Today for no particular reason I was mulling about the door-knocking. Perhaps it was the enui and dispair generated by having the second laptop go down on me in two days... and it's not nearly as interesting as it sounds.
ANyway, I was musing; as with many of us I've knocked on a fair few doors.
However, I've only had my door knocked on twice. Once as a dub, by some Moonies, and once after I'd left when I was in Sunday morning debauch girlfriend mode and asked them (JW's) to call back which they never did. Not that I wanted to hear what they had to say you understand... I wanted to have some fun.
Anyway, the point of this rambling 'god, it's six o'clock and it's time to go home and I've done very little work today so I'm not going to start now' posting is in the reaction of the moonies when they called on me.
I didn't say I was a JW, they didn't say they were Moonies; it was an older Asian guy and a European woman in her twenties, he very much showing her the ropes.
After a bit of futile scripturefying from both sides of the door I figured out that they were in fact Moonies - he'd avoided the direct question. I think I said, being a smug little 'I'm not in a cult' shit, "Oh my god, you're Moonies!"
The supercilious look I got was probably exactly the same as I had flashed loads of people when they'd done equivalent things to me.
That was fifteen years ago, easy. Then I knew everything, I wasn't in a cult, and everyone else was wrong. I was god's little defnder trying to save the poorickle woman from nasty satanic cult. Iwas RIGHT! Yeah.
Now, I know I've been in a cult, I know I know comparatively modest amounts, and that I have about equal rights of being wrong as Joe Average does.
I do wonder if that 'interested person' with the 'elder' was fully sucked into the Moonies. I wonder if my 'opposition' was used by him as a teaching tool. I realise how even the most mundane events can be twisted and given meaning. I also know, no matter how right you think you are, that you can be HUGELY wrong.
I think, other than the fact that opinions are like assholes (everyones got one... ) the reason why people here (self included) are so absolutist at times is that's the way we were trained.
It took me ages to realise I was severely driven to BE RIGHT. Even when wrong I have the ability to argue for days, a bit like some insects can live for days without their heads. I know all the nasty little techniques.
I can see from this board and other religous boards I've been to that I'm not alone with this affliction!
I am now in 'therapy', and have found it very liberating to practoce saying 'sorry, I was wrong', and 'that's a good point' and 'you're rigth I didn't think of that'.
I also have found that I no longer have to have an opinion about everything. JW's, poor sods, ask 'em for an opinion and they've got one. question it and they dig trenches.
Having entrenched opinions about things stops you thinking. Of course, I can still come up with an opinion, but it's not something that neccesarilly needs validation. If someone wants to disagree...
I still have hot buttons (bigotry, for example), but I'm getting better.
It's great really, being free...
SO, have any of you observed the same characteristics in yourselves?
1/ Forceful opinions on everything
2/ Inability to be wrong
3/ Knowing everything
If so do you think it's the mark of an ex-cultist, or just standard variation in human personality.
(I think it's personality EXASERBATED by cult exposure).