We are all products of our upbringing to more of an extent than most of us are probably aware.
Those of us brought up in the WTS mindset have to admit that we have been affected by it.
I, myself, am surprised at the effect it had on me, I sometimes find that I have been molded into the mindset and even though I have discarded the WTS trappings, the framework remains to be used be new beliefs just as harmfully.
Unless the actual framework, the mold, can be broken; we run the risk of just stumbling from one disastrous belief system to the next.
Being a zealot can be so appealing, but it is just a part of the framework that props up the WTS mindset. I have been guilty of it.
As the very glimmerings of disenchantment began faintly glowing within me, I found that redirecting my considerable zealotry helped me to ignore my misgivings for a time. I redirected my stubborn certainty into computer OS bigotry.
I became an Amiga fanatic, devoted to that platform with a fervor replicating that of a WTS drone. No other type of computer was even a 'real' computer, those who left the Amiga camp were dead to me, and there was no shortcoming within the Amiga I could not rationalize away, hell, EVERONE should have an Amiga, I thought.
Right now.
Of course, then Commodore went belly up and the Amiga lost developer support, extinction faced my quasi-pseudo savior-figure and I drifted. Then I saw an infomercial on the television.
Macintosh, the second coming of the PC Christ!
It wasn't long before I threw myself wholeheartedly into evangelizing for the Mac. Yes, they actually called it that. I would try to sell a Mac to anyone I met. If I was going to the therapy pool, I would talk the driver on the way to get a Mac, convince a couple people there at the pool, then sell one to the poor sap that drove me home. My friends actually referred to me as the 'Mac-Pope'
Ironically, I was wildly more successful bringing people into fold of Mac Faithful than I ever was converting people to the craptown. I guess really believing in something down to the center of your bones can make a difference.
Not surprisingly, Apple encouraged such Mac Evangelism, but not by compensating any of us. If I had gotten even a 5% commission of the brand new Macs I moved while hanging out at CompUSA, I could buy a sports car.
By this time I had faded out of the Jews and pimping the Mas was all I did, I was disabled, in physical therapy. and had nothing but time, and I spent that time lavishly. As if I never felt I could do enough to be 'good enough.'
Good enough for what, I never figured out.
Then, I began feeling misgivings about the Mac and it was terribly frightening. My wall of false certainty had to come down and Apple was engaging in such wholesale ass-holery that it was made easier for me.
I mean, OS-X was no OS-9, and it had a bunch of features that had previously been 'evil' due to being very Microsoft-like but were now 'o,k' heck, even Bill Gates was on board and being all chummy with Saint Steve, New light flashing up all around and it unsettled me to my core.
Each new Macworld keynote brought new awesome features, but only if you bought a new Mac to get em, and OS-X required you to learn a whole new OS, so I thought, 'ok, if I gotta start again, why should it automatically be with you jerks?'
So, with my involvement with the WTS years behind me, I began to let go of my zealotry and widen out.
I broke the mold. Its just a PC, not a religion. I went through something similar related to the type of music I listen to and the brands of automobile I preferred. I only got over it when I realized all these foolish convictions over what amount to morally neutral-consumer choices were related and had their root in the WTS mindset I thought I had abandoned!
Now, I use whatever type of PC I want, it's just a tool, and I watch for that zealous fire rising up over some non-consequential thing, and stamp it out.
It's scary how your formative years spent within such a mentally sick mindset can affect you sometimes beyond your own realization.
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Roller