Deepening Saddness

by Amazing 27 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Amazing

  I look back on the 1970s with a sense of loss and nostalgia. I was a young man, just married, and so much in love with my beautiful wife. I had just started my engineering career, and was debt free. My whole life and future were in front of me. So many possibilities and opportunities lay before me, with so many decisions, and I was truly excited.

  At the same time, we were still experiencing the Viet Nam war, college riots, civil rights marches and other civil unrest. The rest of the world hated the USA, yelling ‘Yankee God Home!’ The Catholic Church was in a mess and had become irrelevant. The oil crisis was looming and major recession with the US Dollar taken off of the Gold standard. Hippies and the drug culture were questioning authority and long standing traditions.

  So, as luck would have it, I had just found the JWs in the “nick of time.” Armageddon was right around the corner in 1975. The JW religion was growing and rockin! The Truth book was the little Blue Bombshell that shattered the world, promising a soon-to-be-realized New System – and certainly the Old System seemed doomed with all the national and international stress mounting up.

  Fast forward 30 years to 2001: Where is that young Amazing man I would see in the mirror each morning? Where is the Great Tribulation, Armageddon and the New System? What happened to all the evil world and its civil strife? How could it be that me, Amazing, could find myself sitting on a PC talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Bible, and God the way I do? What happened? Why did it happen? What will the future bring?

  I feel a sense of Sadness: My life has not been all bad. I have had a successful engineering career in spite of JW preference for part time janitorial work. I got out of the religion with my family intact, which is very fortunate. I have the rest of my life ahead of me, and I have the good health, education and talent to make things happen. But ...

  If only I could reach back in time to that younger man, so full of life and positive aspirations, and have a good talk to him. If only I could get in a time machine and visit the young Amazing, and tell him the truth about the future and about the real Watchtower as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I know I could reach his heart. What a different future I may have had.

  Would it be worth it?: Sometimes I believe that I would gladly sacrifice what and who I am today if only I could make such a journey to the 1970s. Yet, would it truly be the best thing for me? Would I then, being warned by myself about the JWs, make other choices just as bad or worse? Or would my life reach even better peaks of success? Whatever the case, I will never know.

  Who and what am I today?: I like to believe that who I am today is the better for waking up and seeing through the Watch Tower religion and having the insight and will, and maybe courage, to make the change and help my family with me. I like to believe that the quarter-century experience of being a JW refined and honed me into a better and very unique individual with a lot yet to give to others. But, as each day, week, month, and year passes, and I explore and examine every aspect of life, looking under every rock of previously accepted views; and as I revisit the Bible, God, and our entire humanity, I have to wonder what it all means – and I have to wonder who I really am – and whether any of this was truly worth it.

  I look back at the young Amazing in 1970 – and with that sense of sadness, I wish I could see what a different future may have been, if I could only travel back in time to pay myself a visit. Thanks for listening. – Amazing
• 

  Moxy

  ive often thought about this question of going back in time to try and convince yourself. lets say that you can go back and talk to yourself but you cant indicate that you are from the future or that you are actually YOU. nothing to indicate that your visit is supernatural, you just have to try and reason with yourself on the facts.

  would you listen?

  i think its the rare individual that would be persuaded if approached during the period in their life when they were most faithful to the WT. sure, you THINK you'd listen. but you forget the mindset you once had i think, like a bad dream.

  mox
• 

  SixofNine

  Amazing, you have a few years on me, but I know exactly where you are coming from.

  Whatever the case, I will never know.

  I think that is the only way to look at it. That said, it is an exercise in futility to let yourself feel too sad about this "past". I think the same thing can be said about most "spiritual" topics as well; "I will never know". So "why worry" has become my mantra. I have found no sage men, no Gods on earth, no prophets, no one who knows a damn thing more than I do about God. Or if they do, they have pretty funny ways of showing it.

  The appropriate response to people acting funny is to laugh. Life is funny and good lately.
• 

  JeffT

  I also became a JW in the early seventies. I'd done the sex, drugs and rock and roll scene in college and felt ready to change. When I became a dub I passed up a chance to go to grad school. Who knows what turns my life might have taken?

  However, I met my wife through the dubs. I can't imagine life without her. For that reason alone I wouldn't change anything.

  I think that I gained some insight into myself, and I learned to look at the world in new ways when I left.
• 

  joelbear

  In my experience, few people self actualize in their 20's or even their 30's. Almost everyone I know would have made difference choices if they knew where they would end up. Mostly, as we saw on the risk thread I started, people regret the things they didn't do or try to do. Very few people know what they want in their youth and this is coupled by the feeling that they have that they have plenty of time to think about that later. Then wham, they hit 40 and the body begins to creak and the hair begins to grey or just fall out and physical reality hits them.

  But risk taking goes against most of our natures. Nature wants us to settle down, have a family or assist relatives with their family and promote the survival of the species. On top of that, society wants us to take our place, turn our cog and keep society chugging along.

  So when these two actualizations (its nice to feel secure but HEY! my time is running out) hit each other (as they are hitting me right now)
  we have conflict (mid-life crisis). In my immediate family I saw this handled by deadening the senses with alcohol. Among my friends and work mates I mainly see it handled through mumbling grumbling and trudging along the beaten path and basically settling for what life has brought them in their first 40 years.

  As I have said, I am struggling. Am I sad I didn't make other choices earlier, yup. But I hope to make the next 25 years of my adulthood more interesting than the first 25 years of my adulthood.

  Then I can die knowing I've lived.

  peace

  Joel
• 

  sf

  Here is an {{{{{{{Amazing hug}}}}}}} for you sir. Please, share it with your family too, especially the little ones.

  Love, sKally
• 

  SlayerLayer

  I think about those same questions all of the time. I've experienced so much in just my short 29 years of life. I had that discussion with my JW father about a week ago. Even he agreeded that in my 29 years, I've seen and experienced more than he has in his life.

  More than half of those experiences have need negative ones. I sometimes wish that I could go back and change decisions that I made. But in all honesty, I really like who I am today. I know that all of the negative things in life that I have gone through have made me who I am today. These learning experiences have made me a little wiser than I believe I would be, had I not endured them.

  As someone that was raised a witness, I never really knew anything else. Now, after seeing the truth about what I once believed, I feel that I am a little more cautious in life. Because of what I have gone through, I examine things with so much more scrutiny, than before.

  I think that as long as we actually learn something from our experiences and mistakes in life, then they weren't really mistakes. The mistakes that I have made, have molded and shaped me into what I am today.

  Slayer
• 

  Andee

  Slayerlayer

  More than half of those experiences have need negative ones. I sometimes wish that I could go back and change decisions that I made. But in all honesty, I really like who I am today. I know that all of the negative things in life that I have gone through have made me who I am today. These learning experiences have made me a little wiser than I believe I would be, had I not endured them.

  My thoughts exactly.

  Andee

  "I have been handed a lot of lemons in this life, however, I like to think I make damn good lemonaide"-Me
• 

  kilroy

  I wish that I knew, what I know now, when I was younger!

  I wish that I knew, what I know now, when I was stronger!

  Car commercial. Have no idea which one or who wrote the song, so I can't give credit for it. But my god, I Wish!!!!

  Kilroy
• 

  hillary_step

  Amazing,

  Thank you for your moving post.

  -So sad. So fresh, the days that are no more-Tennyson

  I read your words, I also felt them. I surmise that we are contemporaries, though perhaps from different territories.

  Having lived through those iconoclastic times, adventure at every turn, I can relate deeply to your experiences. The Paris riots of ’68, one of the most frightening and yet exhilarating experiences of my life was a turning point to me that probably led to my welcoming the WTS into my life. So much energy, so many aspirations, such little direction, I truly felt that the ‘Truth’ was the answer, what a wonderful little glittering package we took into our hearts, that when opened became a sinister pair of spiritual handcuffs. I am convinced that something more than nostalgia draws us back to that very strange time; when just for a few months the whole world seemed to share its heartbeat. Many books have been written on the subject, I agree with them all and I also disagree with them all. I have yet to meet a person unaquainted with those times who can truly comprehend what happened. I often smirk at younger film directors who try to capture the feeling of that age in comical parodies of psychedelic shirts whirring about in windmill dances and unwashed teeth.

  I have many regrets, sometimes my heart literally aches for our wasted years. Sometimes I dream of my youth and awaken to damp pillows. One thing I have learned the hard way though, is that you cannot fight yesterdays battles today.

  JeffT made an invaluable point often overlooked when a person reviews his WTS past, he noted:
  

  However, I met my wife through the dubs. I can't imagine life without her. For that reason alone I wouldn't change anything.

  I concur with this thinking, I have had many wonderful moments within the WTS, I have met some truly beautiful people. I have also had and met the opposite and in this way the WTS is not very different from any other life that we may have led, people are actually not all that different from one another. I too have an exceptionally beautiful wife for whom I was prepared to endure 20 years within the WTS fully aware of all its failings before she saw the light. I would gladly endure this again for her sake. ‘Amazing’, we have been shipwrecked, and all we can do is pick over the wrecks of our spiritual lives, take what is useful for survival with us and move on. I have every intention of dying with a smile on my face!

  Once again, thank you for a touching and beautifully written post. My best wishes are with yourself and your family.

  HS