A very interesting topic. Part of the reason we're all here on these sites is to share our similarities and compare ourselves to others who have gone through the same things seeking the reassurance that we are not complete "freaks" after all. I've noticed that their are several traits that Watch Tower mind control commonly produces in their victims. One of the most troublesome for me has been the sense that I should use up all my resources in the here and now because there will be no tomarrow, or future as such, even though I know intellectually that there is really no impending Armegeddon I have just never learned to emotionally accept the need for insurance or retirement planning. Luckily I've fallen into jobs which make some provision for these future needs but I have no interest in expanding upon them nor do worry about what would happen if I left my job. I have no investments outside of Social Secruity and my manditory employment retirement plan. I carry no life insurance except the plan through my job and my(never been JW) girl friend is horrified by my lack of concern in these regards. Intellectually I know such things are important but I have no enthusiasm or interest in acting upon my rational knowledge. I just float through life as if I'm going to live forever and that the culture I'm immersed in is very temporary and unimportant except when it provides my immediate needs. I know such feelings are irrational and even dangerous but that's how I feel. After years of Watch Tower brain washing is it really any wonder I feel this way?
I finally finished a University degree(I had an awful time with spelling and algebra thanks to my JW attitude in High School) which was the first real acknowledgement of a rational and realistic goal with any future in mind. I have yet to put this degree to good use. I'm now approaching middle age and still have no house. I want children yet have never married nor do I have any practical plans to fullfill this desire because it feels like I have lots of time to wory about these things, yet, intellectually I know I don't. I will be an old man by the time my children are teenagers even if I had them right now. I have no savings and had an horrendous debt load before declaring bankruptcy a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, I feel wonderful since leaving the "Truth"...I mean Borg over 20 years ago but it still has an effect even now,especially in areas where human nature easily and naturally wants to go.
The Watch Tower knows how to tap into our basest emotions and instincts and living in the here and now the way an animal naturally does is encouraged by the "End of the World" mindset combined with "I'm going to live forever in a healthy young body". We JW's filled in our intellectual/cultural need to postpone gratification and practice self disciplin with the whole routine sacrifice of our lives as JW's because this was our investment/insurance plan, but we were encouraged in "worldly" matters to live as if there were no tomarrow and that's easy to do and I have continued to do this even though I know better now. After a full day of JW routine who has the energy to have "worldly" concerns anyway?
I've been lucky health wise but how long can that last? I'm unprepared for the aging process and the expenses and problems this will bring as I inevitably will fall apart. I watch uncles and aunts who were healthy and vigerous just 5 years ago sicken and die, icily reminding me that I must soon follow whether I'm emotionally ready or not. I really feel that as JW's we were all further away from the grim reality of death in a way that non-JW's find hard to understand. It is natural to put death out of our minds and "worldly" folks do this too but the WT Society takes this natural ability and stretches it to its outermost limit. We really believed we would never have to grow old and die because the "End" was always so near and the horrors we would live through, including seeing the deaths of non-believing family and friends, seemed like a realistic and even "fair" price to pay for such a reward. It's strange how this horrible price and the mass murder of the other billions made this dream of everlasting life all the more real, bypassing our natural skepticism because it didn't seem too good to be true. It brings to mind the horrible price that most Germans were willing to pay in order to establish the paradise-like Nazi Reich promised by Hitler if they just worked harder, sacrificed more, and had faith that all the nasty extermination programs and destruction would get them there. Communism uses the same tactics to get to their "Worker's Paradise" so there are victims of this kind of thinking everywhere I guess. The desire for a better life in utopian paradises, greed really, makes us insane and irrational in a slow imperceptable way that pushes common sense out of the way leaving a path for madness. Just rambling a bit. What do you all think?