I was sitting in the silence of my room and my mind drifts into an alternate dimension. A place where I go to get away from the craziness of the day. And for a few minutes, am at total peace with myself. Because in prison, you never get a moment of privacy. It just doesn’t exist, so when you can relish in a few moments to yourself, you cherish it. Every little thing people take for granted on the outside, we treasure because you never realize when it can all be taken away.
Often times I utilize Steven Halpern’s “Deep Theta Waves 2.0 Brainwave Entrainment Music for Meditation and Healing” in order to achieve a sufficient state of tranquility. I need to center myself and adapt to this intense environment. Every day is difficult. People are dying around me continually. Staff and Adults in custody. One of my friends passed away recently in his cell. His heart gave out on hi after coming back from recreation. I watched helplessly as he lay on the cold floor and died as Medical personnel pumped on his chest in effort to save him. As they rolled him out, he limp and wasn’t breathing. I prayed to God to help him, but a part of me knew that he was gone.
I call this sanctuary where I drift off to “The Bakery.” Now some people may read this and find it humorous. But to me, it makes perfect sense. I call it that because this is where I create works of art, fiction, poetry, songs and serenity within myself. I cook up all sorts of things. And while I’m here I practice the principle of being adaptable. I’ve to become adjusted to a specified use or situation life the definition insist. I fine tune the activities I participate in, modify the way I think, and I’m willing and ready to practice the beliefs I’ve created for myself in order to proceed toward positive change.
I spent most of my life adapting to different terrains, climates, countries, and arduous training protocols. The military was one of the best machines to teach me how to become adaptable. I had to adapt mentally and physically everyday to do my job successfully. My mind and body was broken and rebuilt by my Drill sergeants in order to make me into a more disciplined and effective version of who I was before.
Prison also force me to become more adaptable. I had to learn a whole new set of living standards, politics that could save me from encumbering violence, awareness, and life saving techniques. I had to learn very quick not be adaptable and aware or my surrounding. I had to learn who was who, what person belonged to what group and how to avoid situations that could put myself in danger. I also had to make sure I didn’t become complacent, because prison is a vessel of continuous change and everyday is different, vastly, from the next. Many times we get so content in the way we are, we repudiate all efforts to adapt or transmute our personality or beliefs, our values and habit, no matter how damaging or undesirable they are. And that is because change is very frightening. If you become to comfortable to your environment and your living conditions variations no matter how slight can send your life into an emotional maelstrom.
Instead of complaining and stressing myself out now, I just take the time to be thankful for what I have. I become adaptable to the pressure that I face and take the good out of every bad situation I endure daily. I choose not to expend my energy focusing on all the thing I do not have. I choose to focus on self improvement. I strive to get out of this continuous loop of negativity that I’ve been living for the past 17 years. I have set goals and standards for myself. I also realize I can’t afford to be complacent and stuck in my ways, my misconstrued beliefs and values. I choose not to participate in inflexible and rigid thinking because it’s a form of extended adolescence.
There are so many of us inside prison that have so much potential and it’s being wasted. We are constantly fighting an internal battle within ourselves. I know I am. But, I now know that I must exorcise those demons and expound upon the potential and my God given talents. And I want to give knowledge that I’ve learned of been gifted by wiser men than me, to others who can utilize and apply it to their lives. It’s very difficult to adapt to this environment, but being a man that stands firm in my beliefs I had made it a point to teach others and help them try to achieve some of their goals. Helping others undoubtedly helps me, very much. I seek to empower my neighbor with ambition, direction, motivation so that the may convert their lives into something advantageous.
I seek to break the cycle of negativity with the principle of “Teach one, Reach one.” There are some very articulate and astute brothers inside of here who could be extremely productive citizens. Trailblazers. Gamechangers. And they just need a way to curb their behaviors because those behaviors are maladaptive. I know that I do not want to be the same person I came into prison going out of prison. And I don’t want it for them either. Regardless of who we serve or believe in, we all should seek out the proper knowledge in order to become adaptable. Because we all have people on the outside that love and depend on us because our actions don’t just affect us, it affects our community, families, friends, kids and people that look up to us.
