When I am weak - then I am weak!

by slimboyfat 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  I wonder how others cope with powerlessness? As a Witness I took great comfort from the thought that when I was at my lowest, that is when I could rely on Jehovah completely: as in the saying, "When I am weak - then I am powerful!" But I can't take comfort in that any more because that kind of attitude seems like mere wishful thinking to me now. "Now" as in - now that I no longer have a belief in God. More fundamentally, "now" that I have no confidence at all that justice "will out in the end". All around me I see iniquity, misperceptions, misunderstandings, terrible calamity, and the powerful carrying on regardless. What comfort is there for anyone struck low in this life?

  More awful than anything must be when we become docile bodies in the hands of doctors or other agents of the power system we are under. I have been quite ill recently and I can find no comfort and no prospect. God is not there, and the future is uncertain. I mean I have a wonderful wife and good family and friends to comfort me. But they can't help me out the situation I am in. And many others I feel flee from me when I am weak - fairweather friends. I really don't know what would be worst - to end up in a hospital, prison, or psychiatric ward. There was a Russian man on Newsnight last night who had experienced all three at the hands of the state over there. He said the psychiatric ward was by far the worst. A British psychiatrist made a rather obtuse comment. She said that regrettably in Russia the psychiatric system had been corrupted by the state into a means of oppression. My God is it not always and everywhere so - only to varying degrees! Don't ask me how to run a better system of punishment or of mental and physical health. But that inability to give alternatives in no way prevents me from knowing I dislike this one we are under. In case readers now think I have mental problems, I should say my illness is only physical, but I have seen others I know well processed through the "mental health" care system and it is not pretty. I mean I do feel depressed sometimes, but not out of proportion to how bad I feel physically. If anything I wonder why I do not get more depressed.

  Nietzsche said that we learn through hardship. We climb the mountain and enjoy the panorama as the result of our struggle. We should see illness and setbacks as opportunities to grow. Unfortunately it does not always turn out like that. As Woody Allen rightly says, it's all fine saying what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but there is no guarantee of making it into that second group. I remember he also said at the start of Annie Hall that there are only two settings in life: miserable and awful. And if we are merely miserable we should be eternally thankful for that. Poor old Nietzsche himself in the end was struck low physically and mentally in a manner in which it is hard to conceive of his thereby have "grown" in any meaningful sense.

  Have I completed my transition from hopeful JW believer, to hopeless nihilist? I can't see where this road is headed, if this is a natural dead end of thought, or just a blockage of the mind.

  Ramble over.

  Slim
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  ringo5

  Enjoyed your ramble. All I can say is..... Woody Allen helps me too.....

  ringo5
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  sass_my_frass

  What you need is to meet a few people whose life is even more crap than yours. I recommend volunteer work. My problems pale compared to say the guy who has lost most of his intellectual capacity except the part that lets him know what he's missing. A girlfriend had a car accident 7 years ago and her treatment path has so far taken her to lose her left leg and be in constant pain. I'm really glad I'm not them.
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  jwfacts

  All around me I see iniquity, misperceptions, misunderstandings, terrible calamity, and the powerful carrying on regardless.

  I don't really see it as different whether you believe in Jehovah or not. Even as a JW you pray and get no answer. Years later, you still pray and get no answer, so dismiss it as not being the will of God. Witnesses still get sick, die, go to doctors where they are powerless to affect the outcome. There is great similarity between the benefits of prayer and positive thinking.
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  quietlyleaving

  (((((slim))))))

  I feel for you

  All around me I see iniquity, misperceptions, misunderstandings, terrible calamity, and the powerful carrying on regardless. What comfort is there for anyone struck low in this life?

  I agree.

  Have you read any of Heidegger. I find him quite hard to understand. So pls correct my understanding. What I do find comforting from reading some of his take on things is the thought of authenticity and inauthenticity - that we as humans are inclined towards loseing ourselves in inauthenticity, but that we authenticate ourselves by recognising this and accepting it.
• 

  slimboyfat

  jwfacts,

  I don't really see it as different whether you believe in Jehovah or not. Even as a JW you pray and get no answer. Years later, you still pray and get no answer, so dismiss it as not being the will of God. Witnesses still get sick, die, go to doctors where they are powerless to affect the outcome. There is great similarity between the benefits of prayer and positive thinking.

  Of course it's different. Whenever I saw someone be mean or underhand or give false flattery I used to think that God saw it even if everyone else didn't seem to. It may take until the 'last day' for things to be put right, but when you are a believer you have that ultimate confidence. I thought that below the surface of apparent iniquity or reality was a deep justice lurking that would one day reveal itself to all. Now all I see are layers of iniquity, deception, duplicity, resentment, and meaningless pain. A believer, when he gets ill or suffers, can at least attribute some meaning to it. He is being tested, or prepared for glory, or even laying down his life for a worthy secular cause. (How I marvel at those beneath the tanks!) But as a non-believer, this reality I am stuck in is entirely meaningless. I could suffer a terrible debilitating ailment for the rest of my life, or else acheive great power - there is no way to tell. Everything is capricious, not even malignant - which might be a strange comfort were it true since it would at least be universal - simply utterly abitrary and ambiguous. How utterly absurd the whole thing is.

  Slim
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  slimboyfat

  Thanks quietlyleaving, Woody Allen really is more my speed than Heidegger but I will try to read him at some point since you recommend it. I have only heard about him in connection with Derrida who seemed to admire Heidegger but have reservations about this 'authenticity' principle. Hermann Hesse and Albert Camus were recommended to me on this board too, and I enjoyed reading those.

  Slim
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  saywhat29

  Hmm, to me this is all about how you feel and look at the matter- to me not believing in a God has made me feel better than believing in one- and maybe for you trying to not believe in one has led you to great discomfort and unhappiness. Like you seem kinda bitter about now being an unbeliever and that's not how it should be. I think like so many people, you are taught to believe the the WTBS is the ONLY way to god, or that Christianity is all there is when there are many paths to God or a higher being. I mean there is this tone in your writing that assumes that without God, what is there? To me I don't understand that because I see lots of things with or without God, but maybe because I HAVE to in order to be happy and have peace. I think maybe you should regain God or a sense of spirituality in order to find that- and also take comfort in what you DO have.

  It is so easy to get caught up in what we don't have. Me? gay kid with a witness family afraid of being shunned, living at home because I'm afraid of losing them. Some days all I can do is dwell on the bad, dwell on the pain I'm one day goig to HAVE to face, dwell on not having the family I once had.

  But I wake up (thankful for that, as being a witness has made me appreciate that no day is promised to you), I feel loved even with the restraints and unfair issues surrounding that love, I have people who give a damn about me even if they don't do it the way I want them to, I have a house, I get to practically do whatever I want, Going to school.... there is so much! I can't relate to your physical health concerns at the moment and I'm sorry you're going through them, but I bet if you actually tried to see all the good in your life, even when there is sh*tload of bad, it makes it easier. And sometimes it's the small things that you take for granted- I really enjoy the amount of time I spend with my family even if they are homophobic as hell and get on my last nerve. I appreciate my sister and her issues, my friends, even the mundane things of life.

  I think appreciating the mundane little things is what helps beause there will always be uncertainty and pain in life and there's no avoiding it. I think being a JW protected you from something that most adults face early in life, like their mortality. Maybe I'm projecting bcause I went through it to, but I think you are grieving the death of your JWism- and that's okay to. But just know that there is a way out and that you can be happy, that you can be a believer in Christ without ever having to wake up on Saturday mornings and knock on doors or sit through hours of a 3-day convention.

  Okay, did a lot of projecting here, lol. End of my rant. I hope you feel better slim.
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  Blueblades

  SFB..It's been five years since my fade and move to another state. I can relate to the way you feel. All the research and exchanges about the meaning of life, what is man?, why is he here?, where is he going?, all the belief systems out there, all the arguments about the existence / nonexistence of a God, have left me in dispair. I now take life one day at a time, I'm 62 now, I need to take it slow, mentally, emotionally and physically. The Watchtower got 33 years of my life, what's left is mine alone.

  Take good care of yourself, I wish I could say something that would be of a help. Words elude me. When I am weak, I am weak.

  Blueblades