Isn't it strange that one can feel free in prison, while alone and forsaken, and feel enslaved once released and seemingly loved by many?  Perhaps someone who has not lived on both sides of the razor ribbon can never understand this entirely.  Maybe even I, a man who's experienced both "hell" and "heaven," cannot understand entirely.  But I believe I can feel it far more deeply and intensely than anyone who hasn't.

That's my brother Danny and me when I visited the joint last summer.  I'm pretty sure he's been in prison since the year I was born.  That's forty fucking years.

Yet he's at peace.

A spiritual man who is nothing like the criminal who committed murder decades ago, Danny's life has meaning to him now, and he spends most of his time helping others.  "Bloom where you're planted," the saying goes.  And Danny has blossomed as well as anyone could have hoped.

I remember when I also felt I was blossoming beautifully.  I was making the best of a quite unfortunate situation... incarcerated, but (inexplicably) at peace.  I wrote modestly successful plays, taught meditation and ancient languages, and even played piano and organ for church, all while in the joint.  I still had faith then.  Not necessarily faith in Christianity, but faith that the truth would set me free, faith that I could make a lasting positive difference in the world, and faith that all things were possible with my education and perseverance.... 

John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost that "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."  Why do we who are in the "heaven" of apparent freedom constantly make it into a "hell"?  Hmmm....

Danny has faith.  It may be in the Bible and the exclusive divinity of Jesus, which I find hard to swallow.  In my opinion, Jesus was no more divine than all of us are divine.  Hey, if God is omnipresent, then he or she has to be in every atom (and between every atom) in the universe.  Then God IS the uinvierse.  So why can't we then dispense with the superfluous, redundant word "God" and call it/him/her "universe" or "me" or "you" or "all."

Still, Danny believes....

When I was in prison, I still believed in truth, in our justice system, in our president (it was Clinton at the time), and in the eventual success of all good and wise endeavors.  Now I seem to see all too clearly through the bull shit.  Or I've just become too frequently cynical.  I'm not always sure which.  Maybe I don't see shit.  But I'm inclined to believe that what Fyodor Dostoevsky said in Notes from the Underground is absolutely correct: "To be too conscious is a curse."

Or as we common folk say...

Too bad that cliché doesn't say it all.

Because Ignorance is also President of the United States.

Okay... forget being all sullen.  After all, it's much more fun to pick on Bush.  And he proves that while ignorance may not be bliss, it can be extremely lucrative.  Wanna bet Dick Cheney gets back into "official" business with Halliburton when he leaves office?  Maybe he'll take village idiot Bush with him.

Okay, it's time for me to say "Fuck Bush and depression" and start renewing my once concerted effort to bloom where I'm planted.  Like in this Dalí painting....