Ponderings on facing the afternoon of my life....

DanTheMan

In November I will turn 35.

I did ok in the morning of life. I was a pretty happy kid, maybe a little weird but not extremely so. I got good grades in school, loved my mom like nothing else, never dreamed of getting into trouble. I had good friends at school and in my neighborhood. It seemed like things were exactly as they were supposed to be.

I fell apart in adolescence. Drugs, bad grades, cruel "friends", family meltdown...this falling apart culminated in my becoming a JW at 22. I loved how the religion seemed to justify the misanthropic extremes that I had come to by this time in my my life. But as my JW years went along, the zeal that had consumed me at first faded completely, and the religion became a mechanized routine, nothing more. The idealism that I had projected onto JW's when I was 22 - that they were this totally enlightened group of people who had, like me, recognized the hopeless wretchedness of humanity and therefore wisely refrained from having any meaningful involvement with it - that fell apart too as it slowly dawned on me that for the most part JW's as individuals were not so enlightened as I had once thought, and I started to despise their pettiness and insularity. Not to mention the increasingly embarrassing and repetitive publications. So I left.

Blue skies ahead right? Yay, I escaped the cult! Things are going to be GREAT now!

Not really. Now I'm facing the second half (or so) part of my life, and having serious doubts as to how things are going to go from here.

How do I find contentment and peace during this part of my life when I have so little to hang my hat on or to feel proud of? How do I live the rest of my life without despair and remorse over the lost opportunities and the unrealized potential? How do I solidify my identity and my place in society when I have neither of these things?

I've narrowed it down to three possible paths:

A hearty, laughing, defiant embrace of life in spite of all. (The Nietszche option)

A penitent, humble embrace of a mystical, subjective, personal religiousness (The Kierkegaard option)

Strict rationalism, determinism, all science-ey and stuff, complete rejection of all metaphysical notions (The Richard Dawkins, Ayn Rand, et al option)

Dan, angst-ridden, to-put-it-mildly class

myself

How do I find contentment and peace during this part of my life when I have so little to hang my hat on or to feel proud of? How do I live the rest of my life without despair and remorse over the lost opportunities and the unrealized potential? How do I solidify my identity and my place in society when I have neither of these things?

By doing these things one day at a time.

misanthropic

::How do I live the rest of my life without despair and remorse over the lost opportunities and the unrealized potential?

Dan- this is one I find myself dwelling on as well....

But then I realize there is so much life has to offer. I was driving home the other day and I saw the most amazing sunset and I was filled with such a euphoric feeling, so happy to be alive! I realized there is excitement in what the future holds. So many opportunities to come.

fairchild

How do I find contentment and peace during this part of my life when I have so little to hang my hat on or to feel proud of? How do I live the rest of my life without despair and remorse over the lost opportunities and the unrealized potential?

Everyone has lost opportunities. Everyone has remorse. There was a day when we thought that we were going to rise above all ordinary mortals. We were going to leave a great print. We were going to give the world a part of ourselves, then grow wings and fly away. But then, we found ourselves halfway and many of the things we were going to do never happened. Many wonderful ideas lost their fragrance like flowers in late summer. I can't speak for anyone else, but to me, the contentment and the peace came almost suddenly, when I accepted that I can't change the past.

Dawn

DanTheMan: I spent the first 24 years of my life as a JW. After I was DF'd, I went through a lot of the same thoughts as you. I had passed up the opportunity for college, missed out on the fun of high school activities, never got to celebrate a holiday. I didn't have the career my highschool friends were now able to pursue, I didn't have much to my name and was working to barely make it paycheck to paycheck. Starting over with no money, no family to help me, no friends.

But after some time I decided rather than looking at the 25 years I lost, I would look ahead to the many years I still had to live. And I was going to make the most of it.

I will turn 40 this year and looking back now I am very glad I took that route. The 15 years since I left have been awesome. I went to college, made new friends, met a great man and married him, and had kids. I have celebrated many holidays now, took up jazz dance, learned to hunt, went mountain climbing for the first time, learned to ice skate, traveled the States and Mexico, and many other things I never would have had the time to do if I was still wasting away at meetings and service.

This next year I'm taking scuba classes, my husband is buying me a dirt bike so he can teach me to ride with him, and we're fixing up an older 70's Mopar so I can join him at the race track. I may have lost the first 25 years, but I have lived more in the last 15 than most JWs live in their lifetime - and I plan to do even more over the next 40!

prophecor

Take a Bite, Dan. A Huge Bite of Life. Savor it until it drips down your chin. Contrary to popular opinion, the world's a magnificent place, just waiting to be touched. 35 was right around the time I began to wake up from all the meaninglessness of drugs and much alcohol. These can be some of your greatest moments, Dan. The first 30 years are the hardest. Ask Jesus.

Toronto_Guy

Someone on this board recommended "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.

I've been reading it, and it is indeed a very interesting and worthwhile read. It highly recommend it, after reading your comments.

Toronto_guy

prophecor

Just real kwikly, Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet. It might give you some hightened perspective on your situation as well. It was written during the turn of the 20th century, early 1900's, but it is a timeless peice of literature. A very small book, but packs the power of 20,000 kiloton bomb.

heathen

You do what you wanna do .

Cognitive_Dissident

geez Dan, reading your post was like reading a transcript of my thoughts over the past six months. I can totally relate. I still struggle on a pretty regular basis with the issue of feeling like I've been ripped out of the ground and having no roots to put down, and not even knowing what I'd do with roots if I had 'em. And I run through the same list of options that you provided courtesy of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dawkins, and the rest. I spent the first 26 years of my life as a dub, so I'm sure there are going to be things that will take years to fully dry up and fall out of my brain. The biggest source of comfort for me since I left is trying to actually get to know people, not just categorize them into subfolders within the parent folder of "the damned". Some of the greatest joy I have ever felt in my life has come from feeling like I truly connected with another human being, which only happens if I share honestly of myself. Which has gotten a lot easier since I stopped looking at the entire non-witness population as the walking dead. I know that sounds all new-wave, paperback psychology-ish, but alas, it is true for me. And I just started my freshman year in college, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time, so that has helped a lot to, at least with feeling like I have a goal that I'm working towards.

And as a last resort, you could always marry an eighteen year old and buy a corvette.

Cog

Ponderings on facing the afternoon of my life....

Share this