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Culture shock


newlife
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Hey everyone!

I am sure that at least some of you experienced what I did with the culture shock coming out of TWI. It seemed we had our own culture, our own vocabulary, our own rules and regulations, and the list could go on and on probably.

I don't know if you did, But I never saw a tv after I got involved in TWI for all the 13 years I was involved. I never heard a radio, never saw a newspaper that I could remember. Whatever I saw or heard had TWI brand on it. Books, tapes, Advances, Weekend in the word, Heartbeat festivals, Wake up America, Classes from foundational to Advanced, Rock of Ages. Everything was geared to TWI. So when I came out, I actually had culture shock. I mean what do you do if you don't do all these things I just mentioned? No Twig? What do you do?? How do you fit into the culture that everyone else lives in?? I was perplexed. I was shocked at all the Computer stuff. I never learned anything or heard about computers in TWI....so when I got out and everyone had one and was using one I was lost. (I now have a computer, love to write) Cell phones. Never had a cell phone in TWI....got out and saw everyone had one. In fact now that I think of it, I don't think I even knew there was such a thing as a cell phone.....It suddenly dawned on me that for the last 13 years I knew NOTHING of what went on in the world, by that I mean what had happened all those years? I had no idea and that kind of flipped me out a bit. It was a culture shock for me coming out of TWI culture.

I was in TWI from 1975 till 1988.

What kind of shock did you experience or did you experience anything like this???

And try to explain this to a non TWI person? LOL They just look at you like you are either not telling the truth or you are from another planet.

I'm glad to say, I don't feel like an alien any more!!

Thanks for your comments!!

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I was in from 1977 to 1998.

I always watched TV, read the newspapers, listened to the radio, etc. Maybe that's part of the reason they booted me. :)

If you got out in 1988, PC's were starting to be a big thing, but cell phones were rather bulky and expensive, and not too popular. And they certainly didn't have "apps."

Culture shock or no, glad you got out!

George

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Hi Newlife, i was in TWI about the same time frame as yourself - i was in from 1974 to 1986. And i would have to say i experienced pretty much the same culture shock that you mentioned.

One of the most shocking experiences after i left was going thru the process of buying a home. i think the mortgage company guy was also shocked having two people (my wife Tonto and I) sitting in front of his desk who have managed to make it this far in their adult life without establishing any credit. Mind you, i also have to relate the stewing and fretting, coffee drinking/cigarette smoking we did that week trying to wrap our minds around the seemingly complex process it took to buy a home. Finally, after much review of the details given to us by the mortgage company - it came like a startling revelation to realize our monthly mortgage payment was similar to paying rent to live somewhere - only we actually stand to gain financially in the future from the appreciation of our investment.Then the "complex process" was reduced to something bite-size we could handle.

As far as analyzing goes - i can think of another self-induced shocker, if you will - i remember watching a 1976 movie "Logan's Run" shortly after leaving TWI; IMDB's brief summary of it says: "An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback: life must end at 30." now Wikipedia gives a little more info on what's really going on: "It depicts a dystopian future society in which population and the consumption of resources are managed and maintained in equilibrium by the simple expedient of killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty, preventing overpopluation."

....so anyway in "Logan's Run" Michael York plays a sandman named Logan - a kind of enforcer of the law - who pursues and terminates anyone who tries to flee the city to "Sanctuary" when they reach 30. York (Logan) poses as a runner to find out where these people are fleeing to.spoiler alert - and to make a long story short - York returns from his journey outside the city to report there is no special sanctuary out there but instead a world left idly to itself - and later brings back proof that life after 30 is possible in the outside world...i saw myself in a similar situation having left TWI - nothing bad was going to happen to me just because i left.

Maybe it's a good thing when you can appreciate a work of fiction on a number of levels - especially when it gets you to consider a personal experience from a different perspective. I've had similar thoughts with the movies "The Matrix" and "Oblivion". One of the common themes i see in all three movies is the shock and then perhaps the revulsion one feels after realizing what they were really involved in.

edited for clarity

Edited by T-Bone
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Yep, it all sounds eerily familiar.

The first two years I was in FellowLaborers of Ohio, we had no T.V., house phone, newspaper, etc. I guess it wouldn't have mattered, though, as they controlled everything we did from 5 AM until midnight. Then, it was *lights out* and *no talking*. Fifty grown-up people in a commune, living like a bunch of fifth graders, all eating the exact same meals and singing campfire songs at every chance we could.

We were required to hold secular jobs through the day and were supposed to use that as a springboard to witness. Leads were turned over to local leadership for followup. Anyhow, at my secular job, there was a lot of buzz on Monday mornings about a new T.V. show called Saturday Night Live. (I think the actual name may have been slightly different at first.) I felt like some kind of social outcast and was ashamed to admit we didn't have a T.V. or that it came on after my curfew. It was bad enough trying to explain why I lived in a townhouse with five other people and all my neighbors lived that way as well. There was a pay phone at the local truck stop (The Wayside Truck Stop....see the connection to my GSC name?) if you could ever find time to get there and didn't mind having your conversations out in the open for everyone to hear.

Oh, there were so many things. Shopping for a used car, I had to make sure the trunk could hold all the PFAL equipment. (Never mind if I actually liked the car or if it was green, blue or chartreuse.) Looking for a new apartment? Well, it must have ample parking for maximum fellowship attendees and be tolerant of Sing-Along-The Way clatter and cacophony. Interviewing for a job? The schedule had to be such that it would never, ever interfere with Way functions. On and on and on and on.

I think the most insane restrictions were those that involved who we were allowed to date or marry. No, there was no written edict mandating the rules but they were clearly understood. (Two believers come together in marriage for the purpose of jointly promoting PFAL and The Way) It doesn't matter who you marry because, don't cha know?, "any two believers can make a marriage work". Ugh.

So, then you leave it all behind and you wonder where you will go to fellowship, how you will Abundantly Share (tithe). You absolutely must find a place to give all your money or God will cut you off like a gangrenous big toe.

Lots of culture shock. Yes, indeed. Too much to ask an outsider to understand though deep inside you wish they could.

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It's like being Rip Van Winkle. No knowledge of the music, cultural trends, TV shows, political happenings (I knew who was president, that's about it) for that period of TWI involvment.

To this day, if mention is made of something during that era and I have no knowledge of it, I remember, "Oh yeah, that was when I was in The Way." It's a joke between my husband and me now (who was only in two years).

The Iran Hostage Crisis? Why, only everybody in the country was following it. It was a big deal. I had to go to Wikipedia to read up on it.

I was exposed to the music of 1996/77 because I was out WOW and worked in a little restaurant with the radio on constantly playing the top 40. To this day, oldies from that time remind me of "Yor Dogg Howse." Brings it all back. ("Sweet Sixteen, Dancing Queen")

No TV though. Well, we did have a black and white while out WOW. Never watched it though, except "The Gong Show."

I remember out witnessing, we were inside an apartment and everybody was watching "Roots." Another cultural phenoma we missed. But we were told it was from the adversary because it sowed racial division.

"Who shot JR?" Who the hell is JR?

Didn't know John Lennon was shot until the next morning where I was waittressing and a customer told me.

Edited by outandabout
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Berlin Wall came down while I was in rez. Was months before I found out. Such a momentous event - reconciliation, reunification. You'd think it'd be a cause for rejoicing. But not a whisper.

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I was in from 1974 to 1989. I attended a secular college, so I got exposure to what was going on in the world. It didn't matter, I was still stuck in Way world. For example, I didn't take any philosophy classes because I was afraid of being tainted by worldly thinking. I looked down my nose at the other students who weren't PFAL grads and I didn't enter in to a lot of relationships and activities because of my religious snobbery. At the time I played the trumpet and the college I went to was famous for its marching band. I never auditioned for the marching band because band camp was at the same time as the Rock of Ages every year. I considered enlisting in the Army ROTC program where I would have joined the Army as an officer upon graduation. I didn't do it because basic training was...at the same time as the Rock of Ages. After graduation I decided to enter the Way Corps. Why? Because I just couldn't get enough pain and suffering.

My culture shock was a little different. It came when I discovered that, after all was said and done, everything I learned from TWI in terms of "spiritual development", "leadership training", and "living the more abundant life" was completely ineffectual for living life successfully in the real world. My training was even ineffectual for being in leadership with TWI.

I was trained that I was better than an unbeliever, defined by TWI as a non-Way person. I was taught that as a Corps grad I was the "cream of the crop", the "best of the best". I was told that I was taught how to do things better than "the world". I was taught that "I could do all things", and that I should say in my heart,"Look out world! Here comes a Son of God!" And just by virtue of the fact of my association with TWI I was "the best".

This haughty mindset is dysfunctional, and it just plain doesn't work. It takes time and discipline to be good at something. When I did not achieve instant success once I finally graduated from everything I was at a loss. My props didn't work. Of course, when you spend as much time and money in something as I did you don't want to face the fact that what you've been doing for the last 15 years has been a waste of time so you keep doing the same things over and over again and keep coming up with the same results.

I finally woke up, thank God, but I believe I missed out on some things I could have accomplished had I embraced a more healthy way of viewing myself, God, and the world. The "blue book" did not help.

Edited by Broken Arrow
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i totally get you. there are so many tv, movies, political events, songs, etc., etc., hairstyles even lol, and i am so clueless. even to this day, people say to me -- well remember when? and i'm thinking hell no i don't

i think it was 75 or 76 when my sister and her boyfriend (now husband) came to visit me in college and came into the living room at the stupid college way home and kept looking around for the tv. i was so humiliated

i can't stand the way

i went into the way corps fruck program and lost more years

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