I have bad CO stories and good CO stories. This one is about a reasonably understanding CO. Long in advance of the CO's, visit another 'sister' and I had purchased expensive, non-refundable tickets to see William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy live (they were doing a series of shows in which they reminisced about their Star Trek experiences). The event was on a Saturday night. Not a usual JW meeting day. For some particular reason that I have forgotten, the cong. scheduled the CO's mid-week talk on that Saturday evening. She and I spoke to the CO about the conflict, and he said to go to the event. He must have been a Star Trek fan! He told us it would be OK to attend his talk at a nearby congregation as a substitute. We went to the Star Trek event, but we never did go to the make-up CO talk. Anyway, it was kinda nice to see a CO who was trying to be a good sport about our conflict of events.
truman
JoinedPosts by truman
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42
Life On Hold: The CO Visit Week
by sacolton indid anyone have to cancel a vacation trip because it was on co visit week?
i still don't get why the co visit was as if god himself was in town.
is it kinda like if the pope were to visit with catholics?.
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4
JWs and the Arts: The Muse Executed at Armageddon?
by truman inthe recent thread about some jw's reaction to the movie avatar made me flash back to some of my own misgivings when i was a jw about the wts's relationship to the arts.. .
jws are always ready to denounce any work of the human imagination that hints at ideas outside their narrow dogma.
movies whose titles have hindu etymology and which feature alien blue pagans are only the most recent.
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truman
The recent thread about some JW's reaction to the movie Avatar made me flash back to some of my own misgivings when I was a JW about the WTS's relationship to the arts.
JWs are always ready to denounce any work of the human imagination that hints at ideas outside their narrow dogma. Movies whose titles have Hindu etymology and which feature alien blue pagans are only the most recent. The JW condemnation of the arts covers movies, TV, literature (they hate the Harry Potter books), video games, music (not just 'death metal' but also some classical music), paintings, and even the plastic arts. Anything that examines or represents what they consider pagan, 'false' Christian, or worldly notions or beliefs.
As a JW, I sometimes wondered what would become of the humanities and the arts in the New System TM , once the 'world' was no longer there to produce works of true artistic fire. Would the artistic Muse die at Armageddon? After all, even that ancient metaphor refers to the activities of 'false' gods. Would all art take on the cartoonish emptiness of Watchtower and Awake illustrations? Would everything have a sort of slick sterility characteristic of most state-sanctioned Soviet art (which allowed only party-line expression)?
Would we even be able to see any art of the past, or would the great works of human history become prohibited? Could no one read Shakespeare anymore because his plays are full of bawdy humor and raucous behavior? What would Shakespeare be allowed write in the New System, since one would presume him to be resurrected? Watchtower doggerel of the type that makes the round of JW email these days?
These possibilities made me very sad as a JW-to think that humanity would lose its connection to great art, much of which is born out of the desire to find insight into the paradox and pain of existence, or to transcend it. If there were no more tears and no more pain, would there be no more art? Perhaps that loss could be tolerated if perfection were really available, but my fear was that the loss of art would be real, while the gain of perfection would be as about as genuine as the JW's present 'spiritual paradise'.
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27
Raising Chickens!
by jgnat ini had another great idea the other day; raise chickens!
in this rapidly changing recessionary world, i cast my mind back to stories of the depression.
farmers fared better than urban dwellers.
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truman
I have a backyard flock of seven hens. My fridge is full of eggs, really great-tasting eggs.
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The Truman Show
by slimboyfat ini know this has been discussed before, and it's the inspiration for mickey mouse's avatar.... i watched the truman show last night, and the parallels with life as a jw struck me.
truman thinks his world is real, but it's an illusion, part of an elaborate hoax.
the clues are all around him that things are not quite right: his distant wife; running into his dead father in the street; the strange messages he picks up on his car radio talking about him and watching his movements.
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truman
As you can see from my screen name, The Truman Show is a very meaningful piece of art for me. I certainly understand your point about those who see clearly the WTS's false reality but keep assenting to the illusion being seen as contributing to its perpetuation. I hesitate though to be too harsh because each person has to deal with a unique situation and the heroic renunciation may not be what they are able to carry out.
One thing I do see about the situation with Truman in the movie: There everyone except Truman was 'in' on the illusion. Only Truman was a victim of the manipulation. Only he was subject to the implanted fears and the deliberate psychological manipulation, the lies. Such is not the case with the JWs. In Watchtower world, the so-called apostate, closeted or open, is the one who has broken the illusion, while those around him or her are still spellbound.
For the one whose eyes are opened to the false reality they have lived in, there is a powerful parallel between The Truman Show and waking up from the WT dream. It is a journey of self-discovery and self-actualization. That is what struck me so deeply when I viewed the movie. Truman's desire to grow overcomes the power of the dream, one far more pleasantly constructed than the one that JWs live in. For me, leaving the WTS was a matter of 'grow or die'.
As for the other residents of Truman's artificial world, his exit meant little more for them than the need to find a new job. This is where the big difference comes in. For those left behind in the Kingdom Hall, the investment is much deeper. Much more than a job is at stake. Whole ego structures and families' lives are entangled with WT thinking.
My observation is that it is the rare case in which mental captives can be freed by others pointing out their chains. If someone stood up at a JW convention and shouted out that the whole thing is a lie, even if twenty or thirty people did it, what would happen? I think some 'apostates' have tried in the past. The JWs have strategies in place to neutralize such actions, both on a physical level (burly 'brothers' who usher the shouter out of the building) and on a psychological one. Mostly the reaction to such declarations seems to be defensiveness and clinging tighter to the belief system, congratulating themselves on escaping Satan's treachery.
In the film, Truman had to gather the inner strength to ask the forbidden questions, to transcend his fears, to confront the unknown outside the swaddling world he lived in. I am not saying that 'awakened' JWs cannot help captive ones to escape; they can, and many have. But I do think there must be something inside a person demanding freedom before it can be effectively embraced. That desire is a seed in all humans, but the growth rate varies.
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Just don't know what to do.
by Weeping ini disagree on some doctrine with the organisation.
yet, i also know these are the kindest,most loving people on earth.
such people must be guided by the holy spirit.
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truman
Weeping:
You say that you were out 'in the world' during your 20s and returned in 1977. That would seem to put you at about the same age as me, the mid-fifties. This is a time of life when people seem to reach a crossroads of sorts. Some decide to hunker down and live the rest of their lives in the same quiet desperation they have been living for decades because to change seems too difficult or threatening. Others examine the foundations of their lives and see the need for growth.
I think you should consider carefully how productive it is to evaluate your future on the basis of what you experienced as a twenty-something 'rebellious' JW. What you describe of your life with drugs and Satanists is not typical of life outside the Watchtower organization. Such a scenario is not the only alternative to clinging to JW beliefs that have obviously ceased to serve you.
JW thinking sees issues in only two dimensions: Either one is a loyal servant of Jehovah or one is cast into outer darkness with the Satan worshippers. This is a false dichotomy. Those are not the only two options. Sometimes young JWs, unprepared to deal with the pressures of life outside the mind control, or striving to carve out an independent identity, do behave in extreme or personally destructive ways when they leave the controls of JW life. But you are not a twenty-year-old. You are a mature adult who has a mind and a sense of moral ethics that are your personal possession-not the property of the Watchtower Society. Neither is your faith in God or the Bible a property of the JWs. Whether you keep that or not is up to you. 'The world' has no agenda to convert you to atheism.
I am struck by your assertion that "the world is a dangerous place" and "there is no love outside the organization." These sentiments are the thoughts of those who weekly program you to fear anything outside the tight boundaries of JW thinking and life. These stock JW phrases are thought-stopping mantras that keep the bound self from seeking answers to questions that seem too dangerous to ask. Yes, there are dangers out in the world, but they are the same dangers everyone alive faces. And as for there being no love outside the organization, that is certainly not my experience. Many here, I am sure, will tell you that they have seen far more love from so-called worldly people that they have from JWs.
You have taken a step. You have reached out to post on a board where you can ask any question and have any opinion, something you cannot do in the WT Organization. I remember nine years ago, when I first posted here, scared to pieces about what I would face as I began to look at life outside the confines of JW thinking. What I have found is a path to personal growth which I could not have imagined I would ever achieve. Just keep talking, listening, and thinking.
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12
advice needed on speech recognition software
by quietlyleaving ini'm looking into voice recognition software.
has anyone here tried any.
the only one i've heard of is dragon software.
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truman
I have Dragon 10, and I have had good success with it. You can get it from Tiger Direct online for a pretty good discount. I do recommend getting a better headset than the one that comes with it though.
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That doesn't sound cultish at all...
by Mickey mouse in.... "this is an unofficial group for fans of the watchtower.
keep all comments upbuilding and encouraging please.
no debates or questionings or criticisms are allowed.
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truman
Interesting in the quotation from the facebook page (above in highlighted yellow) where the JW who wrote it credits Jehovah with protecting the "brothers and sisters" when so many non-JWs died......
S/he says that help for the earthquake victims is on the way via rescue workers from Hawaii and California. But what is the chance that many or any of those rescue workers are JW's? The rescue workers, furthermore, will not be selecting who receives their protection and aid based on religious affiliation as Jehovah apparently does.
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truman
I have read several of his books, but read Blood Meridian first. It is a masterpiece, a terrible masterpiece. I read it with a small group of college students who were doing summer discussions of several books. Here are some of my thoughts on Blood Meridian from that time:
In reading this novel, I thought that I should keep continually in mind that McCarthy is telling a story on many levels at once. The Kid does not have much history that we are privy too. He seems to have been born to trouble, from what we do know. His origin is in death; his mother died in childbirth. We are also told that although his father was a schoolteacher, but the Kid is uneducated. His ignorance fosters his innate taste for mindless violence. The very next sentence sets the mythological stage: "All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man" (that latter phrase is from a poem by Wordsworth). One way to read that is by viewing humanity as a gradually maturing entity. Whatever 'man' we are now (or at the time of the story) is the offspring of the 'child' that has come before. And that 'child' is carelessly bloodthirsty-as you point out, not killing to survive, but out of some instinct or for sport.
Yes, I agree, the Kid represents some aspect of humanity that lives from a perspective of instinct, yet at times, it seems that the Kid does have a glimmer of something beyond that. All of them do at times (Glanton has a dog that he treats as a pet-but so did Hitler). Yet those sparks die quickly in the life they lead. If I remember correctly, nearly every one of the men in the gang had some kind of 'normal' life before their mutual murderous spree (with the exception of the Judge, who seems to be the Devil incarnate). They have in them both the animal instinct of tooth and claw, and some higher form of humanity-as do we all. Their environment and the gathering weight of their actions reinforce the former and smother the latter.
I guess it is difficult to dispute what is pointed out in the Judge's analysis of raw human nature-that chaos, conflict, and brutality dwell in its core. I might quote the philosopher Hobbes that without the Leviathan of government, natural life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The experiences of the Glanton gang certainly fit that description. The Judge says that "war is god", that it is "the truest form of divination". It is a test of wills in which the ultimate Will is compelled to choose a winner, thereby forcing a unity of existence. I say that by this measure, war is not god, but a challenge to god. It seeks to wrench an answer from the universe about the meaning of life, even if that answer is death.
On the other hand, I personally do not subscribe to this interpretation of war and its meaning. While it is undeniable that humans are prone to fighting and killing one another, I think it within our capacity to transcend that. If we need to take a Nietzschean view that moral law as "an invention of mankind to disenfranchise the powerful in favor of the weak", so be it. Maybe that is a stage of the journey. If I had to believe that life as depicted in "Blood Meridian" was the fulsomeness of the human spirit, I would sooner see us all die. It is that repellent. The characters' actions were for nothing but blood lust, the glee of destruction. It is a truism that destruction and construction are inextricably intertwined, and that every act of construction is built upon a previous act of destruction in some manner. Every great civilization is built upon the ruins of the one before. Change is the nature of the universe. But in the case of the Glanton gang, the destructive impulse has run wild. It is the extreme, not the norm. And yet the world is overrun with extremes.
At times, as I read this book, I was hard pressed to avoid the conclusion that McCarthy in some way is justifying the actions of these horrific episodes. Perhaps, he is only describing them. I saw the way in which the gang turned upon those who dispatched them in the first place as a warning: When we choose to employ violence to address our problems, we attract to ourselves what we send forth. It matters not whether our own hands do the killing or we send out 'human' tools as our agents. I think this can easily be seen in recent history. And yet, over and over, we wonder why we are being attacked by others. (By 'we', I mean individually and collectively, not any particular group). The Mexicans who charged the Glanton gang to bring back scalps for pay thought they could do unto others with impunity, but is was not so. But they did not set the whole thing in motion did they? They were only reacting to attacks by the Indians, who were reacting to the encroachment of invaders to their land, who were reacting to something else, and so on. Where does the reacting end? Is this what the epilog is saying?
My biggest question in the story is why did the Judge come back to kill the Kid, after so many years? Was it because he had made a life for himself after the killing? Does his death refer to the fact that no matter whether we are peaceful or warlike, we all face death?
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For those of you attending college now (or at least recently have)....
by 2pink inplease remind me what the work load is like.
i went to college and took a few classes in my early 20s, and found it all very easy, but i had a lot less responsibility back then so i think my perception was skewed.
now i am 31, married, 2 kids, soon to be 3. i work very part time from home.
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truman
I just graduated with my BA and am entering my second semester as a grad student. I agree with mostlydead. Take fewer classes. 12-15 units (4-to-5 classes @3 units per class) is considered full-time and will keep you very busy with reading, studying for exams, and writing papers. Four classes is a good doable workload. At this rate, you may take a little longer to get where you want to be in terms of an advanced degree, but you will have a better chance of getting there than if you burn yourself out at the beginning with an overloaded schedule.
One thing to think about for course-load, many professors make the big assignments in a course due near the end of the semester. That can leave you with 3-4-5-6-? big papers to write or projects to wrangle into presentability all at once. The looming deadlines can induce a state of desperation, panic, and depression.
My observation about who completes educational goals and who does not is this: s/he who perseveres succeeds. I am past the child rearing stage, but I think this applies to most all students. It is all about pacing oneself. School is a marathon, not a sprint.
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7
What's Your Favorite James Darren tune?
by cameo-d inany body remember mash potato?
the jerk?.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp18utq_u6i.
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truman
I think what you describe can be explained through excellent health care, cosmetic surgery, access to a good make-up artist, and flatteringly lit photography. And yes, those things are reserved for the stars, in a manner of speaking. Nevertheless, although James Darren still looks pretty darn good, he has aged from his days as a teen heart throb. I pulled up google images on him, and there he is with gray hair and wrinkles. Sexy ones, but definitely present.
Did you hear about the flap in the UK about an airbrushed photo of Twiggy that made her look about 25 when she is several decades older? They were using it to sell cosmetics. But seriously, the images of stars are more real than the people they represent, and images can be ageless.