How Did You Handle Sitting At The Meetings?

minimus

Did you pretend to listen? Did you actually follow along, listening intently?

At the end I was listening more intently and getting more irritated by the whole sham.

Finally-Free

How Did You Handle Sitting At The Meetings?

I let my asscheeks worry about that. The rest of me was sleeping, except when the ex was elbowing me for snoring.

W

asilentone

thinking about women, what to do after the meetings, etc....time will go fast.

undercover

At the end I was listening more intently and getting more irritated by the whole sham.

Me too. The more you really pay attention the less it really makes sense.

Fortunately, by the time I realized I couldn't sit there and pretend to be enjoying it anymore, I was already mostly inactive and missing most of the meetings.

Before, when I was active, my brain kind of shut down the whole time. I can't put it into words but something about going to the meetings was zombiefying. I don't know if the Society intentionally planned it or just got lucky, but something caused us to just shut down our minds while in meeting mode. Then we were open to whatever suggestion they wanted to plant. While I'm typing this I can recall the drowsy, dull feelling I had after two hours of meeting...able to recite a couple of points but never able to give a full synopsis of anything.

I think people get into this rut and actually believe that they are paying attention and are learning while all they're really doing is having phrases and ideas repeated ad nausem until it becomes lodged into their brain.

cantleave

Being a good zealous JW I used to really sit there and listen, allowing the brainwashing to take hold.

OnTheWayOut

I was the school overseer. The Theo. Ministry School was my baby, so I paid keen attention.
After the announcements, it was tough to really follow the Service Meeting. Public talks and WT studies were very boring to me.
But I was also a mind-controlled member who thought I had to at least try to pay attention.

Elders usually had much to do, so we could run around and go to the back room and distract ourselves- same reason we had plenty to do at assemblies. If we weren't running around, we would be attendants, greeters, or simply stand at the back of the hall to stay awake during a meeting.

Gregor

Heaven, I'm in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When I'm at the meeting shifting cheek to cheek

BluesBrother

If we weren't running around, we would be attendants, greeters, or simply stand at the back of the hall to stay awake during a meeting.

This is so true of a lot of elders...never in their seat..always at the back or fiddling with air conditioning or something..The keen ones sit and encourage the family to answer up..

How do I stay awake if we attend on a Sunday? Caffeine tablets..Three at least to stop me nodding off !

wobble

When you were on the platform looking out, you saw the openly asleep,those who thought they were present mentally,but were obviously elsewhere,the strange eyed zombies, and one or two bright and alert ones.

I was genuinely surprised ,and heartened ,if anyone came up to me and said ,"I appreciated that point you made about so-and -so " showing that they had really listened.

I tried to put my best into talks and items,but most there were so used to shutting down that they didn't listen. I must admit I did that too as an audience member. I regularly fell asleep.not deliberately, just bored, and my Wife had to nudge me awake, especially if I snored !

love

Wobble

AnnOMaly

It usually flitted/flits between daydreaming and/or 'zombification' (like undercover said) and intense irritation (as minimus said). There are occasions where I see the speaker is doing his/her best with what s/he thinks s/he knows and I'm impressed by the effort and ingenuity put into their presentation, but otherwise ... daydreaming <---> irritation. Oh, and there's been the 'drowning out the BS by reading Bible passages and comparing the cross references' strategy.

How Did You Handle Sitting At The Meetings?

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