Je Ne Regrette Rien

Having been asked this last weekend whether there's anything I miss about my old life, I find myself slightly disturbed by the fact that I haven't really thought about that.

Of course I miss people. You can't leave a tight community and close family without leaving large gaps, and that hurts. But the lifestyle, the routine, the events and activities, the often-referred-to benefits and privileges, those are all what the brethren's "life of their own" are all about. And I'm struggling to think of any aspect that I would like to have back.

Maybe, just possibly, the fact that employment and decent earnings are guaranteed. Without doubt that removes a worry. Yet at the same time it's suffocating, and comes without any real choice of occupation, so there is a heavy price to be paid. I'll reserve judgment on that until I find out what my prospects are outside brethren employment.

Definitely not the meetings. It would shock my old fellow-members to hear it, but I haven't felt the slightest pang from staying away from their gatherings for six months, not even the flagship event of The Supper on Sunday morning. On the rare occasions when I remember its existence, the only emotion is relief at my good fortune in being able to sleep right through the appointed time. Once you strip away the sense of extreme importance that surrounds the meetings and their central place in brethren's lives, the gatherings themselves stand exposed for the most part as empty, pointless and dull, except as something to sit through before catching up with friends.

Travel is often cited as a benefit, but I could never quite see that one. I'm doing more travelling now than I was, and to a wider variety of places. Brethren will say that it's not the same, that in their society they can walk into a house halfway round the world and be made welcome. The odd thing is that it turns out to work that way for me, now, too, but I also have the option of other places if I prefer. It doesn't always feel right to disturb friends, although it's amazing how good people are at offering hospitality.

Socialising was a big part of my old life, and I don't miss that. It was always too structured and organised, and happened at fixed times and places regardless of mood. Now I meet plenty of people, and it's when it suits us and we can enjoy it properly. What could be better than that?

Perhaps the biggest benefit of being among the brethren, though it's not often acknowledged, is the superior and firmly grounded feeling that results from being completely right when everybody else around is wrong to a greater or lesser extent. Do I miss that? In a way I do, as it's a comfortable sensation. Yet it's years since I felt it, and have come to prefer uncertainty and realism to delusion, however comfortable the delusion may be.

I'm kind of hoping there's something obvious that I've really lost out on, because it's scary to think that I spent the first thirty-three years of my life on things I can leave behind without the slightest regret. People excepted, of course, as always.

Murder as a Lifestyle Choice

On Christmas Eve, I visited my old family home for the first time since leaving it in August. It was a very strange feeling, and I was actually quite shaky in advance.

As it turned out, things were OK, though obviously hardly as warm and friendly as it used to be. But while driving home afterwards, I found myself trying once again to sum up in my head how the brethren's attitude to leavers might best be conveyed to those who have never experienced it. The whole thing is very hard to explain, as most people with a normal amount of decency struggle to understand why a simple difference of opinion can have such radical effects, and why, if there is love between a set of individuals, that can be ignored or even switched off just by one side quietly making it clear that they don't subscribe to all the same beliefs.

What I thought about was murder.

No, seriously. Not that there is anybody I would wish to take personal responsibility for wiping off the face of the planet, but as an analogy.

To put yourself in the brethren's mindset, ask yourself if there is anything somebody could have a difference of opinion about that would make you change your feelings about them. If you don't think there is, try imagining that someone important to you said one day that they thought that murder was actually quite ethical, and proceeded to alter their behaviour to suit that belief. Of course, you also have to imagine a society in which such an attitude can be indulged, preferably one outside of what you know.

If you think that's too much of a stretch for an overworked imagination, think of countries where honour killing is routine. Suppose a male friend moved his family to one of those countries, saying that he wanted his children to grow up in an environment where they would be killed by family members for moral misbehaviour because he thought that was how things should be.

Would you feel differently about someone if it became obvious that they sincerely believed your ideas about the sanctity of human life were mistaken? At the very least the consideration might bring a bit of understanding of why brethren members' feelings can be so complex about those who have left them.

Because really, the brethren do think their system of beliefs is that important. To disagree with it enough to leave the fold is to turn your back on morality itself, just as a normal western person would imagine of a person who condoned murder. What other evil might such a person be capable of, and how much further might they slip?

Anyway, those were my thoughts over the couple of miles between my old home and my current one. It isn't pleasant to be looked at as a moral deviant by loved ones, but I do think it is very important to try to understand these things.

Suspension of Disbelief

I have been watching films for about fifteen years, give or take. Sorry if that disillusions anyone who still thinks all brethren play by the rules. First at the cinema, and later more often on DVD, using a laptop and speakers as a mobile home cinema wherever anyone felt like a movie. But for obvious reasons it wasn't exactly a daily experience.

This Christmas was heavy on movie-watching, just as a relaxed time should be - it's more companionable and less demanding than a good book, which in most ways I still prefer. So I saw more in a short space of time than I ever have before.

It made me notice once again what a softie I am when it comes to screen entertainment, and I would be very interested to know how many other ex-brethren find the same. I simply cannot take the stress of a lot of adult drama.

The traditional staples of adult-rated entertainment, sex and violence, are not the problem in themselves. I can take gore, though it isn't what I would call enjoyable, and I have in the past tested myself with the horror genre. Oddly, it gives only about the same amount of tension as some things that are classified as family-friendly.

What really gets to me is the depiction of emotional trauma and, I suppose, trauma in general. So boy-movies in which scores of people are mown down in a hail of bullets are simple fun because nobody seems worried, even the victims, while girl-movies in which various characters have their noses rubbed in romantic failure, for example, are hard work. And the most difficult I can remember was a recent movie where the fulcrum of the drama was the torture of an innocent man while his wife wondered where he was. Even The Exorcist wasn't as stressful as that.

And maybe that's the key. My formative years were ones without the experience of a false reality on a small screen, and now it's too late to develop the level of immunity that most people have. However much I know - in my head - that what is happening in front of me isn't real, and wasn't even real when it was filmed, my gut reactions remain to be convinced. So while I enjoy a good movie, my taste will probably remain skewed towards fantasy and escapism, with animation being my favourite. The more similar a drama is to real-life events, or what could be real, the less likely I am to enjoy it.

Or maybe it's just me, and I'm naturally soft. If so, that's probably the penalty for being too engaged in what others think and feel, but is a price worth paying, I think. It would be nice to know which it was, though.

A Fresh Year

It's less surprising than it seems, I suppose, but 2008 is here already.

For me, at least, last year was very eventful, with probably the biggest changes of my life. And the changes are only halfway yet, at most, I feel, so this year is another journey. After a long time in which milestones of time came and went accompanied by varying levels of frustration that other kinds of milestone remained as much in the distance as ever, that is a good thing. Finally I have the sense of being personally stretched and put to the test.

Not that there's been much stretching over the holiday period, mind you, other than a short introduction to Yoga. But there has been time for reflection, and a renewing of energy, ready for new developments - and I am quite sure those will come. I have had many blogworthy thoughts, too, which may well appear in due course.

In the last six months, I have learned a lot about things I had only thought about before. Life is both easier and harder than I anticipated. It is easier to merely survive, yet harder to realise life goals. It is easier to keep up with necessities, and harder to make time for the ought-to-do things. It has been easier to find good friends and relationships, yet harder to make sense of my family. It's easier to please others, and harder to please myself.

As the new year starts, my position with the brethren is still somewhat one of limbo. I expect that to change before too long. Some kind of decision will have to be made, and it can only really be that they conclude I am beyond reach. One of the shocks to the heart, if not the head, has been to see how their attitudes and behaviour change as their perception of what they can achieve with a person alters. There are honorable exceptions to that, but generally I appear to have become less of a human being as I become more of a problem. That has meant that at times, as I feel hurt by that, I have drifted close to the bitterness I swore to avoid. One resolution for this year is to strive to continue seeing the good where it exists.

Relations with my family are better than I expected but a lot worse than I hoped. Maybe that will change for the better as they come to terms with my hurtful decision, and maybe it will be worse as my official status changes. Seeing my parents just before Christmas, I was relieved that the meeting was polite and free from emotional trauma, but also a bit troubled by exactly the same things. That situation, I feel, is a very long-term one, more amenable to decade-long resolutions than just new year's.

It feels, now, as though I have given myself a couple of months' break, besides the relaxation of the holiday time. So the main resolution for now is to stop looking back at the changes I have made, and start taking action on what there is still to do. The time for letting things happen is past, and the time for taking control is here.

Those who know me will be surprised by that. My resolution takes the form of "I suppose I should try to be more definite".

And so I shall.

First Noel

I'm still firmly in holiday mode, but taking a break from relaxing long enough to say that I'm doing so.

If Christmas is always as much of a just-plain-holiday, without the obligations, travel, slightly tense socialising and general pressure that I get the impression is sometimes part of the package, then I shall look forward to it in future. In this case, I have had my batteries thoroughly recharged, and look like getting more recharging done yet before the return to work.

It seems to be an excuse for indulgence, but the indulgence has been the good kind. The exchange of cards - and gifts even more so - is a kind of symbol of thinking about somebody, and means more than the surface would suggest. In a similar way, sharing a day which is made special by a conscious decision not to do anything which would spoil the holiday mood, is another rare and precious thing to share. And sharing is good.

To say more would be to spoil it.

Code

The weirdness of using a computer at work in an exclusive brethren company has largely worn off. Now, of course, the limitations and possibilities loom larger than the presence of the machine.

These things are business-orientated, as any brethren person who can justify the use of a computer outside work will be provided with a laptop of some kind, customised for their particular needs and more or less restricted depending on their status in the global hierarchy. That's my observation, anyway. However, the brethren are addicted to Soviet-style central planning, and the orientation and optimisation of the work computers is decreed by the provider. That makes them just exactly what is not quite required in each individual case. But that's OK - at least it's a step forward.

The biggest limitation is that there is no company-wide email system. Each machine is stand-alone from a system point of view, although they are networked if there is more than one, and the original rules said that only one per company should be able to handle email. That's been quietly forgotten, I think, but even so it's not sensible to have multiple machines using the same email addresses, as you'll never know what's stored on where. So if somebody needs an urgent reply, and other important business is being done on the computer with email facility, you're out of luck. Maybe others have worked round this.

Then of course there is the very limited set of applications. If what you want to do can't be done in either Word or Excel, you're probably out of luck again.

But that's where the possibilities start. To my surprise, having been unfamiliar with any Microsoft programs until the second half of this year, I find that a lot can be done. Things that I had thought were naïve requests requiring specialised or more powerful software, are actually feasible, if not necessarily easy.

About two weeks ago I discovered that Microsoft Office has its own programming language. Suddenly Excel can be made to act in any way I choose. It is possible to create new applications, virtually, that bear only a superficial resemblance to the original application, and the big problem of having no access to database software is bypassed. The help system wasn't installed, and a bit of code which goes wrong is liable to shut the application down rather than launch a debugger, but still it feels like the opening of a prison. And another new user even discovered that the help system can be installed, even as the application blocker has a message on screen to say you're not allowed to!

Obviously I'm no professional programmer or developer, but years of effort put into understanding arbitrary rules and cascading consequences in ordinary life seems to be a good preparation for the rigidly flexible world of basic computer code. It's working so far, anyway.

Christmas Approaching

If I'm honest, Christmas is approaching a little like a juggernaut. One full of good things, I'm sure, but still a bit scary to have bearing down on me at high speed.

I have noticed that many ex-brethren have at least an ambivalent attitude to the festivities. It's hard to feel truly part of something when so much of it seems to spring from memory and tradition. Children love Christmas, of course, but a good many adults seem to derive most of their sense of what it's all about from the experiences of their formative years. Brethren, of course, have none of that.

The brethren never have celebrated Christmas, so far as I know, following in the direct tradition of the puritans of Cromwell's time. It's a pagan festival, nothing to do with Christianity, is the doctrine. In recent years the negativity has only increased, and whereas in the past the work-free day was an excuse to get together with friends and family regardless of the reason for the holiday, the fact that the world outside is doing just that now means that the flock are strongly discouraged from doing any such thing. No get-togethers on the twenty-fifth, only on other days if you must.

So it feels odd to suddenly find myself in the wider world where it's important. I feel something of an imposter. A bit like an autistic person at a party, feeling little but frantically studying the people around me for clues to what I should be feeling and doing.

Those for whom this time of year is familiar and fun can have very little idea of the pressures of arriving at it without any preparation. There are expectations galore, and wherever there are expectations, there is an equal amount of potential for disappointing and upsetting people.

I look forward to the time when I've developed traditions of my own to lean on, a Christmas groove to slip comfortably into. For this year I'm very grateful that the requirements are few, the day is to be low-key, and people generally are likely to excuse any faux-pas as an understandable mistake by the alien at the festivities.

I bet my family and I will miss each other a lot on those free days, too. But that, I think, can't be cured.