Old people are allowed to be grumpy,eccentric and outspoken. I think of the old-timer JWs in my local congregation during my childhood and youth. Some of them were very critical of “the Brothers” but the Presiding Overseers and later, the elders, tolerated their ravings, seeing them as still loyal but eccentric.
i even recall a Watchtower article or two in the late 1960s that talked about the disappointment many older ones felt as this system of things wasn’t showing any signs of imminent collapse.
Now some fifty years later - and the end still hasn’t come. Those who were elderly back then have all died, including my JW grandparents .
I’m now older - of course! - but not as old as my grandparents when they died . I like to imagine that current elderly JWs like those of my youth can still be outspoken and dysregulated in manner. I like to think when they get together and younger ones are not within earshot they say, “Hey, this new fangled JW org is nothing but bullshit.”
The penny drops - but way too late to do anything constructive about it. Yet another generation of elderly JWs bites the dust realising far, far too late that their lives have been wasted, wasted, wasted.
You spend your short life urgently putting Kingdom first, sacrificing your own legitimate needs, doing without and then you die.
I thank my intact brain that I got out in my young adulthood and don’t have to live my final years with regrets, disappointments and disillusion.
If you were an elderly JW getting together with other elderly JWs for a catch-up, what would your topic(s) of choice be?