I love posting here aboard the "Apollo." It's got a nice lounge!
I was torn if to tell the story of Venezuela first or talk about AOLA or CCLA or.....or.....but I will jump way ahead and talk about the CCLA. Except for now, as seen below, I chose a different topic! I guess I got carried away while thinking of the CCLA and Lakey's post on the subject.
I visited the CCLA a bit later than the fiasco at AAC. The church registered my unwillingness to spy on the AAC but it also observed a desire on my part to get back into good standing. By the way I am so happy that the desire to be in goodstanding eventually died.....I am only sorry it was such a slow death.
It seems that now this post will attempt to understand why I kept trying to fix things with the CoS, instead of explaining how I escaped the CCLA. I am trying to understand the feel good parts of Scientology, the glue that linked the tech to the people. LOL.
As I was writing this, I went onto Google images, hoping to find some pictures that would communicate WHY I had this desire to be in good standing. Just why was it so hard for me or anyone else to leave. What was the draw? Lakey gave a beautiful picture of CCLA in the old days. People coming in from all over, the camaraderie, the energy, the high levels of ARC. That is the only answer I can come up with. Even as a public person or a staff person hated or noticed or felt sort of confused about certain aspects of the way Scientology was run ALL THAT COULD BE SET ASIDE because it was so much fun to be part of a group filled with such nice folks. The best part of the orgs was the experience of being together, not the tech or admin or any other department by itself. I think this is why people are so unhappy in the CoS right now. Somewhere along the way it became a business, not a family. It became all business and forgot about its purpose, stopped spreading the love, stopped having fun and stopped playing games. There is so little of that love going around it is now hard to tell why we were ever in. Maybe it was a sixties thing. A time of letting down our hair and being fun and setting aside judgment and exploring who we were as spiritual beings. There was something rebellious and contagious about being happy, about caring, about not fitting into society, about thinking different thoughts than wogs did, about exploring our own realities, about letting go of judgments and just liking each other because we were all together in this and boy was it fun.
I have always been a lover of the word FUN. I wanted to grow up when I was little because older kids who were in their teens had more fun. They drove cars. They went to parties. They didn't have to obey the parents and could get away with something now and again. The game of being a teen seemed more FUN than the game of being a little kid just like the game of being a little kid was more fun than being a baby. And then the game of leaving home and being an adult and deciding for oneself was more fun than being a teen.....
So joining up with others in this game called Scientology was FUN. Society did not approve of it very much. It was like sneak smoking and drinking as a teen. Being a hippy and changing the world. Making friends. When I was staff I usually enjoyed it and was captivated by it. Except the ethics and stats parts, which seemed odd and out of place there. Except the prices which felt a bit corporate. If I were the church's PR person the only revolution I would advise right this second is lower the prices, remove all declares, go back to the old bridge, and cut down on ethics departments. The reasoning: whatever one focuses on, there they are. If the church only focuses on being attacked and hated and on the out-ethics of all its members, then everyone will be busy scrambling around worried they are next instead of doing what they came in for: to feel better, to have fun, to understand the world, reality, and each other.
(It is a lot easier to buy into anything if it's something that feels great!)
So here is a picture I found that got me thinking of this:
Someone has gotten married! Folks are smiling and hanging out together and it's important! And I imagine that these are staff. Whoever recognizes the picture let me know.
It always felt for me, in my old days at Miami org, that we were together in this.
The mood of those days was like this picture - excited, hopeful, full of life and fun. It was not me vs. them. We were a family and nobody was going to be kicked out and no one was an SP. The paranoia that ruled later I think makes it impossible to revive that spirit which caused people to flock into orgs. Even if life on the Apollo was hard, I doubt that Lakey and others wanted to leave. The good outweighed the bad.
I never felt I was as slave at Miami org. I never felt that I was being watched. I never felt policed. When people start to feel policed, when parts of the family are thrown into dungeons it is ALL OVER THEN. At that point nothing is fun, nothing feels creative or causative, freedom is out the window even as a possibility.
What is more important than absolute control is energy and growth. Energy and growth are always followed by a bit of randomity and chaos. The church can't grow because it only allows ONE voice to be heard and everyone else is expendible, soon to be sent to the hole. The energy of letting people contribute and allow for the fact they are all different and that this difference HELPS was there in the old days.
This difference and uniqueness is now viewed as deviating from the tech instead of seeing the truth that people disagree, that they learn from each other, that these differences are FUN. The goal now seems to be to produce robots instead of to enhance individuals.
P.S. Don't think that DM does not know all the above, otherwise he would not make sure that TC and JT are always having FUN --- because if the love died, if the party was over, so would be their devotion. Now instead of being the cool older brother who can show us how the world works, the church has become the mean evil stepmother who will force us to see the world her way or if that does not work, throw us in the dungeon. The church as a huge PR problem. It's just no fun anymore! And what is the byword for celebrity??? FUN.
no ones listening 
just kidding, evenin m'am
