Lessons in retaining your true self in the face of relentless psychological onslaught
by designs 8 Replies latest social current
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daniel-p
So I see they're letting anyone post these days....
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Terra Incognita
Designs; it looks like you were going to post some text in your comment box. If so, it doesn't appear.
Geronimo
to U.S.A.
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Broken Promises
Pity there's no text, I was interested in the subject matter.
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RADHESYAM
this was a promising topic
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designs
Sorry everyone, in the strange world of websites I can write a topic from my home computer but the Text doesn't appear. Everything works fine from the computer at my Office...go figure, if you know what the solution is please let me know I'm severly computer challenged
Anyway the issues that Cultures face as human history advances seem relevant to our own arc as xJWs. How do we discover who we genuinely are as a person, what parts of our past do we want to retain and what parts do we want to shed. How far do we go with Assimilation into the Culture we find ourselves apart of. For me I have become very politically active beyond just voting, others of you may choose not to vote. Some choose another Religion to join and others become agnostic or atheist or naturalist. The Apache or Chiricahua Nation is a study in one Culture's choices for survival and self identity. Faced with Assimilation or extention they fought a protracted war of many levels, spiritual and physical.
Terra- thanks for the photos, you captured the essence of the struggle quite well
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J. Hofer
isn't a national self-identity the exactly opposite of self-identity?
what if some apache girl finds her self identity as a queer punk rocker? is that against her roots or nature or what?
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designs
J-Hofer
I think they have cross currents, even Nomadic Tribes developed a strong sense of who they were as they developed customs and religious practices etc.. And you are going to see struggles and challenges within those Groups like you would in any Culture. Some one will assert themselves into a leadership role or a family line can be predominate within a Group. How that relates to our journey I think is that we were routinely subjected to a genericism, certain ones rose to break that mold or break away from the Watchtower Culture altogether. So many times I hear the same expression from XJWs, 'I was suffocating in that culture and needed to break free'. What we found to our pleasant surprise is that we were naturally nice people and ready to do good things in our communites which flew in the face of what we had been taught would happen to us.
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wobble
I have read Angie Debo's book about N.A.I's and the disgusting treatment meted out to them by all the invaders and theives of their livlihood, and land. The Wild West was certainly that !
Self identity is not something that troubles me, labels that people wish to attach to me do. For example, I hate to be called a"Brit", I had the temerity to be born in England, so if you must hang a national label on me, I am English.
The word "British" and the epithet "Brit" are associated with too many massacres, murders, and acts of theivery etc. etc. for me to want to be connected in any way.
I don't mind being called an Englishman, after all God is an Englishman.
As to "self-identity", I am who I am, despite my birth or where I live, I feel no great nationalistic pride, but I do all I can for the community, as I would wherever I lived in the world.
