Website owner:  James Miller

The confusion of my youth caused by the conflict between the voices of my society and my basic intuition and good sense




   For years I was confused, mixed up and unhappy.  Why?  Well, 
   one of the reasons was that all the messages impinging upon me 
   from the society around me contradicted what my basic good 
   sense and intuition told me.  I had to make a choice between 
   the thrust of all the subtle and not so subtle messages of the 
   society and culture that I lived in and my basic intuition.  
   Usually I more or less followed my basic intuition and good 
   sense but not without a lot of self-doubt, confusion and 
   unhappiness.  I felt like a lone man going against the 
   current.  It wasn't until I had the courage and confidence to 
   totally dismiss all those messages of my society, to just tune 
   them out and ignore them, and to listen only to my own good 
   sense and intuition, that the confusion and unhappiness 
   disappeared.  What kind of messages impinging upon me from our 
   society am I talking about?  I am talking about all those 
   messages coming from the movie theatre, television and 
   everywhere else that glamorize illicit sex, immorality and 
   badness.  I am talking about the American way of teenagers 
   drinking, partying, dating and having a good time while my 
   basic good sense told me that these things were self-
   destructive.  I am talking about the American emphasis on 
   intelligence, natural ability and IQ, ideas that tend to 
   weaken, discourage, and undermine morale, when my intuition 
   told me that the right attitude was one that emphasized the 
   power of hard work and perseverance.  What bothered me was 
   that, try as I might, I could never hear any voices giving what 
   I knew to be good advice, good guidance.  The only good 
   guidance I got came from within my own mind and heart.  All 
   these messages impinging upon me had values, attitudes and 
   outlooks implicitly associated with them and I knew that these 
   values, attitudes and outlooks were wrong.  I knew that I lived 
   in a society that was extremely confused and mixed up; a 
   culture whose customs and ways of doing things were self-
   destructive and wrong.  But I didn't have the intellectual and 
   spiritual maturity to be able to put it into words and explain 
   how and why.  Thus frustration and confusion.  That is how it 
   was when I was young, back in the 50's and 60's.  Now the 
   situation is ten times worse.  The society is sick, sick and 
   getting sicker. 

   Now as we see Asiatic students excelling American students 
   everywhere and learn about the strict ways in which Asian 
   parents rear their children, forcing them to study hard and not 
   allowing them to date, drink and party, I realize that there 
   are societies that have their values, priorities and outlooks 
   straight --- societies who have their minds straight.  And, 
   amazingly, these societies and cultures that do aren't 
   Christian.  It is amazing how mixed up and sick all the 
   Christian societies are.  Why?  I don't know.  What the Bible 
   teaches is what the Asiatic societies practice.  I don't fault 
   the Bible.  

   I asked my wife, who is foreign-born, last night what was wrong 
   with our society.  Her reply: "Too much freedom and too much 
   wealth." 


   Feb 1987





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