Reality of a Prison Writer 23–E.C. Theus-Roberts

Reality of a Prison Writer 23 –E.C. Theus-Roberts

1. Prior to being desaparecido I’d written about purpose. Purpose extends far beyond what all is done today, in our present moments. Linkin Park has a song, “Leave Out All the Rest” which is particularly apt. What we leave behind us , fruits of our labors, or ruins of our devastations, speaks to what purpose we lived with or by. I often ponder what purpose will be ascribed to my life when social etiquette no longer restrains truthful tongues.

I cringe to think people may speak in meaningless platitudes, superficialities, politesse, cliched niceties, tended the duly departed. It would be much pleasanter to be infamously spoken of or not at all than commonly. For a creative there’s no greater ignominy.

Though Man’s Judgement is capricious; villain today tomorrow saint. Our present conditions do not dictate our life’s purpose. Purpose is the only thing we can lay claim to that transcends circumstances.

With that in mind I continue wandering along this odyssey called life , I only wonder whether I’ll achieve the purpose I told my playwright friend about or suffer the inglorious fate of the common scribbler.

• If the measure of and animal warped by its confinement is a single caged lion’s stride then the measure among captive humans is their loss of circadian cycle normalcy.

In the Ad-Seg at Pendleton Correctional Facility (like Colorado’s Ad-Seg, recently received a “face-lift” in name), we prisoners cohabitate with caged sparrows. Observing these jailbirds, it’s amazing the parallels between them and us. They chirp, cavort, and chatter away all day and night. They’re as active a 2 am as at 7 pm as are the prisoners.

I’m a veritable odd ball. Perhaps it’s by dent of habit or more likely sheer stubbornness, In either case, I’ve more or less maintained my 24-hour schedule. Up around 3 am, give or take. Exercise, write, study, read, eat here and there, resign myself to returning to being in prison for some hours each day, and by half hour till 8 pm –slip into blissful oblivion. Thankfully, my 24-hour circadian cycle has yet to suffer ill-effects consequence of being desaparecido. As it relates the jailbirds around me (feathered and not) circadian normalcy is so not a thing.

I’m an homme de lettres , therefore, I’m contrarily torn. On one hand, It’s dejection by maddeningly, ceaseless noise interdicting literary expression. By the other, observing the degeneration and decompensation of personality and character in others is an intellectual pleasure. It’s as if I’m a chef with plenty food for thought though incapable of composing a single dish.

I once enjoyed the harrowing hours of prison. Now, I must hear the daily harrowing others experience. All hope is gone for those peaceful moments.

• People rarely consider how amazing humans are, Our capacity to adapt is almost limitless. We acclimate to extreme colds and heat, tolerate torturous strains and overwhelming pleasures; contend life’s contumacious nature and come away oft-times no worse for wear. But, when it comes to man-made challenges…Well that’s an entirely different story

I love the phrase homo homini lupus (A man is a wolf to another man). It’s proof is demonstrated in prison everyday. An artificial environment that slowly corrodes and degrades humanity. I’ve seen people who would embarrass Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes in a debate on legal principles, fly off the cuff and handle their own feces. More times than I care to recall, I’ve witnessed guys who, criminal convictions aside, were kind, big-hearted, generous, and pacific turn gruff, sceptic, miserly, volatile, violent and finally anti-social. It affects everybody. Even in writing this I see captivity’s deleterious effects. A full, pithy stream of thought becomes mere fragments a partial second after the first word is written. Such is the nature of human captivity

I’ve mentioned that being a prisoner is being the living dead. Honestly, it’s a thing indescribably worse. Is this what is called “humane treatment?” If so, then the Guillotine was kinder. Humans have done what Mother Nature failed, First, created something our adaption can’t overcome—imprisonment. Second and more consequential, man has made man other than man. Terrifying achievements to be certain. An undeniable fact is Aequior est disposition legis quam. (The law’s disposition of a matter is more just than thaf’of a man.) Sadly, Nature’s law is bowed under humanity’s dictatorship.