Leader or Follower?

Our Shinto wedding ceremony Takaharu Miyazaki Japan 1987

Diary Thursday 16 April 2020: A little self-reflection:

It is said there are leader types and follower types among humans. When I think about which of these two categories would apply to myself I feel I belong to the follower types. This is because, when I look at my life, my past, I find I was rarely self-motivated and had little ambition.

I always looked to others for inspiration and stimulation – even in my marriage. In the 32 years I have been living with my wife I have mostly relied on her as a guide and motivator. I almost never took charge of our family, mainly because I never really felt I knew what was right for our lives together and for our children.

I have tended to be confused and easily sidetracked, never sure of myself. So in many ways I have always depended on others for guidance, inspiration and motivation. But there was always a problem: I was never a good follower, simply because I needed solitude very much. It's a dilemma since, not being self-motivated I could not really live all by myself. Yet I was unable to fully adapt to being part of a group either. I always hated crowds, and in any kind of group I was always at least a silent rebel. I needed leadership but I could never follow a leader for long.

In our marriage my wife and I have worked out a modus vivendi in which I defer to her for most decisions about our family but she gives me enough space and time for my own pursuits. This agreement took many struggles over many years to come to fruition, and it's still not quite stable.

We were total strangers who couldn't even really talk to each other when we were matched by Rev. Sun Myung Moon in Seoul in October 1982. He blessed us in a 6,000-couple mass wedding just 4 days later. After this we didn't see each other for close to 4 years as she worked in Japan and I in Cyprus. During this time we wrote to each other but we always depended on others to translate our letters. I tried to call her on the phone once 3 years after our church wedding, but we could not talk at all because it was just too difficult.

In 1986 we spent one week together in my parents' house in Luxembourg – in separate rooms. Then in 1987 I went to Japan for one month and traveled with her to different places, always staying in separate rooms. We also visited her family. We got legally married in her hometown in southern Miyazaki Prefecture on Kyushu Island and also held a Shinto wedding ceremony in a nearby temple.

I met her two older brothers and their families, and other relatives. Her parents were long gone. Her father had left the family and broke off contact when she was just 5 and her mother died a year before we first met in Seoul.

She and I finally started our family in Tokyo in April 1988, 5½ years after our church wedding. We later lived together in Greece, where our first son was born, then in Egypt and Cyprus before settling down in Luxembourg in October 1991.

Rev. Moon was the one who brought us together and launched us on this path to create a family. We were both followers of his movement – then known as the Unification Church. I had joined in the USA in March 1975 and my wife in Japan in October 1979, which just happened to be the time of my first visit to her country – not knowing her, of course.
(see About my first journey to Japan, across Siberia
and  On my first Far East trip and on God  )

I still do feel grateful to the since-deceased Rev. Moon and the movement he began for having made our family possible. My wife continues to be a loyal follower of his movement, now led by his widow Hak Ja Han.

I was always racked with doubt about him, about God and about the Divine Principle, the teaching that had inspired me to join his church. By the late 1990s I had mentally separated from Rev. Moon and even the whole concept of a God postulated by the monotheistic religions.

My wife and I went through some struggles over this until we agreed that for our children's sake I would continue to go through the motions as if I was still a believer and would refrain from criticizing Rev. Moon, the church, its leaders and their idea of God.

I have since drifted further and further away from the 'meme' -- the enthralling myth, really -- of the God of religions. Inspired by many ideas in books I have read and discussions on the Internet I followed I have put together an alternative view of a God that satisfies my desire to have an understanding of what ultimate reality might be. (see  Escape from God?/  )

I needed such an alternative idea because I wanted to escape, in a way, to get away from the strong pull of the myth of God that kept me in thrall for so long. As I am not a leader type I cannot inspire anyone else with my idea, least of all my wife ….

The time I went crazy

My parents -- 1984

Diary Friday 10 April 2020:

I don't remember how I said goodbye forever to my parents, my family. All I know is that I really meant it.

I don't remember my mother's tears but I know she cried. Her oldest son, the first of her six children, was crazy. That is most likely what my whole family thought at this time. But they knew they could not stop me, dissuade me from my crazy ideas.

During the last months of 1974 and the early part of 1975 I behaved ever more strangely. I kept talking about a coming nuclear war that would leave our civilization in ruins and wipe out most of humankind. What was even worse was that I actually wished for it to happen. I felt it was both inevitable and necessary.

Sometime in 1974 I had read Jack London's book 'The Call of the Wild,' about a dog who took to the wilderness of Canada's Yukon Territory. I had also heard a lot about 'The Late, Great Planet Earth' by Hal Lindsey, though I never read that book. These stories undoubtedly influenced my thinking.

By 1974 I had shed any vestige of belief in the triune God of the Catholics with whom I grew up and also the Allah of the Muslims whom I had encountered in the Middle East.

I believed in nature, in a kind of pantheism. Human civilization defiled our planet. It was like a cancer that gradually overwhelmed the Earth. It had to be destroyed so nature could recover. Our civilization would annihilate itself in a nuclear war, and bands of human survivors would roam parts of the Earth living a new Stone Age. I wanted to be part of these, perhaps even a leader.

I don't remember how this thought came to my mind but I believed the nuclear war would devastate the world in 1979.

At first I wanted to travel to western Canada and live in the woods there, awaiting the holocaust. But an American friend pointed out to me that the southern hemisphere was more likely to escape total destruction since most nuclear targets were in the north.

I changed my plan and decided to travel eventually to Patagonia. The Canadian woods remained my first destination, though, because I felt a strong attraction to them, perhaps inspired by 'The Call of the Wild.' I also believed I had to pass a survival test before heading to my final destination in Patagonia.

So my plan was to try to survive for at least a year more or less in a Stone Age setting in western Canada, and then head south to Argentina. I didn't give any thought to how I could accomplish that feat, crossing all the countries on the way after basically becoming a Stone Age man.

Thinking back today I feel I really was crazy.

My last job in my home country Luxembourg was as a van driver delivering refrigerators, washing machines and TV sets to households throughout the tiny nation ….
(continued here:  How I met the Unification Movement - part 1 )

Sadly, the meek will not inherit the earth

Diary Sunday 16 February 2020:

I hadn't watched any Korean dramas for quite a while. I was disappointed by some recurring elements in too many of them – except the ones that are really just funny or romantic – such as way too much melodrama, too much violence (just like western movies) and what I see as almost like a love affair the script writers seem to have with the evil (the bad guys – again, just like their western counterparts).

Too often those who murder, torture, lie, cheat, betray, destroy the lives of others, exploit others, push others down, etc., are allowed to cause much more death, horror, pain and destruction than their own lives are worth before they are stopped – and sometimes they even get off scot-free.

A few days ago my wife recommended a new drama: Crash-landing On You – or Emergency Love Landing. I have watched 13 episodes out of the 16. I liked it up to that point because there were many funny and also pleasant romantic elements.

The story is about a rich, self-made South Korean company chairwoman (who is also the daughter of the chairman of one of the biggest corporations) who gets caught in a tornado while paragliding and lands on the North Korean side of the DMZ, where she meets and later falls in love with an army officer.

Most of the story is very nice and pleasant but there is also a dark subplot running through it about a higher ranking North Korean officer who exploits, tortures and murders people, and who wields enormous power over others using corruption and blackmail. As the story unfolds, this and other dark subplots – such as the betrayal of the main character by one of her half-brothers – become more and more prominent.

I liked the main actors in the drama very much, especially Son Ye-jin, who plays the chairwoman. But also all the other characters are played very well.

Yet today, after watching Episode 13 which has the main character near death in hospital after being shot by the evil North Korean officer, I just gave up and am not interested in seeing the rest. My wife says the series is very funny and enjoyable, and the dark subplot is just a minor element. I agree there is a lot that is indeed very pleasing and funny in this drama but I don't like the dark theme and violence becoming as prominent as I feel it has. It offends me so much that I refuse to watch the rest. I don't need to know how the story ends if to find out I have to endure so much unpleasantness in the show.

The problem is that this reminds me too much of the real world, with which I am almost at war. Yes, there is so much that is beautiful, great and pleasant in this world – but I can never forget its dark side.

Jesus said the meek will inherit the Earth but it is very obvious that this is still very, very far from being fulfilled. It is not clear at all whether this could ever come true. In fact it seems totally impossible, though I can't say it definitely is.

Everywhere on Earth, among humans, animals and even plants, the strong, the cunning, the ruthless, the violent, the aggressive, the exploitative, the parasitic prevail, and their genes dominate because they can procreate whereas the meek, the weak, the gentle, the naive, etc., are cast aside or eliminated. We ourselves would not be here if not at least some of our ancestors had prevailed over others and cast them aside. It is indeed survival of – and domination by – the fittest, the most well-adapted. I believe that is the way God has worked (see my posts:

https://diamir.blogspot.com/2019/03/escape-from-god.html  and

https://diamir.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-on-god.html , and also

https://diamir.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-ideas-about-god-as-they-have-evolved.html   ).

I only have a very faint hope we can change this someday.


Diary Monday 17 February 2020:

I ended up watching the last 2 episodes of Crash-landing on You anyway. It's quite emotional, as usual with Korean dramas, but quite nice, too. Maybe I'm too sensitive about this. I get flustered and frustrated too easily. Yes, frustrated.

I'm glad I watched the rest, and it turned out to be a bittersweet happy ending. I really liked the main actress, Son Ye-jin. She is great.

Of course all this changes nothing about what I wrote in the preceding entry about my view of the world. I wish so much this could change, and soon. It does not look likely, unfortunately.