by Introspection 25 Replies latest watchtower medical
I'm also as X as they get! You'd have to shackle me up & drag me straight back into the hall using a posse of elders for me to ever go near the Dubs again!
"Vaccination has never saved a human life. It does not prevent smallpox." The Golden Age, Feb 4 1931 p. 293-4 - The Sacredness of Human Blood (Reasons why vaccination is unscriptural)
Hey first let me thank all of you for replying, especially those who obviously put a good deal of thought into a lengthy reply.
I can see that for many the emphasis is on the EX part of ex-JW. Of course, fundamentally I only want to point out that definition is dependent upon the JW. After all, if you just say ex- it doesn't mean anything. But another way to look at it is that label is relative, you have to refer back to something else for it to have any meaning, and that also means it is not absolute. It has no inherent meaning, though being a JW doesn't have inherent meaning either, really.
I'm just gonna throw this one thought out there, it just came to me while reading the replies, particularly Truman and Lady Lee's I guess. How do I say this.. Life itself is not defined, it's simply lived. We tend to take the view of our individual life, which usually means what we've done from the time we were born up until now. I would just call that thing's you've done, but not exactly your life. Granted this is using the word in a different sense, but I think it's helpful to point out that life is still out there, and in fact, in that sense it's more like you haven't really lived during the time you were a dub right? In fact, I can see how dub think might see a phrase like "living it up" in a negative light, that it would involve some kind of loose conduct or something. But what's wrong with that statement? It's not actually wrong to live is it? Anyway, I'm sure most of you live a fuller life now, and I guess that's what I was trying to point to. The question was kind of a trick question in a way, how you see life (or yourself, or whatever) isn't as important as living it.
Intro,
I am not sure what you meant by your last sentence. You say "how you see life, is not as important as how you live it." How you see life determines how you live it.
edited to correct an error in the quote from intro.
hmmm it sounds like you are saying that while I was a JW I was in some nether world and therefore it doesn't count. Personally I would not say that. Every expereince is worth something. In the healing of this experience I have learned a lot about who I was, who I am and who I want to be. As a 50 year old my future life is very much in my thoughts. I want the future to be as rich as possible. My JW time gave me two wonderful children - certain not a time of doing nothing with my life. As a child of abuse my JW life also portected me from the life that many abuse victims follow. Mind you it gave me a different life but still a life.
Not sure how clear that it
But life is a process. My experiences are only parts of the process
A not-so-silent lamb
Aspire to inspire before you expire
I believe this will address both your messages, Larc and Lady Lee.
I said how you see life (your personal philosophy and world view) is not as important as living it, not how we live it. Of course, you might say that even if you avoid life as much as possible THAT becomes your life, but I meant that regardless of views and opinions, there's this big world out there for us to explore. If we're too caught up with our present view then we may miss out on what life has to offer, even if we did learn valuable lessons from the past. It's just a matter of not letting things get stagnant, because more of the same can get kind of boring if nothing else. It's no absolute guarantee in terms of security, either.
So I guess I would say while we learn valuable life lessons, we are not just those lessons. I prefer to take the perspective that there are new things life has to offer, and being really open to them means we can't stick too closely to the past.
By the way, the stuff about things being relative and having no inherent meaning wouldn't be just for the ex-JW identity, it really goes for any identity. I was only trying to point out that the JW experience isn't such a solid edifice, or that even if we think of it that way any such edifice had to be built, it's dependent upon other things.
I was once a JW. I tendered my resignation. I am not one now. Therefore, I'm an exJW.
to define yourself using a former identity as a point of reference, one that IS no longer.
It's simply a fact about me. I don't "define myself" as exJW. No more than would I define myself as "bipedal" although it is a fact that I have two feet.
COMF
Then to the lip of this poor earthen urn
I lean'd, the secret of my life to learn:
And lip to lip it murmur'd--"While you live,
Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return."
I divorced myself from the JW religion so, just as a woman who divorces her husband is an ex wife, I am an ex jw.
Dam right I'm a ex jw and I am very proud of saying that I have seen the light and am normal now. But what is normal? Maybe I'm just in my own world.
You Betcha, an EX all the way, never to return. Feels good to live my life my way.
Well Intro - just re-read what you posted and it got me thinking
<<<I said how you see life (your personal philosophy and world view) is not as important as living it, not how we live it.>>>
HOW I live my life is very important to me. Not that I sit down each day to consider my philosophy for the day but rather that I live each day in a way that I can feel good about. I hate regrets. They get you nowhere. Living honestly and being true to myself and my beliefs are an important aspects of how I live my life. My daily experiences become a part of my life history and what I believe about those experiences form a part of my contuing identity development.
I am more than the sum of my experiences. I am more than simply what I believe about those experiences. But I am too busy living life to sit and philosophize about it except on here - Thanks Intro
A not-so-silent lamb
Aspire to inspire before you expire
