My book recommendation...
I have referenced this book elsewhere on the site, but I wanted to dedicate a thread to this book.
My recommendation for all X-JW's to help them combat any future mind control is the book:
Under the Influence, by John Goldhammer.
I t focuses on finding your true, inner personality and then living true to it. Becoming part of any group can rob one of their identity, and therefore, rob them of a sense of existence.
Here are a few quotes from the book:
?A ?safety in numbers? approach to life is dangerously flawed; if all the numbers are zeros, people find themselves living in a communal morass ? a collective existential vacuum ? that is not only unsafe, but marks the end of one?s individuality, freedom, and autonomy.?
?There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured.?
?To remain free of collective influences, one needs the perspective of individual autonomy or self-determination, which is the first thing one loses in most groups.?
?If you have been put into your place long enough, you will begin to act like the place?
?Collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible.?
?What the crowd requires is mediocrity of the highest order.?
?When people are said to be in good company, often the reason is simply that they have the more civilized kind of vices; perhaps it is the same as with poisons, the subtlest of which are the most dangerous.?
?The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don?t turn against him; they crush those beneath them.?
?So, let us be alert ? alert in a twofold sense: since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.?
And now the following is a few an excerpt from the book. I believe it is worthwhile to read this because many of us will be able to relate to the feelings at one time in our life, and therefore will see the potential that is inside of us all if we dare look for it?
?After years spent playing our assumed roles, our collective persona ? the mask we wear- becomes more and more disturbing; we being to feel uneasy, disillusioned, restless, empty. A deep, unnamable frustration nibbles away at the soul. We attempt to explain the feelings away by saying it?s just a mid-life crisis (or other outside reason). But in fact we?re having an ?existential crisis?, a deep gnawing dread that somehow we?ve missed living our own life, missed doing some unknown something, which if not discovered and undertaken soon, will vanish forever and become a living death. Thoughts of suicide (because we?ve been killing our own uniqueness) and feelings of ?being lost? arrive like an invading army storming the walls of our consciousness. Now we?re in the hero?s initiation. Collective dragons and monsters surface, beating us down into a morass of collective ?shoulds?, a deadening and mind-numbing drumbeat of how we ?should? live our lives.
What?s happening? The authentic individuality is struggling to be born out of collective dominance. The battle has begun and the stakes are enormous. One?s very soul is at stake- one?s existential fundamental prerogative to live life as a singular, unique expression. That is our obligation, to live our own life, a life if unlived, becomes dead and stagnant, a pollutant in the cosmos, a place without meaning and reason to exist.
The hero, beaten down by the collective, wearing the leaden armor of institutionalized systems, must now step off of the treadmill, and resurrect (rescue) the Self. Of course, the collective responds to such ?selfishness? with viscous attacks. Mustering all their forces, groups bombard the hero with doubt, fear, and especially guilt ? guilt that supposedly stems from ?doing one?s own thing?. In fact, only when we do ?our own thing? do we live a life that has meaning and value for the whole. We add meaningful value to any group only through our distinctiveness, not our sameness.
Having survived the collective armies, our hero returns from slaying the collective dragon, empowered with new found strength and courage. We now have access to real treasure, and that hard-won treasure is our unique gift that has survived the ?valley of the shadow of death?.?
Thanks for reading this.
I hope it helps at least one person out there who feels ?lost?.
Best wishes,
Paul [Winston.]