Corboy, you have a way making me see things in a different light. I had never really thought about it much before.
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corboy
The other day, I was leaning over to get a newspaper. Someone came right up behind me and I got spooked. Definite invasion of space.
The poor lady was doing outreach for a church. I was so spooked that I screamed "NO!"
--and then felt awful when I saw they were a group and a four year old girl was with them.
What does it do to little kids (and older kids?) when they are forced to go along on these outreach missions and hear people saying no to their parents - politely and not so politely?
It has to hurt a little kid to see this happening. And reinforces that its a Big Bad World outside the group.
From early on, I thought "why are they doing this?" and didn't understand it at all. As I got older, that changed to, "these people are nuts." It never really made me warm up any more to the group, because I was always kind of embarrassed about it all (being a weird buddha-head).
Not sure how it was with other so-called "fortune babies", but I only ever really practiced to keep the affections of my parent(s), it was what I was told to do, I had no choice but to do so and I just didn't want to cause any problems. As a credulous youth, I bought into it for a brief, but intense time period culminating around early high school age. The older I got, the less credulous I became and it all slowly began tapering off. That period was a time of great turmoil for me. I viewed it as a fight for the right of independent thought and my sanity. Another interesting thing that I noticed was that, even when I was breaking my a** and doing ALL the activities that were expected of me, it was never enough for both the parent and the organization - they always wanted more & more AND MORE. I just reached a point were I said enough was enough. I realized it would be never be enough for them and began to step back. I just couldn't keep up the appeasement.
Here's another funny thing that ex-members will know: even once you've left, you're never really "out" in their warped minds - you are merely a "sleeping member" who shall one day reawaken to your mission, your path, and find your way back (especially if they never give up, chant abundant daimoku for you and keep that connection, basically
forever). If you are viewed as a hopeless case, without even a remote possibility of return, then you might be labelled as "taiten." But, I've also seen many a taiten member return, leave, return, leave, etc., so they never really ever give up and always want you back, too.