Is Tom Cruise (finally) having a crisis of faith?

[A*O]

Oh he's deffo not very bright. He admits he was a dud at school, sorry, had "learning difficulties" which Co$ promised to fix too. It shows how effective Co$ brainwashing is that people much smarter than Tom still get lured in and believe all the bullshit.

[Novice]

He's dyslexic, but that doesn't necessarily make him a thicko.

[Janet296]

He's been drinking the Kool aide to long to have a crisis of faith. It would be great for him and his career if he left his cult.

[twitchy2.0]

He's dyslexic, but that doesn't necessarily make him a thicko.

No reason he can't be both!

[A*O]

Do you remember when almost every under-achieving kid was labelled "dyslexic"? I totally accept that the condition exists but never believed it was as prevalent as claimed. You hardly ever hear about it these days. Now it's ADHD. I know all parents like to think their kids are gifted and awesome, and some are, but we also have to accept that our little snowflakes sometimes just, erm, aren't.

[SuriCruise]

I don't know if he's dumb, or just crazy. He's obviously not a free thinker or terribly smart but I think it's cray cray more than stupidity with him. I don't believe he will ever leave the Co$. Maybe when the Co$ ship is truly sinking Tom will decide to jump ship and try to distance himself, but I could see him hanging on and going down with them.

eta: yeah adhd seems very common now. My boyfriend has dyslexia (hereditary, his father passed it on to both him and his brother). It doesn't make someone 'stupid' but there probably are people who are just a bit slow but were given the label incorrectly. When someone is so young it's probably hard to tell between a true learning difficulty such as dyslexia affecting their ability to learn reading or mathematics etc or if the kid is just stupid and that's why they aren't achieving at school.

[fattymatty]

Do you remember when almost every under-achieving kid was labelled "dyslexic"? I totally accept that the condition exists but never believed it was as prevalent as claimed. You hardly ever hear about it these days. Now it's ADHD. I know all parents like to think their kids are gifted and awesome, and some are, but we also have to accept that our little snowflakes sometimes just, erm, aren't.

Agree. I was horrible in school. I'm of average intelligence which means I need to study every night. I was lazy and didn't put any effort into my education so I always did terribly. But I did play the ADHD card so I could get the drugs. It works every time.

[idunno]

So do you admit you were an idiot, for all those years, or do you stick with it to prove to yourself you aren't an idiot?

I've lurked on some ex-Scientology boards and they still can't give it up completely. Many still believe that they travel through space and time at will, that they have power over the physical universe with their minds, that they are the most aware people on the planet. It's all very silly and sad.

Yeah, lots of ex-scilons become free-zoners, where they still believe in scientology, but no longer have to pay for it.
Personally I'd free my mind as well as my wallet, and just admit to having been an idiot.
I don't see Tom doing that though. If he wants to leave, he would probably just silently distance himself from the sci-bots and get a "don't ask about scientology"-clause in all interviews. Which would be good news for him, but baaad news for GR.

[Novice]

No reason he can't be both!

Oh I agree.

Do you remember when almost every under-achieving kid was labelled "dyslexic"? I totally accept that the condition exists but never believed it was as prevalent as claimed. You hardly ever hear about it these days. Now it's ADHD. I know all parents like to think their kids are gifted and awesome, and some are, but we also have to accept that our little snowflakes sometimes just, erm, aren't.

I dunno about that I just know that it's gone from my father to me to my nephew. Me & dad were never diagnosed & have had to go through life struggling with it. We have both managed to get decent qualifications but we probably had to work harder & more determinedly to get them.
However my guess (because I know nothing about it) it that there is a spectrum with dyslexia too.

I don't know if he's dumb, or just crazy. He's obviously not a free thinker or terribly smart but I think it's cray cray more than stupidity with him. I don't believe he will ever leave the Co$. Maybe when the Co$ ship is truly sinking Tom will decide to jump ship and try to distance himself, but I could see him hanging on and going down with them.

eta: yeah adhd seems very common now. My boyfriend has dyslexia (hereditary, his father passed it on to both him and his brother). It doesn't make someone 'stupid' but there probably are people who are just a bit slow but were given the label incorrectly. When someone is so young it's probably hard to tell between a true learning difficulty such as dyslexia affecting their ability to learn reading or mathematics etc or if the kid is just stupid and that's why they aren't achieving at school.

My experience is different. I'm bright (I've had interview feedback that senior executives of a multinational company found me "scary smart" but it didn't get me the job, in fact probably lost me it) but I am truly shit at exams. I was expected to get great grades at O level (16) and I failed eight of them. The whole "how are you on the day"-thing just doesn't work for me.

[penname]

If he really is beginning to question the whole sciborg issue, I feel a bit sorry for him (in the same way I'd feel sorry for anyone with a major crisis of faith), except that in his case there's probably no happy way out. Maybe the best way for him to loosen their hold on him is to 'retire' from movies and public life altogether. His best Hollywood years are behind him anyway, and if he quits (and thereby reduces his value to them) maybe they won't expose all his foilbles and totally ruin him. After all, they'll still get plenty of his money through residuals, shareholdings, etc. Admittedly, he won't get all the servants, asskissers and glory, but it would enable him to maintain some of his faith and hopefully a better relationship with Suri. Of course, we wouldn't have nearly so much fun gossiping about him, but with all his money, he'd still have an extremely privileged and comfortable life, thank you very much. And if scandals broke after X-many years of radio science, it wouldn't be Travolta-level news but a five-minute wonder and he could swiftly go back to doing whatever.

But I suspect that the chances of him quitting the sciborgs totally, or exposing them, are pretty remote. And I'm not sure his ego would let him retire from Hollywood, but then if everyone in my world had been telling me that I'm that gifted/powerful/deserving/whatevs for 20 years, perhaps my ego wouldn't allow it either. He really is between a rock and a whatsit.

[SuriCruise]

Novice, do you have dyslexia or anything? It seems a lot of intelligent and creative people find exams hard because they have difficulty expressing all of their thoughts coherently for the marker and without going off on a tangent (I think), some of them have dyslexia and some don't. My boyfriend is smart but when he tries to explain something it is very long-winded and he has trouble writing down his thoughts and arranging/remembering things when he reads them. In my post I meant it is probably hard for people to tell if a kid who is doing poorly at school is smart but has real learning difficulties that are holding them back or if they are just not a smart kid, and so a lot of people get diagnosed with it, some correctly and some not. I didn't mean there is a correlation between dyslexia and stupidity - it's the opposite probably.

I don't think Tiny Tom is a secret genius though... maybe he really does have dyslexia, but either way he isn't the brightest spark. I think he's too sucked in to ever leave the Co$. He's more in it than Travolta imo.

[Novice]

Novice, do you have dyslexia or anything? It seems a lot of intelligent and creative people find exams hard because they have difficulty expressing all of their thoughts coherently for the marker and without going off on a tangent (I think), some of them have dyslexia and some don't. My boyfriend is smart but when he tries to explain something it is very long-winded and he has trouble writing down his thoughts and arranging/remembering things when he reads them. In my post I meant it is probably hard for people to tell if a kid who is doing poorly at school is smart but has real learning difficulties that are holding them back or if they are just not a smart kid, and so a lot of people get diagnosed with it, some correctly and some not. I didn't mean there is a correlation between dyslexia and stupidity - it's the opposite probably.

I don't think Tiny Tom is a secret genius though... maybe he really does have dyslexia, but either way he isn't the brightest spark. I think he's too sucked in to ever leave the Co$. He's more in it than Travolta imo.

I agree with what you say about Tiny Tim.

Re: Dyslexia I was never diagnosed however apparently I have "more than enough of the classic signs" to be easily diagnosed.
Yes, I ramble too and I'm learning to get to the point.
I'm ok verbally but on paper it's very hard. Even when I checked my spelling I've turned in papers with 11 spelling errors on 7 pages (pre computer). We also did an English test at college where I got very high marks on the comprehension but exceptionally low on the spelling & mechanics of it. I asked if there was any help for me but was told the English workshop was for people speaking English as a 2 nd language. Go figure! My friend is 7-8 yrs younger than me & is diagnosed & has all sorts of help, my nephew had just been diagnosed & also had assistance. It does make me bitter that I had to struggle (& run) so hard just to stand still when my friends could concentrate in the actual "learning" that was going on. I guess it doesn't help that I also get bored quickly if something doesn't hold my attention.
I also think that huge exam thing is partly due to a lack of confidence due to all of the above. I chose to do vocational qualifications because the end result was part course-work & part exam and I've topped it up with professional qualifications (the next one starts tomorrow, cost my half a months wages &... Has an exam at the end. *gulp* cross you fingers got me in wednesday...)

[Neptunia]

I wish he were mercenary enough to just think that Scientology (that word's in spell check!) got him this far in his career, now it's time to cut them loose to try to save what's left of it.
It would be a great redemptive story for him to play to the media, he could milk that for years, how they duped him, got to him when he was young and insecure, etc.
I dont think he's clever enough to pull that off even if he believed it. Which is too bad, it'd be better than his recent movies.

[MsDark]

He's not quitting this. And moreover, I think this article is a cleverly crafted one to give him an image bump because someone in the ranks of that cult finally got their head of out their ass and realized that everyone outside of them sees them as freaks. Tom's popularity plummeting to an all time low because of shit to do with this stupid cult = Let's make it look like he's really suffering from this latest divorce, behaving and doing things normal non-cultists would do in such a situation, hanging out with people outside the cult and 'thinking about leaving us'. Yeah. Total script.

[rollo]

I wish he were mercenary enough to just think that Scientology (that word's in spell check!) got him this far in his career, now it's time to cut them loose to try to save what's left of it.
It would be a great redemptive story for him to play to the media, he could milk that for years, how they duped him, got to him when he was young and insecure, etc.
I dont think he's clever enough to pull that off even if he believed it. Which is too bad, it'd be better than his recent movies.

Yes, people seem to think that the fallout would be worse for Tom but not if he manages it cleverly IMO.