Like marmot, I was first introduced to the concept of the JW paradise as a child, and was greatly enamored by it. But I love to read, go to restaurants, and do a lot of things that I never saw depicted in the Paradise drawings. I was also a drama queen, and, at some point, had to face the fact that life would be pretty bland in that food-and-festivity paradise. There weren't even any gourmet chefs. Everything grew on trees and induced goofy grins.
There was a TV commercial (perhaps a public service message) that started out with a picture of someone relaxing in a natural setting while a voice in the background was narrating an account of how peaceful and serene this place was. Then, a more strident voice chimed in with "but REAL worlds are different!" Then there was a spiel about some kind of health problem or other problem that needed to be solved. This TV blurb set me to thinking. I was a closet reader, and I read The Women's Room, which I call "The Feminist Manifesto" by Marilyn French. There was a group of college women in this book who would get together and try to imagine perfect worlds. In the end, there was always a hidden flaw that they uncovered, so they gave up on the idea of a perfect world. Wow! The book that helped me to muster the courage to just leave was Your Erroneous Zones, by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I was struck especially be a description of a scene from the Russian book, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (sp?) in which Ivan is asking himself whether his whole life might be a lie, and musing on what he needed to do to get a real, authentic life. Powerful!