Let me introduce myself - slimboyfat

by slimboyfat 38 Replies latest jw friends

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  nvrgnbk

  Glad you've come to the Lord Jesus!
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  PrimateDave

  Hi Slim,
  
  Welcome to the Board! lol. Well, thanks for sharing the mini-autobiography. I hope to read more of your story some day.
  
  Dave
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  ninja

  lovely post slimbo mate...all the best to you and your mrs......ninja
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  slimboyfat

  Thanks jgnat for taking the time to respond. I struggle very much with causation, and I was I trying to be careful not to blame my mother as the root cause or anyone else for decisions I made in my life for that matter. When I said the persepctive of the teacher on my mother is something I have 'thought a lot about' I meant simply that and not more. However I do think that falling out with my friends at 13 was the direct cause of my becoming a Witness. I was lonely and decided to have a Bible Study within a few months of that happening. If I had not fallen out with them I cannot imagine I would have become a Witness at that time; it was the last thing on my mind, I was enjoying myself. I may have become a Witness at a later time had things worked out differently, but that is to introduce a radical counterfactual with all sorts of unpredictable variables. I am a bit skeptical to be honest that another set of circumstances at some other stage would have conspired to provoke me to become a Witness, as none of my immediate family are Witnesses and there was no inevitability about it. Having said that I fully accept my own responsibility for my choices and my hints at the causes are not intended to have moral impications.

  I can understand your attraction to the Witnesses. It's the same thing that attracted my socially-challenged husband.

  So that is where we are similar. Can I ask where we differ so that he prompts your empathy, whereas I provoke contempt? That is a serious question by the way.

  Oh, so you are kind of like Richie then. All prickly on the outside, daring those lacking discernment to love you anyways.

  Maybe I am not reading you properly, are you saying it is showing lack of discernment to 'love Ritchie anyway', or did the comparison end before that part of the thought? I think you are referring to something I once wrote about Ritchie's body decorations being a mechanism to prevent himself from ever returning to the truth. I am afraid I don't disagree with the comparison so much as not understand it.

  Your thought about the attraction to the Witnesses as a prescribed way of making friends is powerful, and I have seen you make that point before. But I am still not sure exactly what you mean by these thoughts:

  But I understand the attraction. Your mother wasn't. Your friend wasn't. You need to know who is sure.

  My mother wasn't what? I need to know who is what for sure?

  We've all had our share of rejection, of being deeply disappointed in people. We all deal with it in our own ways, some of it healthy, some of it deeply dysfunctional.

  Sure, I was trying to give an explanation that can make sense, not an excuse. And my explanation of my particular motivations were not meant to mark me out as different from the universal. I know quite how small I am already thank you. Rather than writing an account I could "own" as Narkissos suggested I have actually found myself creating a narrative I would rather disown as it happens. That gives me a little comfort in as much as I hope that it may be just a little bit more realistic - or useful, I recoil from the word "realistic" - for that. That doesn't mean complacency though, but it makes me a little happier than would an account I was overly comfortable with.

  Thanks again for taking time to respond in depth to what I wrote.

  Slim
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  quietlyleaving

  Slim

  I was simultaneously compelled and repelled by Narkissos’s suggestion that it may be healthy to present a story of how we became Witnesses that we can now “own” as former or disillusioned Witnesses. If we can now “own” it wouldn’t it necessarily be a betrayal? Whose story is it, mine or a former self or just wishful thinking? Since every story is a fabrication, isn’t one we can “own” simply a more unashamedly convenient telling?

  excuse me for questioning you but I really want to know in what sense you consider every story a fabrication. Fabrication as in creation or as in devise falsely (had to get the dictionary out for that hahaha)

  Also I don't understand why it would be a betrayal to own one's story.

  I may just be reading it wrong - unfortunately quite natural for me but not always I hasten to add.
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  TopHat

  silmboy, I understand that you want to "Get on with your Life" and stop wasting it going to meetings and out in field service, serving the watchtower. Life is here today and gone tomorrow...ENJOY silmboy
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  slimboyfat

  Hi quietlyleaving,

  Thanks for your question.

  The "fabrication" description I intended to be ironic. I use it to mean two things:

  1. Primarily it is a creation, or a work. In a tangible sense things are made out of "fabric". An account is made out of statements intended to reflect reality collected together to make a narrative, like the lines of thread make up a pattern and a garment.

  2. The more important meaning is the one you pick up on, the sense that a fabrication is necessarily false.

  I believe all stories should be recognised as fabrications, especially "factual" ones for the reason that they largely pretend to be otherwise. If we stuck to the bare facts without narrative we would not be saying much at all. We could have dates, and very sparse descriptions perhaps, but even then we could not escape the pitfalls of using words with connotations never quite matching reality. And as soon as we introduce narrative beyond the bare statement, that involves generalisations, viewpoints, hidden assumptions, subconscious agendas and so on. More fundamentally than that, in order to make any "sense" at all we have to draw upon ideas and discourses that are stictly external to the precise reality we hope to represent. In that sense I think every story is a betrayal of reality, but a necessary one of course. The response should not be utter despair (hpwever one might feel like that at times) at this situation though, it should be a recognition of the enormous challenge in providing any such explanation coupled with a reflexive awareness that is ready to concede superficiality and weakness of description where it can be exposed.

  However the idea of betrayal I was using more precisely with regard to how we represent our Witness past. When I was a Witness I obviously had a radically more positive perspective on how I became a Witness than I now have. If you had asked me then how it came about my priorities in explaining the same events would have been entirely different. What I worry about in giving my current ideas about what events led up to becoming a Witness, and what they "mean", is that in a sense I am usurping the right of my former self to cling to the positive story he believed in. Is the perspective I now have true or more realisitc, and that former one false and unrealistic? I don't know. They are both stories that try to make sense of an extremely complex reality. A person who knows me well would probably have a completely different understanding that may be more compelling in some ways as a narrative. In that sense I don't think autobiography contains any more "truth" than biography. Would we accept that Hiter's famous exposition of his own "struggle" has more "truth" than the meticulous constructions of historians for instance? I certainly know that loyal Witnesses would not express my journey in the particular terms I used. And who am I to deny them their story? Just because I am the subject of this particular story does not give me any intrinsic right to extinguish counter-viewpoints whether they come from my earlier self or from other people.

  So to cut to the chase I meant the story is a "betrayal" in the simple sense that constructing this new presentation of events involves denouncing large parts of my previous (Witness)understanding of the course of my life. This is a state of affairs that former Witnesses have to grapple with to the extent they hope to create new meaning for their life story I feel.

  As the author (in some ambiguous sense considering powerful externalities) of my life's course, I don't want to presume the right to set out the definitive terms in which my life is to be "understood". I made that mistake before, I think, and this time I want to be fully open to revisions and reevaluations, and who knows perhaps even reversals.

  Slim
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  jgnat

  ..socially challenged husband...So that is where we are similar. Can I ask where we differ so that he prompts your empathy, whereas I provoke contempt? That is a serious question by the way.

  My hubby is an adorable, illogical idiot. I can dance linguists around his head and he'd call it a fly. I can also see his eyes, which are as soft as a lamb's.

  Contempt for you, no. Irritation, yes. I'd rather haul thirty mules out of a ditch than admit you are right. But if I must, I will. Damn logic. Also, if you are prickly, you must expect backlash. It comes with the territory.

  ...daring those lacking discernment...

  I meant the opposite, sorry. I think you and Richie both won't suffer fools. Fools can't look past the externals. Both yearn to be accepted for who you are, and go at it in a most contrary way. I was not referring at all to any comment you may have made about Richie's body art.

  ...prescribed way of making friends...

  Some people lack the ability to sense the subtle signs of acceptance and rejection. I don't think you are one of those by the way, but my hubby is. For people like that, the Witnesses provide an easy substitute for regular social interaction. Read all the literature as requested, complete six month's study, follow all the rules, and they HAVE to take you.

  My mother wasn't what?

  Reliable. Able to love you unconditionally. She was weak and selfish.

  I need to know who is what for sure?

  I think you are prickly to filter out the weak ones, in the hope that those who do break through the barrier will be reliable and genuine.

  ...dysfunctional....

  Hey, it's a way of dealing. I understand. My preference is denial, which has it's own failings. My sister, by the way, went the prickly route. In my opinion, it's caused her unneccessary heartache, but who am I to say which works best?
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  Narkissos

  Thank you slim for writing that out.

  I don't feel like commenting your provisional "story" (commentaire, comment taire, "how to silence") but I will just say I was amazed -- and even a bit frightened -- at the thought that you are *only* 25. Frightened because I know your type of lucidity can be quite exhausting. Life is long, and you'll have to negotiate with it. Shared love, or creativity, can help, and I pray (sic!)that your life might be blessed with at least one of those in the years to come.

  While reading your post I couldn't help thinking of two novels by Hermann Hesse which had a strong impact on me before I left the Witnesses: Der Steppenwolf and Narziss und Goldmund -- the latter dealing with the "mother" issue, to which I can relate. You might enjoy them if you haven't already. If you read French I would also recommend Albert Camus, especially The Stranger, which is a magnificent example of (fictitious) autobiography without a subject -- but I don't know how it is translated into English.

  I have enjoyed interacting with you on this board -- even when it gets antagonistic. And I agree with your remarks on betrayal (I remember I once started a topic on this, but I can't seem to access my topic history for now).

  Like most of us you'll have to live in a haunted house. That shouldn't scare a Scot, should it?
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  lonelysheep

  Thanks for sharing more about yourself, Slim. In the time that you and I have been posting here, I've ALWAYS appreciated what you've had to say, and thought it was continually brave of you to express your thoughts as they've changed one way or another.