Since being inactive for so many years, I occasionally showed up at the hall, just to understand why I wasn't able to go again. Since joining this forum, I went only 2 or 3 times, each time with the same conclusion. I just can't do it anymore...Even before joining this board, I lost the desire to go there. Elders just see me as week, so don't seem surprised to see me once or twice a year. When I leave the hall, they must say to themselves, he'll be back next year for another meeting.
So many things irritate me there.
First, it's a good distance from my home, and gas isn't free. Then the meetings are way too long. Nothing new being taught since years. A person could literally miss 10 years of meetings, and then just show up one day, and missed nothing at all. During the meeting, they said how a witness should "love" preaching and see this as a privilege, and look forward to tell the whole world about the Kingdom, and never shut up about it. It's funny that people on this forum also have the same urge as them to proclaim what really is going on there since years.
It's all about control and being obedient to those in charge. While I was there, I wondered how many people felt like me today, and just showed up at the hall without really wanting to be there, but doing it to please someone. In my case it wasn't to please anyone that I went. It was to better understand why I went there years ago, although I hated it. I guess I went to the meetings years ago, because I really felt that it was the only way to be saved from Armageddon which was so close.
It's a black and white world they live in. During the meeting, the brother giving the talk said that we had to make friends only with people who love Jehovah and no one else. Didn't Jesus teach something else, and say you had to love your neighbour as yourself...every neighbour, JW or not.
They love boxing in themselves, portraying the outside world as totally evil and doomed. I didn't see many new faces there this morning. Just the same old people, getting older. Although many left, there seems to be a solid core that will never leave, prefering to sink with the ship, if ever, whenever.