Dormancy

Obviously, I've written very little here over the past 3 years or so. I'm gonna write a little today about why.


For starters, my guideline in writing has always been to write from passion, from irrepressible inspiration and compulsion, to write with raw emotion, in real-time, hitting publish as I've exhausted my inner fuel. I'm convinced that this is the only way for writing to connect on more than a surface level with those who read it. I believe it's formed the critical mass of whatever connection exists for those who've read here, even more than the subject matter. I haven't had that passion and compulsion except in brief spells and spurts, so I haven't written but for those brief moments, despite loving to write. Without that passion, it would lack.

This blog was my process, my healing. While my experience will leave some wounds and scars for life, I'm generally past it now and have been for some time, living a full life of both work and play. Yes, it still hurts if I dwell on it, and there are still extremely deep resentments, but while it's a part of who I am it isn't a tangible part of my day-to-day living. My personal metamorphosis has been quite radical on all fronts, and at the same time I'm still the same person, with the same core human values, just with different benchmarks for those values. Writing here has helped me through this process and helped me find clarity in the fog. No more religious haze. No more paradigm over people, intentions notwithstanding.

I've come to accept that I had no real power over my experience, only the option to become a lesser man, a lesser human, to be worthy. I was given the "choice" between losing her or losing myself and the value of my own life. Her family and circle were (and probably still are) truly shitty, ignorant people who didn't care what damage they did to the core essence of the humanity of the people involved. They saw no good in anything other than conformity to their religious cult. Sadly, their cultic ideals were all based on fear, or ignorance, or desire to control, or their own failings, weaknesses, and epic insecurities, or lack of ability to think critically and rationally, or their devaluation of people, or...most likely on a combination of all of those things. Truly shitty people. Though I'd battle them again, it's clear to see that I had no chance given the battlefield and proximity issues I faced. Far too many for a single combatant to overcome. I made many mistakes the first time, mainly from not understanding the battlefield, and maybe some from my own weaknesses of the time, but I still didn't deserve the outcome. My process and healing has brought acceptance that the outcome was inevitable, so I move forward.

Where she's concerned, my opinion of her isn't much higher, now, than of the people around her. That may surprise some who read this. While I loved her deeply and know, beyond doubt, she loved me, and while I know she was manipulated brutally, brainwashed, leveraged, black-sheeped, peace-gamed, reindoctrinated, lathered, rinsed, and repeated over and over to get the results they wanted, there were things that she did, or said, during and after, that cut deep - even deeper now than when everything went down - that are outright unforgivable and make me resent her on some level. She became a shitty person, too, and whether that shift was of her own accord or not doesn't make a lot of difference in practical application. There's a distinct strain of sanctimonious, religious addiction jackass that runs in her family's DNA, and while that's no guarantee she inherited it, I can't pretend she's immune to it. I was blind to this possibility while we were together, but it was something my family and friends took note of extremely early on. I brushed it off back then because I loved her and didn't want to consider that possible, didn't want to see that in her. In hindsight, it was something I should've taken into consideration. 

Where the mind-numbingly crazy beliefs and people/movements behind those beliefs are concerned, I just don't think there's much more I could say that I haven't already said. There are only so many synonyms for "crazy" and only so many adjectives with which to dress up those synonyms. If you've said it, you've said it. Repeating it, no matter how loudly, is to waste communication to a mind given over to cultic control, religious addiction, or devoid of critical thinking skills. My ex and her family are proof of that. I started feeling as if I didn't have a tremendous amount more to say back in 2012, and you've probably noticed that my writing began shifting toward more sociopolitical issues around that time, scarce as that writing became.

Those who flock to the people and movements behind the beliefs are equal parts scared, culturally ignorant, addicted to religion, and downright stupid. Just as the Christian homeschooling movement has its "4 Pillars", these are the four pillars of those susceptible to the craziness of QF, Christian homeschooling, and the like. They prey on your fears, telling you how the public school system destroys children and that the federal government is out to destroy every thing and every value you hold dear. They count on your cultural ignorance, because if you weren't culturally ignorant you could easily see how FOS they are in what they tell you about the government, public education, modern psychology, and those mean ole heathen libruls. They count on your religious addiction to keep you in line when they begin to present you with "Christian" formulas and "biblical" principles by which to control you, and with homeschooling curricula designed to ensure doctrinal purity and mindless, ill-informed drones in future generations. The last of the pillars is a given.

We've seen the brightest beacons of the movement exposed as the sociopathic, narcissistic frauds and creepy old (and young) men they are over the last couple of years. Doug Phillips was exposed as a pervert, and an unrepentant one at that, and his para-church cult Peripheral-Vision Forum closed up shop - but not before bilking multitudes of scared, culturally-ignorant, and downright stupid religious addicts and harming many lives with its religious toxins. Bill Gothard was exposed as the creepy old narcissist he is, under a thick cloud of sexual harassment claims and suspicions, and forced out of his position atop the IBLP cult. It continues to bilk scared, culturally-ignorant, and downright stupid religious addicts, though only as a shell of what it once was. Sovereign Grace imploded under layers of corruption and sexual scandals. The Duggar's facade as one big happy, godly, spit-shined family was shattered, revealing a seriously dysfunctional, effed-up family, as most QF families are in actuality. Those left standing in the wake of these events were left with little balance and lesser voices, thankfully, as they had to distance themselves from the scandals and those close professional relationships they'd had with the fallen. They've ended up saying some really stupid stuff, like Farris' ideas on gays and atheists. Deceive and divert.

It isn't like I and many others (with far more powerful voices and platforms) didn't try to warn you. If you can't see, at this point, how ignorant, stupid, shallow, and useless these ideas and movements are, how much they devalue the humans involved, then you're either being willfully stupid or you're incapable of rational or critical thought for some reason or another.

If you're hellbent on being stupid, hellbent on devaluing humanity for the sake of your religion, then I can't stop you from being stupid and it wouldn't matter if I wrote a new post every day of the week. It wouldn't change your mind.  

 These are all among the many reasons this place has been dormant.