So, I had left school and was embarking upon my Theocratic Career as a pioneer…
There was already an established Pioneer Group in the congregation – it consisted of 4 or 5 older unmarried sisters in their late twenties/thirties, and a similar number of just-left-school young brothers. The two groups had practically nothing to do with each other.
Well, now I had a new gang, and I was immediately submerged in the new group culture. Like I said, I had, somewhat naively, imagined that I was about to be elevated into another, higher spiritual plane upon joining this elect group, but I guess it won’t surprise you, JWD readers, to learn that this did not come to pass.
With a shock, with an impact like hitting a brick wall, I encountered the pioneer culture. I started learning the way of the group. And it was, in a word : cynical. Time-wasting, and hours-cheating. The monthly reports were not far short of total fiction – although there were a host of rules about how you could count time, so some pharasaical rationalisation could be made to ease consciences.
Our daily routine involved walking around, calling at not-homes, delivering magazines to our carefully-cultivated portfolio of magazine-route-calls, taking care to never get into any deep or meaningful discussions with them, just in case that that might possibly put them off and kill the golden goose of easy literature placements. There was a requirement in those days that, to keep your regular pioneer status, you must be reporting at least one regular Bible Study each week. The requirement was usually met by the expedient of conducting a Bible study with the young son of Sister “Husband-not-in-the-Truth” who would be looking for a good role model for her lad, just a couple of years younger than you were.
Months went by in a lazy routine where days were spent hanging around in coffee-bars, constantly talking about girls, sex, cars, girls, pop music, sex and girls – pretty much like any group of “worldly” young lads, I suppose. The other thing which ate up huge amounts of our time was practising and perfecting our mimicry of the brothers down the hall. This was really Big with us, and we were fortunate enough to have a few prominent ones with wonderfully mockable mannerisms.
Nobody ever read the Bible, or even – if we could help it – the publications. The Bible was exclusively for meetings, or, maybe for householders. If you could manage it, perhaps, it was good for a three-scripture sermon on the door prior to getting a placement.
There was simply Zero Spirituality in this group, and I was astonished and appalled.
…At first.
With - what in retrospect seems - astonishing speed and ease, I entirely embraced this new way of life. I was, as ever, quick to fit in with my peer-group. In a remarkably short time I came to view my former “model witness” self as being quaint and ridiculous. That way of carrying-on was only for an assembly part!
It was during this whole life-changing transformation that I became aware that there was a new study down the hall – someone who had been at my school - and knew all about me - and was making Fine Progress in the truth. It was a young brother, a few years older than me, called Hillary Step.
I was anxious to get to know him, and learn more about him since all the Elders (the ones who mattered to me anyway, the ones you could genuinely look up to, like The Telegraph Pole, and 2 or 3 others) were all, universally, raving about him.
Hillary was a young man, slim build, somewhat taller than me. He invariably wore black, always a black jacket, black shirt, sweater, black trousers. He had a pleasant face, dark colouring, and very kind and friendly brown eyes.
We exchanged pleasantries down the hall – teachers we had in common, that kind of thing, and gradually I got to know him over the next few months. It was clear that he was something out of the ordinary.
For one thing, he was smart. And I mean very, very, ferociously clever. Now, I thought I was pretty smart and brainy (anyone who knows me will tell you I have never had the slightest problem with low self esteem), but even I had to admit to myself that Hillary was something else. It was refreshing just to talk to him, to hear his opinions on things.
It was clear that the elder who was studying with him was just as proud as can be about him, Hillary certainly was a rising star. I was encouraged to befriend him and help bring him along, but I needed no prodding. Hillary was a fascinating guy.
His friendship came to mean more and more to me as time went by, and as the cancer of doubt started to grow in me.
It wasn’t, at this stage, doubt in the Society or its teachings. It wasn’t doubt in Jehovah - all that would come later. It was the gnawing feeling that I had made the most terrible, colossal mistake in becoming a pioneer. It wasn’t the life I thought it would be, and it wasn’t the life for me. Though I tried hard to smother the knowledge from myself, I knew that my “ministry” was an entirely meaningless sham: a total waste of time.
I’ve been a fool! I should never have left school! No! I’m doing this for Jehovah, because the End is Near! What? Who are you kidding? Even if Armageddon comes tomorrow, you’re dead! And it’s NOT coming tomorrow, is it? You can tell easily enough the way the magazines are backing away from the 1975-thing! You should never have left school! Those teachers were right!
It was at this stage of my life I started to get a recurring dream: It’s a Monday morning, I’m all dressed up in my school uniform and walking through the school gates. I meet up with all my friends, who welcome me like a hero, and I take up my old desk. The teacher calls registration and I answer, I tell her, I’ve changed my mind, and I’m back to finish my exams – I absolutely bask in their approval….and, of course, I wake up.
I had that dream regularly for years. Same dream – for years and years. Do you know, I am now not far off being fifty, I have several kids, some grown up, I am even a Grandfather; I’m a Director of a reasonable-sized software company with hundreds of employees, and I STILL, every once in a while, get that same dream. Did I inflict some permanent psychological scars to myself or what?
I went to a class reunion a few years ago. Of course, all of us were older, heavier and greyer now. Some were losing hair - a couple of the lads were completely bald (remarkably, I’m miraculously youthful-looking , myself!) – I learned that one or two, even, had met with untimely deaths. The world had turned, life goes on….
It is also the case that I can now look back to that school-leaving time and see that the teachers, all much younger people then than I am now, and no doubt acting with the best of intentions, painted a picture for me which was wholly unrealistic. I could have glittering success! Awards and prizes! A fantastic career! Easy acclaim! All I had to do was stay on and continue my studies. Of course, if I had stayed after such wild promises, no doubt - inevitably – there would have been some huge disappointment for me when things didn’t work out to be so spectacularly wonderful. I can see all this now…..
….but try telling that to your sub-conscious.
I mention the whole dream-thing, and even its residual effect on me today, decades later, to illustrate just how displaced I felt – how wrenched away I felt from what should have been my proper life. And I had done it to myself!
Despite, perhaps, outward appearances to the contrary, this was causing me serious misery. Truly, I was getting all screwed up inside. But, at the time, I couldn’t admit any this to myself and I certainly couldn’t discuss it with anyone else.
Least of all with Hillary, my new-found soul-mate with his fledgling faith.
Or at least, not at this stage.
But we’re getting there…
Duncan.
