Prison Perspective
I’ve been in situations before where I’ve felt like there is no way forward and like I have no choice. It feels like imprisonment. This is a good thing.
Because it means I can stop fighting, agonising. There is nothing left to do but surrender. Despondency is dark but it feels like rest after a long period of turmoil. It is a chance to catch my breath after screaming for a long time. That was my weekend.
Eventually – and I realise this happens every time – a contrasting calm settles. Because a prison sentence is finite. Oppressors don’t live forever. Bad seasons transition into better. Illness heals or vanquishes. No state is forever.
There is only thing I can and I must do it well – to outlive my chains or my captors. This means conserving my energy instead of wasting it straining against constraints. It means resizing my sense of self to the limited world I’m in. Why bleed against the bars when I can focus all I have into longevity?
With this perspective come other gifts. The insight that unlike an actual prison, this one is of my choice. This is a lesson in restraint, not forced constraint. When you police yourself, it’s easy to realise that resistance is not just futile, it’s unproductive. And the meaning of life is not resistance; it’s resilience. It is an exercise in sustenance & sustainability, not drama and glory. It’s peaceful and it is rich.
We get to freedom, one step at a time, one breath at a time.
