The Truman Show revisited

by slimboyfat 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  I've just been listening to Philip Glass...

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il4VDf-ugPI&feature=fvwrel

  Which reminds me of the Truman Show, the film that many of us here have taken as a metaphor for realising that the Jehovah's Witness world is not real.

  But now I can't help wondering what happened to Truman when he left his fake world and entered the real world. Did he keep looking round the corner to find the edges of the 'real world' too? Was the show perhaps just one layer of fakeness on top of many others?

  Since leaving the Witnesses mentally*, I find myself doubting that any knowledge about the world can be secure. I was completely wrong about the nature of reality once when I believed the Watchtower, so why not again? I have become a radical sceptic almost to the point of disabling indecision and inaction.

  Philip Glass has put me in a right mood.

  * I am still considered merely inactive.
• 

  Mickey mouse

  <<<<< I watched it again a couple of days ago.

  It seems we're not the only ones to see the parallels http://leavingscientology.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/the-bubble/
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  Phizzy

  When you revisit the film, and watch it as an allegory of our lives as JW's (not at all that it was written with that in view) it is scary how you can see yourself in the situation, just not aware of the real world, or the fact that you are being duped in to believing your world is real.

  That film, and Orwell's 1984 just about sum up the JW experience.
• 

  AnnOMaly

  SBF, I know exactly what you mean. I love The Truman Show too (it's been a while since I last saw it - must remedy) but my crunch time was when The Matrix trilogy was just finished. "I've become aware of one Matrix, what if this is a Matrix within a larger Matrix?" Emotionally and mentally, it sent me into a spiral. And yes, despite reluctantly coming to painful conclusions on some things, there's a heckuvalot I'm still 'on the fence' and distrustful about. It is disabling. I just think it's just a natural psychological consequence of having been taken for a ride by those you looked up to. Once a trust is broken, it's hard to trust anything else.
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  slimboyfat

  AnnOMaly you have always struck me as someone who has a strong conviction in the ability of empirical scholarship to contradict Witness claims. I find myself even doubting such tactics for disclosing the truth. I prefer to read relativists and pragmatists like Foucault and Rorty, and doubt there is any such thing as the truth. Foucault talked about different regimes of truth, as self-contained systems for making sense of the wolrd, but that have no provable relationship to it. And Rorty described truth talk as a mere rhetorical device, one that honestly should be dispensed with.
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  moshe

  That movie featured the first iPad, didn't it?
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  AnnOMaly

  I think there is truth - it's just that it can be distorted by either our own/others' perceptions or simply lack of data - it can't be helped. Even though I still question and dither on many issues, after that 'crunch' time I gradually came to the realization that we have to take a risk and commit to a position or we'd go loopy. All we can do is work with what we've got, try to make sound conclusions accordingly (which sometimes take forever while weighing it all up), and be willing to change if we got it wrong.
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  Phizzy

  Although we could argue long and hard as to what is the answer to Pilate's philosophical "What is Truth ?" I think we are well aware of what consitutes lies.

  They may not be the polar opposite of what we have not defined, truth, but they certainly are a long way from it. Lies involve inaccuracy and insincerity, and that is what we found rampant in the WT once we stepped outside of our Truman Show- like bubble.

  That is what was so difficult to deal with emotionally when we woke up, those who had assured us for as long as we can remember that they told us the truth, that indeed, we were "in the truth" , were not giving us facts, but half-truths and downright lies, they knew what they were doing, so were insincere.

  That hurt, it was like finding out that both your parents were participents in a paedophile ring, when they had told you they were the most moral people on Earth.
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  nancy drew

  I am driven to search for answers and it is a bit disturbing. It's difficult to find info you can trust and you always have to watch yourself and your critical thinking abilities and it's unpleasant to live w/o the comfort of thinking you know the answers. What I do is read and investigate all kinds of ideas however bizarre they might seem at the time and I have catagories in my head like stuff I feel pretty sure of, stuff that seems to have some evidence, stuff that seems interesting but I'm not sure, stuff in my in box that I'll deal with later, stuff that I'm almost positive is wrong and the stuff I really do believe is absolutely wrong. So everthing has it's place and I will enjoy the search as best I can, distract myself occasionally and keep at it till I run out of time.
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  Pleasuredome

  Interesting questions Slim, and answers depend on subjective experience. Although i'd say there's plenty of info and experiences to give the answer yes. Just remember, if ultimately the whole world you perceive is false including everything you believe, there has to be a remedy. Some have failed to see a remedy and have taken their own lives because their whole perception became meaningless. At the very least be open to the idea that, if you may not be who you think you are, you can always trust your Self that you may not perceive yet to get you to Truth.