Human beings are easily influenced during their early, developmental years. We are totally dependent on others for quite some time. That’s a fact of life. During our years of infancy, we develop deep and long-lasting relationships with people, many of whom:

• do not have life philosophies or
• have adopted more-or-less by accident the life philosophies of others or
• emulate bits and pieces of the life philosophies of heroes or
• have a fuzzy life philosophy backed by a few good sayings borrowed from others or ancient wisdom. 

'Other people' includes parents, siblings, grandparents, kith, and kin. Next, 'other people' includes a variety of relationships with a range of people outside the family and near-neighbours: church people, store people, people who visit parks and playgrounds, caregivers, teachers, figures of other authorities, etc.

During our years of infancy we experience incredible growth, much of it visible to others and even more of it happening beyond visibility. We learn about others. We learn about self. Our learning is rudimentary, practical, and critical. We learn about mothers' smiles. We learn about our hands and mouths.

We learn ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ and we learn ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. And we learn much, much more…at an extremely rapid pace. When we are infants our early learning is captured by our fragile, developing minds. It registers. To the extent it impresses and to the extent it is repeated it becomes our personal set of experiences, knowledge, and memories.

All of our early learning is skewed by the actions, the needs, and the beliefs of other people.