Why I Write
(Written for an assignment)
For the moment, I am forced to be in prison, but prison will never be in me.
To internalize the effects of these circumstances and senseless cruelties, to isolate and withdraw from confrontational stressors and negative influences, allowing cynicism and bitterness to cut off the honest communication of my thoughts and feelings, my inner life, would be a form of surrender to an archaic and inhumane system. I will never permit them to make me into what I was never intended to be--a hardened prisoner removed from society and incapable of contributing something positive and meaningful. The most effective way I have found to resist this process in nine years of incarceration is to write, to put a pen to paper and record for any use that can be made of them my ideas and perceptions, who I really am as an individual.
Throughout history, this has always been the way. From St. Paul's letters to the Colossians to Dostoyevsky's "Notes From the Underground," Alexander Solzhenitsyn's political protests from a Siberian Gulag, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letters from Birmingham Jail," Nelson Mandela's critiques of Aparthied, and many others: all examples of man's resistance to suppression, how the truth can be conveyed and lives changed from within the confines of a jail cell.
Bi-weekly prison literary club meetings and required writing assignments may seem unimportant, just another excuse for sponsored banquets and gluttony twice a year. Actually, this extracurricular activity is what you make of it. The intrinsic reward is directly related proportionally to the effort one is willing to extend. The inspiration to do my best at something has always proved to be rewarding and good for me, the results of education and intellectual work always beneficial; it is to write for writing's sake, refusing to be silenced.
J. Wallace
For the moment, I am forced to be in prison, but prison will never be in me.
To internalize the effects of these circumstances and senseless cruelties, to isolate and withdraw from confrontational stressors and negative influences, allowing cynicism and bitterness to cut off the honest communication of my thoughts and feelings, my inner life, would be a form of surrender to an archaic and inhumane system. I will never permit them to make me into what I was never intended to be--a hardened prisoner removed from society and incapable of contributing something positive and meaningful. The most effective way I have found to resist this process in nine years of incarceration is to write, to put a pen to paper and record for any use that can be made of them my ideas and perceptions, who I really am as an individual.
Throughout history, this has always been the way. From St. Paul's letters to the Colossians to Dostoyevsky's "Notes From the Underground," Alexander Solzhenitsyn's political protests from a Siberian Gulag, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letters from Birmingham Jail," Nelson Mandela's critiques of Aparthied, and many others: all examples of man's resistance to suppression, how the truth can be conveyed and lives changed from within the confines of a jail cell.
Bi-weekly prison literary club meetings and required writing assignments may seem unimportant, just another excuse for sponsored banquets and gluttony twice a year. Actually, this extracurricular activity is what you make of it. The intrinsic reward is directly related proportionally to the effort one is willing to extend. The inspiration to do my best at something has always proved to be rewarding and good for me, the results of education and intellectual work always beneficial; it is to write for writing's sake, refusing to be silenced.
J. Wallace
posted by Purgatory Penman | 8:50 PM
1 Comments:
I commend you for diligently seeking ways to stay strong and fight the damaging affects of prison. I think it is a crime in itself that the system ideally setup for rehabilitation actually perpetrates de-habilitation.
I pray for your strength and for God to continue to deliver mercy through methods and outlets that allow your spiritual life to grow.
I cannot help but be reminded of the words of the main character in The Shawshank Redemption.
Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music [or writing]. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music? ... Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone, and that there's something inside that they can't get to ,and that they can't touch. It's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.
Red: [narrating] I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.
Also maybe the most poignant line and damning line on the prison system: Andy Dufresne: Yeah. The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
Thanks for sharing your heart and keep writing. I am reading.
Tony
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