Where Humanity Persists

Imagine (if you can) living in a world where everyone hates you: family, friends, a whole society — an entire nation! Hate that is fueled by ignorant stereotypes, personal bias, but worst of all, more half-truths than truths.

Everything you’ve earned, worked hard for, and strived to achieve has been utterly obliterated. You’ll never be trusted again — for anything! No one will believe anything you say ever again! Your freedom and liberty have been skillfully severed (for life!) by corrupted prosecutors and sellout public “defenders”. Your only hope: worthless documents titled ‘Bill of Rights’ and ‘Constitution’.

You find yourself exiled into an environment where nothing matters — absolutely nothing! A new home where words like compassion, empathy, and human kindness are unknown. Words from some forgotten language whose true meanings require the discovery of their own Rosetta Stone. Words that evoke weakness over strength, suffering over salvation, and death over life. Where darkness rules the light; humanity forgotten.

But what has begun to sting the most are your sins. Sins that inflict ragged cat o’ nine tails’ gashes upon your soul at every breath as a harsh and unforgiving new perspective forcefully molds your psyche. Lessons that act like strychnine upon your mind.

If you attempt to genuinely apologize — beg forgiveness! — sincerely try explain you didn’t realize the pain you’ve caused, everything you say and do will be bludgeoned into powder and recast against you in the most vile shade of devilry. You’re rendered a leper, and that’s it!

Welcome to prison…

…When I was twelve years-old I burned an old cassette tape. My eldest stepbrother called me into his room asking if I could keep a secret. Of course I could! He told me the cassette had satanic music on it. When it played, the weird chanting voices seemed off, but not particularly alarming. Until I began to notice subtle changes in my family’s behavior.

It was as clear as day. I could sense it, feel it. Every time that tape played my parents began fighting. Us six boys would steal from the others, fight amongst ourselves, and break things. Even our pets became aggressive.

I grew to fear that cassette. But I kept the secret…

On a remote camping trip high in the Uinta Mountains of Utah, my preteen mind ‘rescued’ four ‘trapped’ baby woodpeckers. I didn’t understand the hatchlings were calling for their mom who was out hunting their meals. All I heard were cries for help.

It took me hours to chop that tree down with my small hatchet. But I finally managed to free the tiny creatures from their ‘cage’. I walked triumphantly into camp, a giant smile smothering my dirty, red-cheeked face.

“Look!” I said, “I saved the from a hole they got stuck in!” All four chicks fit neatly into my right palm. I knew my mom would be especially proud. She was always rescuing and mending all kinds of wildlife.

But instantly I knew something was wrong. Everyone wore this exasperated expression. My brother was in the pop-up camper playing that damn tape. My stepdad stood in anger. “I’ll teach him to mess with nature!” he said.

I was forced to follow him into the woods. He stopped at a large stump where a tree once stood tall. He commanded me to place the birds on the stump.

“Kill them!” he said. I stood there confused, scared.

“B…b…but why?” I stuttered in shocked bewilderment.

“They are going to die anyway. You should have left them in their nest. Now kill them!”

“I can raise them! I saved them!”

“You didn’t save them! You stole them from their mom. Kill them — now!”

But he didn’t show me how to kill them. He could have at least taken one and humanely chopped its head off. I didn’t know how to kill them.

“Now! Goddamn it! Kill them!”

With my eyes closed I began chopping. I could hear the little birds screaming. I wasn’t just killing them — I was torturing them!

When I opened my eyes, one was still moving; a wounded wriggle as if trying to flee. It was the first time in my life I tasted the kind of emotional trauma that leaves you nauseated. I ran deeper into the woods crying, stopping only to vomit. I could feel the baby birds’ fear, their pain, and it horrified me. In my mind I blamed that cursed cassette.

The last time it played my stepfather killed our pet ferret, Ricky-Tivy-Tavy. Everything was fine that day. Until my brother came home. “Don’t play that tape!” I pleaded. He just looked at me like I was nuts and walked away. I ran after him, but he locked himself in his room. Through the door I could hear the chants. I covered my ears and darted downstairs into the living room.

My stepfather and brothers were watching TV. My mom was in the kitchen preparing dinner. Ricky-Tivy-Tavy was lying across the chest of my stepdad. My brothers began arguing. Both parents screamed at them to behave. “It’s starting!” I said to myself.

Without warning the ferret bit into my dad’s nose. He grabbed it and squeezed hard, pulling it from his bleeding face. He then slammed the animal against the wall.

I had had enough! I waited until my brother left for work. I snuck into his room and took the cassette. I retrieved some matches from a kitchen drawer. I walked behind our home, dug a hole with my pocketknife, and tossed in the tape. I then doused it with lighter fluid.

I struck a match and with a prayer dropped it. The plastic cassette exploded in a brilliant red-orange glow sending a puff of air that blew my hair back. But I stood firm and watched it burn. When the flames shrunk, I made them swell tall again. And again until nothing was left but ash. I filled the hole with dirt and placed the largest rock I could carry over it.

Prison is like that cassette. I’ve always been sensitive to such things. I can see it, feel it. It’s clear as crystal in the everyday behavior of many of the inmates around me. They are oblivious to it. But it’s here. And it’s much larger and more powerful than a single haunted cassette-tape. It’s an invisible, patiently threatening pestilence governed by the laws of attraction.

It’s a simple law: Good attracts good, evil attracts evil. The wanton transgression of humanity, evil purposely perpetrated against humankind, and the pleasures felt by committing cruel and malicious acts attracts negative spirits like sharks to blood. And it’s the hostile spooks who possess the key to Pandora’s box.

Scientists say nature always finds a way. Well, so does light when completely consumed by darkness. It may not seem like it at first, for some disturbing reason meanness appears to spread and infect others much more efficiently and virulently than kindness. This may have something to do with the instant gratification an inmate so desperately seeks by acting selfish and greedy.

Incarceration is all about punishment and vengeance in America. Where the land of the ‘free’ (ironically) enslaves more of its citizens than any other nation on earth. But I digress. This is not intended to be some geopolitical tirade.

The point is, punishment is designed to remove human from humanity by restricting any and all comfort. This forces the inmate to become selfish, greedy, and inconsiderate as he/she seeks out ways to acquire the smallest comforts and simplest of praise, often at the expense of their peers. The only lessons punishment offers are ways to manipulate fellow citizens and the system as a means of survival!

If Captain Kirk had had the appropriate filtered sense inside Blue Origin, perhaps he wouldn’t have appeared so disappointedly giddy. His view wouldn’t have been so beautiful. He couldn’t have missed the pathways from deep space of all the inhumane haunting — hunting! — spirits attracted to every prison on the planet. I cannot begin to fathom peering down from space and not feeling forlorn at the suffering a great many humans are living.

The forces attempting to render this world a worse place never take a day off. It doesn’t bode well for humanity that these new space tourists look down, and in that moment, are oblivious to the plight of the human corpus on the surface.

But is it even possible for one person to brighten the darkness? A seemingly impossible suggestion. I once read about an experiment conducted by a group of inmates inside a Nazi death camp. They gathered at dawn and pledged for twenty-four hours to show only kindness, empathy, and compassion towards those around them. By dusk all had failed, succumbing to the harsh realities of the Holocaust.

Of course, none of us today have it nearly as bad as they did. But the question persists: How is it possible for one man, one woman, to brighten the darkness? The answer wasn’t impossible. It was just elusive, almost cryptic in its simplicity, and not very encouraging: self-sacrifice!

I’m not talking about martyrdom. And the solution only poked my psyche after reading the laws of attraction, which had me reflect on one of my favorite quotes: “Why is it when we talk to God it’s called prayer, but when God talks back it’s called schizophrenia?”

If the wanton transgression of humanity, evil deliberately perpetrated against mankind is a triumph of evil signaling negative spirits —demons! — what happens when one commits wanton transgressions against humanity? Wouldn’t good purposely perpetrated upon mankind be a triumph of humanity signaling positive spirits — angels!?

This is where the self-sacrifice comes in. In order to wantonly display human kindness in prison, you must sacrifice your comfort — an extremely scarce commodity. Moreover, you risk the label of predator. Most inmates are dishonest; they lie, cheat, and steal. They live their lives motivated by self-interest in an atmosphere of exaggerators, tricksters, and intriguers. Kindness is genuinely mistaken for weakness or predatory behavior, so one must be cautious in his/her approach.

Like fire, if light has any chance of shining through darkness, certain environmental conditions are required. One good deed isn’t going to accomplish anything — especially if you sacrifice nothing with this deed — just as one damp log won’t spontaneously ignite. Kindness and compassion should be considered an act of faith. It must be understood from the start that it’s going to take time to stoke the flames of humanity. Lucky for us, time is in abundance!

For far too long negative spirits have ruled behind these bars manufacturing our own brand of misery fueled by our own behavior. Isn’t it time we reclaim our dignity, our collective self-worth and stop allowing the stigma of incarceration and the stain of our pasts define our futures?

Our unfortunate reality is that our society doesn’t care about us. We must care for one another. It’s not going to be easy. But trust me when I say it works. The rewards significantly outweigh the personal sacrifices you must endure. I’ve seen it, felt it. I’ve lived it for nearly nine years now! But for many a night I nearly surrendered to the wretched negativity around me. And if truth be told, I’m currently feeling an especially sinister crisis of faith.

But it’s the sincere, genuine gratitude and appreciation that oozes — sometimes literally tears — from those I’ve been kind to an have extended a helping hand towards that keeps me going. I’ve witnessed others watching me who in turn become their own beacon of faint light. Together we shine brighter!

I struggle daily with serious negative thoughts towards those around me those around me lost deep within the darkness. I can sense all the negative spirits hovering above attempting to extinguish — with prejudice! — the tiny specks of hope they so dread. On the flipside, I can feel all the positive spirits desperately praying for humanity’s triumph over darkness. You don’t have to be religious, but you must be faithful. Every soul we turn from darkness brightens the light and proves prison a place where humanity persists.

This can work in the free world, too, you know. Just imagine if the world’s olympic athletes chose to sacrifice their games in support of the Uyghurs mercilessly persecuted inside China! How many angels would be summoned to do battle against the demons inside their prisons? The light feeds off our sacrifices, not the good deed. I would like to challenge every olympic athlete from every nation participating in the 2022 winter games to sacrifice their performances in support of brightness over darkness to prove earth a place where humanity persists.

Are you courageous enough to be faithful? #wherehumanitypersists