of taken out of my normal social development, because in Battle Ground I was just starting to kind of become aware of my world, and in the happy days of the 1980s me and my friends could walk around town. So suddenly I am in a place where I can't walk, where I don't have any friends, and where I am not participating in many things. Those years (8-12) would also be the years that some kids would be developing nascent economic skills, by participating in activities and getting some type of early jobs, as well as just having connections with their community. And I had none of that. During those years, my social skills and knowledge of the world really faltered. In one way.
In another way, looking back at it, I was steps ahead of kids my age because I was aware of the world around me. I had a set of encylopedias that I would spend hours staring at, looking at the maps of all the different places. But many of my inspirations weren't as obviously intellectual: I also loved war books (fiction and non-fiction), and also when I got a computer, I played F-19 Stealth Fighter endlessly. All of this taught me a lot about the world, and even given the narrow focus of some of my organization, I was aware of the world well beyond the scope of my peers, and even of adults around me. And over the years, I've realized that this isn't just a theoretical thing, especially living in a foreign country, where I am meeting a lot of people from around the world, having a background knowledge of the world has really helped me.
Still, it really took me this long to realize that for most kids that age, learning about the world is a matter of learning about what is in front of them, literally and figuratively.