Hi everybody, sorry it took me so long to get back to this, I posted this last night (in a slightly alchohol-buzzed state of mind), submitted it, then went to bed and I just got up.
myself:
"One day at a time" is probably a good philosophy, not always easy to hold to it though. But thanks for the reminder.
misanthropic:
so happy to be alive
I have moments to when I feel that way, but mostly my emotional state is one of existential dread and loneliness. lol
fairchild:
the contentment and the peace came almost suddenly
See, that's what I keep waiting for. Not a moment when all my problems disappear, but a moment of transforming insight, a psychological "EUREKA!" It hasn't happened yet.
Dawn:
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
I'm glad you were able to do this. I am constantly replaying past experiences (especially negative ones, or ones where I screwed up in some way or another) and it's a hard habit to break. Ya see, the thing is, is that, well, I've really said and done a lot of stupid shit in my life. There's so much that I wish I could do over.
Proph:
Take a Bite, Dan. A Huge Bite of Life. Savor it until it drips down your chin
Lol, interestingly put, definitely Nietszche...I'll have to ponder that one a while...I've never heard of the book you mention but I'll check it out.
Toronto Guy:
Someone on this board recommended "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.
I read that book a couple of years ago and I have to confess that it left me flat, but I know a lot of people really dig it.
Cognitive Dissident:
It sounds like we have a lot in common.
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".
Good one! One thing I'm not having much success with in my post-JW life is making friends, perhaps it's the judgemental tendencies that I had all along but became greatly exaggerated during the JW years that is contributing to this. I think this judgementalness, this distrusting nature is a big part of my general social anxiety.
jaffacake:
Why do you have to make a choice of 3 paths?
I feel like I need some guiding philosophy to ground myself, to give me a coherent sense of how I want to approach my remaining years. That's why I offered the three choices. JWism, for all it's goofiness, gave me a sense of purpose. And it's the loss of that that I am still mourning, even though a good chunk of time has passed now since I left. And so I keep waiting for that EUREKA! moment that I mentioned before, where all of the sudden I intuitively grasp something that I didn't before, and I'm able to be at peace with my past and finally look forward to the future, which I gather is what happened with you earlier this year.
talesin,
I offer you an alternate scenario
Yeah, it could have been worse, but that doesn't stop me from lamenting what could have been so much better. Really, I was a hopless misfit in the drug scene. A total space-cadet. lol. "Wake up Dan!" was one of the favorite taunts of my dope-smoking "friends". Those were painful times, it's the years between about 17 and 21 that I regret the most.
jwfacts,
You cant force yourself to be the hearty laugher
Yeah, Nietszche's Ubermensch doesn't seem like an ideal that I can live up to. The Kierkegaard option is most appealing, I guess maybe that's the ground I'm most familiar with, having been brought up in a strong Catholic family and then the whole JW thing.
ballistic,
I've taken option 4 which is... waste four years of your life posting on the internet while you decide what to do.
ROFL! Yeah, I'm guilty of this too.
Frannie Banannie,
Dan, you won't regret taking the first path
I wouldn't have guessed you to be the Nietszche type :). I certainly hope that life affords me more experiences to shine instead of retreating to the shadows, as I did with JWism.
Sunnygal:
Your feelings are absolutely normal for a guy your age(...) can HONESTLY tell you that the feelings and emotions you are going thru, which I went thru starting at age 40, are absolutely normal, necessary, and ultimately will help you come into your own personal strength, which will never fade...........this process is indeed a life transformation
The inspiration for this thread was my reading Jung last night (wow, what an interesting life I lead, drinking beer and reading CG Jung on a Saturday night) and the part I was reading had quite a bit to say about the various psychological "crashes" that happen to people my age. And a couple of them really hit me hard. So I know that I'm at a critical point right now, hence this urgent searching for a path out of the inner confusion that I have been in ever since leaving dubland. So you've narrowed it down to a combination of Nietszche and Kierkegaard eh? A volatile mixture!
