Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Dennis On: "This is For All The Lonely People..."




This is For All The Lonely People...






Dennis Diehl - EzineArticles Expert AuthorI suppose it would be easy to label the downside of breaking free of religious dogma, drama, misinformation and imaginary outcomes as "the Dark Side" of the process, but perhaps it is simply "The Other Side."  



Being out of the group, while liberating, can be one of the most lonely journeys in life you will ever go on.  While there are great gains to be recognized, there are also many losses.  We lose most of our friends who were friends because of the tie that bound us.  To sing, "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds," in a crowd of thousands where we were under the illusion we were all bound together in the same one grand thing, was always emotional for me.  To sing, "God be with you til we meet again," as the last hymn at a festival site before heading back home to the real way it was would leave me teary yet hopeful.  


Just feeling safer knowing so many like minded people all over the world made living in the world easier somehow.  There was order.  Be here, be there, do this, do that set a framework upon which one could build the illusion of safety and harmony.  I can't say I don't miss it. 


I have always found that speaking one's feelings and sharing the stuff that lies deep within, while sometimes risky, most often is far from it.  All my ministerial career (is that the right word?) being ahead of my time, saying what my ministers friends often only thought or sharing thoughts and feelings deeply on a very practical level, were common observations about my "style."   It was not a style.  It was just me.

But what I found over and over again was that I was not alone in these thoughts, questions, observations or realizations.  Everyone was thinking on these things and just not sayin' nuttin'!  Oh sure, you had the oblivious and the suck ups, but most people simply sat on their feelings and doubts, or their hopes and dreams. Everyone down deep feels what we all feel and think we alone have cornered the market on that feeling, disappointment, loss or recognition.  It simply is not so.

 
I want to relate to all of us who just under the surface and for all our bluster, information, realizations and observations are simply lonely in this life.  One does not have to be alone to be lonely.  You truly can be lonely in a crowd.  I imagine many COG members understand this.  They stay because there is no emotional place to go and yet they are lonely to talk or express themselves or even lonely to disagree for once and not feel threatened by the higher ups that seem threatened by not all speaking the same one thing.  Speaking the same one thing is not the same as speaking the same right thing.

So let me begin. I consider this a form of personal therapy and yet know that the vast majority of us all completely understand it for ourselves.  While risky at times, self disclosure and sharing the stuff of life is still better than keeping it inside where eventually what eats you...eats you!

I have honestly never been more lonely in my life as I find myself now.  That loneliness has been costly.  It ruins relationships and sometimes makes one look in all the wrong places for a fix, no matter how temporary.  Being lonely is painful.  For me it causes both a conscious and subconscious anxiety.  It gives one too much time to ruminate about bad choices, good choices gone bad and what may or may not happen in the future.  Sometimes  you find yourself sitting alone in the dark with your dog talking to it and saying dumb stuff like, "well, here we are Chewy. Just you and me. Who would have guessed?"

One of the lessons lonely leaves you with is that if you depends on others to make you happy or give you meaning, the Karma Fairy will have to make a visit and straighten you out on that.  I have deeply depended on others to make me feel fulfilled, alive and loved.  The problem is that if we allow others, even jobs and churches to "make us happy," or to fill that void left by loneliness, they have the power to take it away overnight, and they do.  It's why I study the fine art of acceptance and forgiveness now.  These are two things I never had to do when everything was just fine.

While I recognize that "If you understand, then things are as they are.  If you don't understand then things are as they are," is true, it still is a lonely road when what is sucks or appears to at the moment.

Loneliness shows.  It manifests in the inability to get out and fix it because at times we have to be careful what we wish for.  Loneliness has made me moody and distracted from necessary pursuits.  It has also left me very distrustful and at times with the feeling of just killing time  until it's over.  Loneliness gives too much time to the critical voice in the head that loves to rub it in.

Perhaps Church and group think only mask loneliness?  Maybe one can be alone in a crowd.  Yes, of course they can.  I was often lonely as a minister because who do share expanded thinking with in the COG?  That was always a great formula for something bad to happen to you.  I find the same problem here with the school I teach at.  They don't listen and just as I could see with the Church and now again with this school, if they don't they won't be here in a couple years.  Is it so hard to see you can't disturb, disaffect, disillusion and dis-everything everyone and expect anything but a negative outcome?



Anyway, back to lonely.  One of the reasons I am lonely is because, try as I might, I still feel anger at a few specific life situations and people that is taking way too long to dissipate.  I accept responsibility for those I angered and this often leads me to tell myself that I don't deserve to be angry because I have angered others.  You know, Karma Fairy. But that thinking does not help.  In fact, it leaves me in limbo.  In my soul I know that anger serves me in no positive way. It changes nothing and like loneliness , shows too often and poisons the punch.  Intellectualizing about it doesn't release it anymore than sitting home alone cures loneliness, or at least takes the edge off.


Actually, perhaps the whole world is one big lonely planet.  We buy stuff to distract  us, eat ourselves into comfort and play endless video games into the wee hours of the morning to stop thinking about it.  "Gamers" are now an official cause of broken relationships and blood clots in the legs leading to stroke.   Distraction is not a cure for loneliness.  It merely postpones having to come to terms with what really makes one content.  "Happiness" seems like an illusion to me.  It is why, when sitting through the few services I could stomach in the new WCG, and happy singing and happy hand waving was introduced, I felt sick to my stomach.  It did not make me "happy."   Being "happy" about Jesus was just not going to work with who I am, what I know and where I want to be.  I guess lonely is going to go with my kind of temprement.  Actually I was told as about the only prophecy ever given me that was 100% true,

"Dennis, you outgrow your boxes quickly. Most people never look at the box they were born in.  You have two choices.  You can get back in the box you came from and make everyone happy. However, you will be on antidepressants the rest of your life.  Or you can leave the box you are now in, as you actually have.  But YOU WILL GO ALONE."

Truer words were never spoken to me.  Of all thing then...I had a feeling to turn around and look behind me in the grocery store awhile back.  You know, that feeling you get when you feel someone is looking at you.  It was my counselor who I had not seen since the day he told me of my journey.  He looked awful. He looked sad and very very lonely.  He perked up when I related how I had told most of the planet of his observation and that he had done many some good.  It was an odd experience.

Well, between "shut the hell up,"  (spoken by lonely pain bodies I know:), and this having the potential of getting too long, I admit I am very lonely.  While I will never give my brain to group think again, or feel comfy in a church of uneducated Bible readers who know the answer to everything, it's still lonely. The holidays don't seem to help and yet I find it doesn't seem to help many.  Everyone is scattered and we all are caught up in our dramas, hopes, dreams, fears and realities.  Perhaps the way we think or view things is our worst enemy.  I have to admit, I am not much of a one to apply "the Secret," and get the Jaguar of my dreams.   Simple works best for me.

So, this is for all the lonely people, thinking that time has passed them by.  This is for all the people in my past who came to me and sharing their own loneliness whether in a crowd or  at home alone.    I get it now!  I do understand. 


We used to say, "Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is high."  Perhaps "Experience is the ONLY teacher. Everything else is hearsay."



Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a technologist exploring science, to me, the world is a wonderland. There are new discoveries every day.

Having high structural visualization and extreme curiosity about everything, I find that there is little time for self-pity. In fact, there's very little time to explore all the wonders I'd like to get to.

I haven't yet organized everything I have from the last three moves.

Beyond that, I certainly would like to understand thoroughly the world of 3D printing: Making real objects in the real world using a printer which "prints" them one layer at a time until they are finished as parts and fabrications to use in what ever other project there is.

I still have thousands of 35mm slides from my brother as he took over 50 years ago (some of which you have seen on the cover of The Plain Truth and The Good News) -- they need to be digitized. I haven't gotten to them yet because I'm still working with Artisteer, Xara and Microsoft Studio (along with Microsoft Expression Web) to explore the creation of web sites and all the wonders of technology that can be packed into them. Certainly, the challenge of populating the websites with material is challenging as well.

I find that when I become involved with people -- that's where the frustration, pain and (shall I say it) even "loneliness" crop up -- as if I even have that much to relate to among other "peers". For the most part, they don't exist.

Oh, it was fun to meet and talk to an IBM Mainframe z/OS developer at Kellog, Idaho this past few months. He told me about the experiences he had writing some of the operating system modules I used as a Systems Programmer. It was fascinating to meet one of the ten most brilliant men I've met and it was edifying.

Also edifying is the next door neighbor with extreme structural skills ex-military. I appreciated the example he sets. You should see the tools he has and how well he can use them. We traded knowledge on technology. It has been fascinating to relate to the machinist ex Marine upstairs who works as a garbage man for the City of Tacoma. We traded stories of the political corruption of our times in local government.

Well, yes, I can see how it can get kind of lonely for those addicted to other people. Perhaps the problem is not having been in a cult with people who were unnaturally forced to share a nutty belief system and then have it break down when people suddenly found that they didn't really have anything in common except the abuse of said cult. People sitting next to one another for decades didn't really speak mind to mind: They varied wildly and held no real common ground -- it was all artificial.

Well, as you know, artificial stuff usually isn't that good for you and weaning off an addiction to it can be mighty painful.

I would say that (and especially after considering Take Back Your Life) plunging into the future with new and viable interests of things that are real in your life, leaving the ersatz behind, would be the most effective strategy for having a fulfilling life.

Or... you could watch television and go to 3D movies. There's a new season of White Collar coming up and I can hardly wait. Immortals 3D was interesting, but frankly Zeus sucks.

Allen C. Dexter said...

I know the lonely feeling all too well. Finding Phyllis, another free thinker, did much to cut down on my feelings of loneliness. We share everything and have similar inerests and sources of fulfillment.

I went online to Meetup and advertised on Craig's List to find others of similar mindset in my area and got in touch with the free thinkers of Flagstaff and Prescott. There are a couple of others right here in Cottonwood and I will be going to a get-together tomorrow afternoon in Sedona to discuss future plans for our fledgling group.

There is a book I'm currently reading that's posted free on this site: http://www.jovialatheist.com/.
I find it quite interesting and think you would also find it interesting if you're not already aware of it.

Homer said...

Dennis, last night while you were writing this post (I suppose you wrote it then since you posted it at 10:31pm) I was writing an e-mail to a friend with whom I discussed a few of my thoughts yesterday about the things I have learned during the past 7 years of my 40+ year association with the COG. I still attend every few weeks to see and fellowship with those that I bonded with during the past 22 years where I presently live. I think I shocked a few of those folks with some of my comments about the contradictions in the bible and ALL religion being man-made. Even the COGs. My friend made the statement that he believed the bible was inspired by god and there were only supposed errors and contradictions. My answer was, “I no longer believe that.” This hour and a half discussion was with several of my “friends”. Whether they will remain friends remains to be seen. Here are some of my e-mail comments:

**********************
Thanks for your time listening to my “heresy” today. And of course I only mean “heresy” in the sense of what the Greek word means, which is “choice”. I realize that the choice of what I think is not what the “Church” teaches.

Please don't think that I think I have all the answers. I do not! But I will no longer accept traditional understanding imposed on us by those that have gone before us. We (and I mean that in a universal sense) have accepted, as truth, many opinions, ideas, dogma, doctrines and in some cases outright lies.

Logically and scientifically, the things in the bible could not have happened in the literal sense as we have been told for hundreds if not thousands of years. God (whatever that is) made the laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of science, and the laws of the universe. We read God does not change, yet we have been told that God has put those laws aside in some cases and mysteriously made things happen contrary to the laws he established.

I refuse to believe what we were once told, “The Bible is the most accurate history book ever written!” I know my thinking is “Out of the Box.” I honestly believe if we don’t at least consider things with 'out of the box' thinking, we will forever remain in that box! I once asked an elder about some things. His answer to me was (paraphrased) “Homer, there are things in the bible I don’t understand. But I’ll just rely on Jesus to clarify those things when he returns.” I am not willing to sit on my butt and not try to learn. If I do, I will forever be in that box.
*********************

Dennis, KNOW THIS. You may feel lonely, but YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are many of us out here in this post COG world who are very appreciative for the insight you offer with your excellent articles. I know what you mean about the feeling of togetherness from being at the Feast each year. It is too bad there can’t be some sort of FOT, i.e. “Feast of Togetherness” where we could congregate and share our exit journey out of the box.

Lake of Fire Church of God said...

Dennis, do you remember the song sung in WCG special music, "No man is an Island?"

I can relate to your feelings, and it goes back to our common WCG experience. For me, I now realize how unnatural my own youth was. I literally grew up old! Let’s face it: The impending world destruction and “the end of the world” is pretty heavy stuff. Having Armstrong’s influence first introduced to me at age 7, I was “an old 20” by the time I realized Armstrong might not be right and I finally stopped attending this unhealthy church.

In life, there is a time to be young and a time to be old. I feel I missed out on my youth and look back with much regret for my lost youth. I suffered from severe depression often during what should have been the best years of my life because I didn’t see any future for me and always felt “time was very short” as Armstrong said. Compounding the hopeless feelings, I also grew up feeling that I was different from other kids. I felt very inferior – I believe it was the partial effect of the periodic reminders of the Church’s teaching that I was “the weak of the world”, “a base thing”. I had virtually no friends in school because they were all “in the world”. We didn’t associate with people outside the Church, and I did not participate in any school activities. I remember I use to ask myself, “Why me?”

Additionally, I had the very heavy burden and grave knowledge of the impending 1972 great tribulation and the destruction of the whole world thinking all my classmates would soon be dead! Thus, I trace the origins of becoming a “loner in life” to my Worldwide Church experience (I’ve spent most of my adult life single and alone).

Richard

Allen C. Dexter said...

Richard, I feel for your feeling of being single and alone. The church did that to far too many people.

Thankfully, all my children found mates and lead somewhat of a normal life (who can say what "normal" is?). None of them are caught up in the splinters but my youngest son, who is bi-polar and has abandoned the family, was hung up on religion the last I knew. No one has heard from him in about ten years now. He was widowered and a romance went sour just before he disappeared. It's one of my big concerns.

DennisCDiehl said...

Being lonely is not necessarily a function of having self pity. I find it based on the changes that occur over time when once something was and then isn't such as friends, health, recources or enjoyable times and feeling secure.

Alan, that's a lot to have on your mind. I went through that with a son who has now recovered nicely but made me age a bit faster I believe going through it. Our kids are our kids.

This tends to be the lonlier time of year. School is out, everyone is distracted by this or that and I am not much of a party person. I don't mind the holidays at all, I just tend to analyze it too much..ha. My psyche is still getting over the first Xmas article in the New PT where Mike Feazell wrote how the xmas tree ornaments typify the fruits of the spirit or something like that. Still working with one of my crossed eyes to get it back to working right.ha.

I'm trying to figure out what fruit of the spirt my Snoopy as Red Barron ornament typifies. Guts I guess!

Anonymous said...

Dennis:

The loneliest years of my life were childhood. Then in adulthood, I joined the WCG. It soon deteriorated into a living a life where I was perpetually stressed and feeling deeply oppressed. When everything changed in the mid 90's, I made my exit.

Life gradually became joyful and happy for the first time.

But neither bad times nor good times last forever. I often look back with a lot of regret and sadness over mistakes made, opportunities missed, and especially the loss of friends and relatives that were due to my own pettiness and arrogance.

We have good days and we have bad days. The bad days, however, can leave you entertaining thoughts of suicide. We've all been there.

For all the service and friendship you have genuinely given over the years, you should be rich beyond measure.

You need a big hug.

caseywollberg said...

"It is too bad there can’t be some sort of FOT, i.e. “Feast of Togetherness” where we could congregate and share our exit journey out of the box."

Who says there can't be? I have been thinking about this for a while now. We could, rather easily, establish a kind of annual meeting in person for this community, probably over a weekend, nothing major. I call the idea COGcon, since I envision it as something akin to the conventions of various enthusiast groups (comic-con, gamer-con, skeptic-con). We could organize panels and talks on various subjects relevant to our shared experiences and insights regarding the cults. We could have fun things like talent shows. But above all, we could come together, face-to-face, shake hands, and finally confirm for our hopelessly embodied minds that we really are not alone in this.

caseywollberg said...

Dennis, thanks for sharing your struggles with loneliness. I am in the same boat and for the same reasons. It's a cruel universe we live in when one can go from the loneliness of "coming out of the world" to the loneliness of going back into it.

While I agree with Douglas that life in the world is properly viewed as a wonderful joyride (and for the same reasons he mentions), it is not always easy to maintain that view. Being social animals, most of us are, as Douglas put it, "addicted to other people".

Unlike Allen, I have not made the effort I should make toward engaging with my local skeptic/atheist community, and I think that would help me to some degree.

But, then again, as you point out, Dennis, being lonely isn't merely being alone. Even among my local meetup groups for atheists and skeptics, few are former believers on any scale that would resonate with us. They just don't get it. How can they?

There is an aspect of this de-conversion that cannot be expressed well in words; something that eludes understanding by those who did not experience it. To believe what we were enjoined to believe--to really believe it--and then to systematically dismantle that belief while re-building a new worldview based on the best science and philosophy have to offer--there really is something poignant in that process. Something beautiful in the delusion that must be put down. And something beautiful in the embracing of reality after being so deluded for so long. And then there is the nostalgia for old convictions...the outsider cannot possibly appreciate these things.

Although I do have close friends who had to abandon ideologies they found to be untenable, it really isn't the same. Armstrongism, for me, was all-encompassing. It wasn't how I viewed race or economics or politics--it was how I viewed everything.

And besides that, some beliefs don't leave you alone after you stop believing them. To be raised as a conscientious Armstrongist (i.e., one who grows to take it seriously enough to really understand and eventually refute it), is to have one's mind and behavior warped. One is left with psychological predispositions that have some bearing on social success in a non-Armstrongist world.

We are lonely because we have been affected so deeply and comprehensively by something so few can or care to understand. And why should the world care about what we believed? Well, we can't reasonably expect them to. From our present vantage point, we can see clearly that it was all patent nonsense. But it all seemed so true, it guided our choices and actions so strongly and for so long, and then suddenly it was all wrong. The universe shifted under our feet and the whole world failed to take notice. That is to say, what we experienced as a universal cataclysm actually never happened at all. And that is why we are lonely, hopelessly, comically lonely.

So, you and I, Dennis, what do we do? We share a laugh with a hint of a tear--and then we work at finding some beauty and meaning and wonder in the real universe that never did conform to Armstrongism. And there are others on that path: if we must be lonely, at least we don't have to be alone. And there's comfort in that.

DennisCDiehl said...

Thank you all for your comments. Some personalities are more sensitive than others and I have perhaps too much of the sensitive side. On top of that I 'think too much' whatever that means. From my view, others think too little.

I keep telling myself things will work out. My last sermon was "Nothing Is For Nothing,' so we'll see...

Anonymous said...

It is all part of a much bigger picture.

May you be lifted up and soar on the wings of eagles, Dennis.

DennisCDiehl said...

I'd be concerned the eagle would take me back to his nest and feed me the young! :)

Anonymous said...

"She wasn't where she had been. She wasn't where she was going…but she was on her way. And on her way she enjoyed food that wasn't fast, friendships that held, hearts glowing, hearts breaking, smiles that caught tears, paths trudged and alleys skipped. And on her way she no longer looked for the answers, but held close the two things she knew for sure. One, if a day carried strength in the morning, peace in the evening, and a little joy in between, it was a good one…and two, you can live completely without complete understanding." ~ Jodi Hills

Byker Bob said...

I don't know how one can develop relationships with and friendships with people in a cultic group in which everyone you could possibly meet is a potential ratfink to the ministers. Once I had the choice (I'd been dragged into WCG as an 8 year old by my parents), I learned to form limited friendships with other rebel types. In 1975 when it became obvious that God had nothing to do with WCG or HWA, I left, and really never missed anyone.

In my post WCG years, I've learned to form limited purpose business friendships, and limited friendships with my neighbors, but closely guard all of my solitary time, because it is in those hours that I process everything, pondering deep philosophical issues.

I've likened myself to a strange stray cat, who never gets lonely, and has never been homesick. If I'm around certain people, I'm around them, and if I'm not, they do not preoccupy my thoughts. I also have no pictures or portraits of loved ones on display in my home.

All of this never bothered me unless others tried to make a federal out of it, but lately, as I have realized that Jesus was all about relationships, and the Kingdom is also going to be all about relationships, I have realized that my behavior is actually a problem, one for which I needed to look for solutions. I do not know that this could be blamed on WCG, as some of the factors of our personalities are simply things we are born with.
It is not as if I am backwards in the social graces, it's just that I limit the application of them. You really can't work in sales and service without having some social intelligence.

Anyone else experiencing this type of behavior?

BB

DennisCDiehl said...

BB noted:

"I've learned to form limited purpose business friendships, and limited friendships with my neighbors, but closely guard all of my solitary time, because it is in those hours that I process everything, pondering deep philosophical issues."

You just described me to a T. I am only comfortable around people who know me, past and present. I don't go out to socialize and have no TV so either read or watch on computer theology lectures, quantum physics and reality stuff, and such things. I get into "what is light and matter" stuff and it makes me feel better for some reason.

I read abut NDEs (Near Death Experiences) . I simply can't make myself go to church and listen to any minister. I am too critical or cynical at times, ok, all the time. I went to a Unity Church but the sermons are fluffy and anyone can give one . It just does less than nothing for me.

In relationships, I tend to give my heart in wanting a genuine relationship and I end up feeling taken for granted and unappreciated. So now I am more cautious but that makes the alone thing come alive. I'm getting better at it.

At any rate, you sound a lot like me BB. I could really identify with your comments and while I am not maybe a fan or adapted to alone as you might be, it's getting better.

I have a couple memberships with matching services and whew..sometimes they are so scary!!!

It was funny when I wrote a really attactive, smart etc kinda woman who tugged at me a bit to write and see what's what. She seemed like a familiar spirit to me. Welll......she wrote back and said...and I kid you not..."Ummmm...Mr. Diehl, I already know you. You were my pastor..."

Then I realzed who she was. Out of context one can make goofies like that! Anyway, we had dinner and learned she was a YHVH only type person and I know everyone in her church as I used to be their minister too... and of course...well..you know...that's not going to work..ha

Allen C. Dexter said...

I, too, tend to limit relationships in most cases. My wife is like that too and reflects that her mother used to say, "Don't get too thick with people." It was a defense in WCG because of the ever present gestapo informants.

And those ministerial visitations! You had to be very careful not to reveal too much as it all went on record. What an evil force all religions are! Go ahead and deny it, BB, but they all are equally stultifyingly evil no matter how well they hide it.