Welcome To Existence

I appreciate depth in writing.

For instance, while being a young twenty-something; my favorite book is Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind rather than Stephanie Myer's Twilight (no offense, SM and fans. As a saving grace, I do love RP).

I'm just trying to illustrate that I read with purpose just as I write; with a purpose.

I may ramble for fun, but my words are never for nothing.

I write for insight and with much feeling.

Before you waste time reading the endless posts of a twenty-year-old maverick you'd rather spend elsewhere, let me explain why I'm here.

I was raised one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

I started studying at nine years of age and while mistakenly believing that the only way I'd ever been told to live was the best way to live; was baptized at 17.

A mere two years later, I was reeling from grief and the depression I'd suffered with most of my teenage years. Once I recovered, I decided that the guilt that suffocated me over the harmless vices I had acquired was wholly unnecessary.

My vices and my arts were what helped me heal after losing my father in death.

My vices were never acceptable in the religion and once I was done feeling guilty about them I realized I was not what I preached.

And the last thing I wanted to be was a hypocrite.

So, I decided to leave. Keep in mind, I still felt the Witnesses had the absolute truth when it came to God and the Bible and believed that their doctrines were sound.

The witnesses claim that all who leave their religion leave for amoral purposes, because they couldn't live up to the high moral standards outlined in the Bible.

And they would be correct in their assumptions...to a point.

Because, looking for support, I scoured the web and my search was not a long one.

I discovered freeminds.org, jehovahswitnessrecovery, jwfacts.org, jehovahs-witness.net, silentlambs.org and 4witness.org.

I got 75 percent through Ray Franz' Crisis Of Conscience before my mother found it and took it back to the library.

But, see, she was too late.

Because I had seen it with my own eyes. Reading Ray's references to the Watchtower magazine that proved that the society falsely prophesied Armageddon for 1975, I set out to prove it.

I used the Watchtower Library (the society's own research tool) and looked up every article he mentioned. He quoted them correctly just as I knew he had. The Watchtower makes out like all former members that publish information about the group are embittered, power-hungry liars.

Ray Franz was the furthest thing from that description, it was evident in his tone from the very first chapter of his book.

Ray was not a liar. I already knew that.

But like they say, seeing is believing.

So, like I said, Mom was too late.

I took the red pill.

Learned the truth about "The Truth".

A secret truth you can't unhear, a bell you can't unring.

I began thinking about all the passions I had harbored but never got to express, and how even the smallest of my creative outlets was policed by the society and subsequently my mother.

All the things I never got to try, and the things I was told I could not do.

I couldn't be a writer, or an actor. I couldn't write music and learn to play it. I couldn't have a career. I couldn't go to college for a real live degree.

And then, a light bulb went off over my head and I realized that I could finally shred that life-long lists of "Don'ts".

Now? It's my "To Do List".

As the song lyrics state for the description of this blog, everyone has vices and mine is the illusion.

Both the art I take in and create.

As my favorite band says, "Goodbye, apathy".

I tired of putting off my life for a day that never comes, a perfect world that will never exist.

I want to feel and live.

It's not the end of days. It's just the beginning.