I love using my fountain pen. I grew up with ink and pens and never really took to Biro though I can see their usefulness. But even today I still think my neatest and most beautiful writing is done in pencil, because I learned to write in pencil and I can still see myself trying to work out the letters on the lined pages of exercise books.
In much the same way I recall the fresh smells of the countryside and the perfume of gorse because these are the first that registered on my growing brain, along with narrow, hill roads and waterways or the sound of my family arguing or the taste of home cooking. Those first experiences of my senses are still closest to me, and probably still closest to all of us which is why when they are fearful or awful experiences they cling to us through our lives demanding to be dealt with before we can progress intellectually.
The mind is created to stamp ideas upon itself from our lessons and experiences because these are our survival manual. Living without one or more sense means we have to be that much more careful. In actual fact the senses give us our memories.
Even though we lead lives of ‘mind’ and learning guides a great deal of our success it is not the mind that is our teacher.