An epigraph by George Orwell in his book, "Burmese Days": "There is a short period in everyone's life when his character is fixed forever."


Is that true for you?

If so can you pinpoint the period?

How much does Mormonism play in?

Is it a positive, a negative, or a draw?

I'm not talking about the so-called childhood "formative years" though their importance can't be ignored--especially in combination with BIC.


This statement hit me harder than I thought it would for many reasons. My book would have to be "Mormonese Days" and the statement means more now in my seventies than it ever would have before.

I was 21 and had just gone through the grilling of a SP who was convinced per a mission president that I was guilty of spending time with a girl.

Of course, none of it was true, but hours were spent trying to wring a confession from me. Afterwards I sat in my bedroom on the bed, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and highly distraught. Then something inside of me seized up, and this massive wave of indignation rose up inside of me and exploded in my mind. I went into an internal rage!

From that day on I trusted only facts and truth. All else was subject to verification and proof. I never yelled or swore at anyone, but I would look them in the eye and stare them down, while calmly telling them what I would or not put up with. I was told years later by another SP that all the bishops in his stake feared me, because I would just stand up and stare them down and calmly tell them "No" as I walked out the door.

This has been part of me since that cold January day.

Nice story, Silence is Golden. Thanks. I can relate. Mine has some similarities.

I had been out of BYU for about a year and was living in SLC. I went home for Sunday dinner over the Mountains to my parents house. My father said he was conducting priesthood interviews with all his children. He was a very strong man in every way. He asked me if I was attending church. I said no. I could tell he already knew and that was why he was asking. He asked why.

I knew I was going to tell him. My voice box froze, locked up. I actually couldn't speak. I was terrified. After a few minutes I just got the words out finally by yelling them. "I'm gay and I don't believe in the church." He could see I was traumatized beyond belief and he told me he loved me and let it go. We went back upstairs and had dinner. How I sat and ate I will never know. I was zombied and in terrible pain. This is 1972. It was more than just Mormons who had such extreme issues with being gay. It was still on the books as a mental disorder for another year. I had friends who had been electro-shocked at BYU.

When I finally packed my car and a U-Haul to drive to L.A. and start a new life, he was the last to say goodbye while I stood by my car. He said, "What you are doing is wrong and you know it."
Cut like a knife.

I looked at him straight on and said sternly, "What I am doing is not wrong and I don't know it." Came out wrong but I made my point. I was done. Really really done. Got in the car and drove off.

> I looked at him straight on and said sternly,
> "What I am doing is not wrong and I don't know
> it." Came out wrong but I made my point.

That sort of honesty is one of the things I love about you, D&D. Yes, when we are under stress we sometimes make verbal mistakes. That you remember the mistake indicates both the pressure you felt at the time and your integrity now. Your story, like SiG's, is real.

And yes, I love Burmese Days. Animal Farm and 1984 made a powerful impression on the world because of their context: the unfolding Cold War. But they were not Orwell's best books. For my money Burmese Days, Down and Out in London and Paris, and especially Homage to Catalonia are better pieces of literature--and Catalonia is perhaps his greatest comment on the evils of Stalinism.

Probably not the moment that set me in stone but laid the first brick.

The rule at our house for conference was that it had to be on the TV or radio in the room where you were. In 1978 when I was 14 I checked out Dune from the junior high school library. I read that while conference droned in the background.

Those two days changed me. I saw the politics of things for the first time. The shaded truth that gave the audience what they wanted even though it was a misdirection. The manipulation of religion laid bare. The self destruction we give ourselves.

I was born again, wiped clean, in none of the ways those words are used by religion.

I found Dune a profoundly mystical experience. The sleeper must awaken.

Oddly enough, reading the "Miracle of Forgiveness" did the same for me. I knew poison when I saw it, and some how, I was, as you say, " . . . born again, wiped clean, in none of the ways those words are used by religion." I felt like I was floating.