Threshold - the magnitude or
intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or
condition to occur or be manifested.
So, you have found yourself locked
inside of a cage? Congratulations! American prison systems currently hold 2 million human beings. There are, approximately, 300 million people living in the United
States of America. Considering these
statistics place you in a class that is less than 1 percent of the population, I can safely determine that you, my
friend, are definitely *unique and *chosen!
Since I have the very unusual opportunity to speak to your
full and undivided attention, I’d like to take some time to explain a few
things that I’ve learned from my experiences inside and outside of those same
walls that are currently surrounding you.
And, in order to establish my credibility, I have no issue allowing you to
hear a bit of a background on my incarceration and the circumstances involved in
my transition back to ‘society’.
First, the reason that I have no problem
talking about my time in jail is important to note. My memory of jail is a memory of
introspection and growth. I made a
decision to create a new starting point in life. I made a decision to never look back or dwell
on the memories that were coated with fear, guilt and anger. I made a decision to pursue the truth behind the motives and actions
that led to the loss of my freedom (my motives as well as the motives of my
captors).
While locked inside of a cell, and therefore locked inside
of my mind, I made a decision to surrender my old way of thinking to a new,
open-minded existence. I made a decision
to stop acting as if I owed anything to anyone but myself. I made a decision to throw away my outdated
dictionary of repetitive, conditioned and prejudice thoughts. I made a decision to courageously begin
redefining life objectively and
intuitively.
I made a decision to trust myself that everything was going
to be okay.
The
situation I was in wasn’t the end of the world.
It wasn’t the end of my life. I
still had a choice to make. I could sit and wonder and bitch and
moan. Or, I could create a meaningful
life worth saving. While I owned nothing
outside of those walls, while hungry and dispassionate, I could still attempt
to dig deep for the richest of all riches in the mighty universe; True Inner Peace and Happiness.
Surrounded by darkness, I made a decision to stay within the
light of positivity as much as I could by avoiding
negative people and thoughts. If
this meant spending my time inside of my cell with a book or a pen and my
thoughts, so be it. It was time to face
myself and re-member.
You have to remember the potential
you were born with as a free human being on the great Mother Earth. You have to remember the innocence of your
youth and the unbridled hope you rightfully wished upon as you began exploring
life through the eyes of an adolescent. You
have to remember the vivid and clear dreams you’ve had. You have to take control of your life
back. And, you have to promise yourself,
when you step outside of those walls one day soon, that you will never give
another human being (or institution) the opportunity to steal your happiness or
freedom again.
What I found during my introspective journey of truth and
knowledge - my study as the eager student and
the noble teacher - was that the only thing holding me back was my own
preconceived idea of limitations. I
asked for truth and wisdom, I remained positive and stood strong against the
storm, and my hard work was rewarded in ways that I never imagined at the time
I was sitting in that same, uncomfortable chair across from the weight room.
You see, regardless of the circumstances behind the reasons why you are incarcerated. Regardless of the many factors that led to
your arrest. Regardless of what may have
been a blatant case of injustice, a corrupt police officer with a moral dilemma
or a law that fringed upon your basic human rights, there is always room for growth in life.
So, why not now? Why
not here?
Maybe it’s possible that everything
you’ve ever thought to be true is, in fact, wrong. Maybe the way you were living was
self-centered. Maybe you reached a
plateau of knowledge and decided to stop learning new ideas, truths and tools. Maybe you were injecting yourself with toxins
and chemicals that had a negative effect on your body and mind. Maybe you were hurting the people you love
the most, and you just couldn’t figure out why.
If any of these thoughts ring a bell, then it’s completely
okay for you to take a step back and re-evaluate your life and decision-making. ‘Changing your life’ is hard. Admitting what you’ve done wrong is hard. Compassionately
sitting with the feeling of pain that your loved ones went through because of
your incarceration is hard. Admitting
that you still have a lot to learn is humbling and hard to digest.
“The more you know,
the more you know you don’t know.”
Most likely, you were following a certain course with good
intentions and a fearless mindset as a youngster. You believed everything would work out
regardless of how many risky behaviors you partook in. “Those
other guys are the problem. Ending up in
jail? Ha! Never me!” Around the time of puberty, you began a
journey of discovery and freedom based upon the guidance and principles you
were taught as a child. You were set
free around the age of 16. And, it’s
very possible that you weren’t fully prepared for life just yet. You fell, and you grew, and you learned, and
you fell, and you grew, and you learned and then…Boom! Handcuffs.
“You aren’t
responsible for the cards you were dealt in life. But, you are responsible for how you play
them.”
There are other factors to be blamed
for your ‘downfall’ from a free person to an incarcerated ‘criminal’. It’s okay to be upset with the major
institutions of the world; religion, government, the education system. I feel safe assuming that a large part of
your frustrations stem from what’s going on in the ‘world around you’. From the hypocrisy and contradictions our ‘leaders’
show us on a daily basis, to a television that feeds us with images of death
and destruction, you are upset and confused.
Well, you’re not alone when you think this way. At the very least, on a subconscious level,
it is perfectly natural for you to be concerned as to why there is so much
hatred and tension amongst seemingly peaceful human beings.
“Be the change you
wish to see in the world.”
Here’s
the truth. You are the truth. There isn’t
one human being in the world that has ‘authority’ over you. There isn’t one human being in the world that
is the ‘authority’ of truth. There isn’t
one person in the world that has you obligated to accept everything they say as
truth. (Maybe Mom is always right. Maybe it would be in your best interest to
take a good amount of her advice.)
Regardless of who you choose to
take advice from, this is your journey. You are the highest authority of truth. There is simply no other way to discover the truth but through your own independent mind. You have
the power. You have the ability. You are alive and fully capable.
“Go confidently in the
direction of your dreams.” (And fuck
anyone that tries to bring you down with jealousy, hatred or negative energy.)
Learn the world around you. Earth is a big place. Right now, you are stuck in one small
building inside one small town inside one small county inside one small
state. Get your freedom back. Write your goals and a few steps you can do
right now towards achieving them. Empower
yourself. Read a good book. Plan for the first 3 months after your
release. Don’t leave anything off the list just because it
seems impossible, or it’s going to take a long time, or you think it might be awkward
and uncomfortable. When you’re doing the
right thing, people tend to help.
Forgive yourself. Forgive
someone that has hurt you. Be
compassionate towards someone you would normally disagree with. Call yourself out for being prejudice or
ignorant and attempt to figure out the real reason why you are acting that
way. Write your story. Pinpoint
the things that you should avoid and make a promise to never involve yourself with those things again.
So, use it. Use your logic and reason. Be courageous in your discovery of
truth. Trust yourself. You know exactly what brought you here. You know the things that will bring you
back. You also know that love and
kindness exist. You can live your entire
life inside of those 2 basic human principles first and foremost. Love
and Kindness. Sometimes, it’s a lot simpler then we’ve made
it.
Look up at the person in front of the classroom. All she wants to do is try and guide you a
bit as you make your decision. She is
love. She is kindness. She is dedicating her time to a cause while
asking for nothing in return. She lost a son to the disease of
addiction. She keeps coming to the class
and trying to get through to you; trying to help you make your decision. Whether you know it or not, you have a choice
to make.
“To be or not to
be.” (My version of this quote is: ‘To live
and find happiness or to die and lose.’)
A cliché is a cliché for a reason. You may hear a few if you stay in this class,
end up in a halfway house or decide to do any one of the many different 12 step
programs. The words of the cliché form a
thought that is so fucking true that
people have said it repeatedly for hundreds and thousands of years. That just means it’s true. The word cliché is not supposed to be negative.
The truth should never be
negative. It should be embraced as
something that can be counted on throughout the sands of time.
But, you already knew that because you have a brain that’s
incredible. As I said earlier, you have
the ability to recognize truth when you hear it. And, if your choice ends up being something
along the lines of, “Yes, I’ll be a bit more open minded and try to love myself
and others as much as possible,” then you are well on your way. If you feel a bit more hopeful after reading
this, take that feeling and fucking run
with it. Take it.
Some things are your fault. It’s okay to
admit that. It’s okay to ask for
help. It’s okay to admit you aren’t as
smart as you thought you were. That’s
the first step towards achieving truth.
A mistake is only a mistake until you repeat the mistake over and over
again and make it a habit.
Your current reality is nothing but a temporary chapter
inside the glorious story of your life.
Get back up on your feet and stand upright. Be a man.
Lastly, I’d like you to try to
understand what the word ‘freedom’ really means to you. And, the second part of this essay is being
written by a man I spent a year with on E-3.
He is a compassionate, loving freedom fighter that agrees with the idea
that our potential is nowhere close to being reached as individuals and as a
human race.
FREEDOM - the
power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or
restraint. (The important word here is
‘act’. True freedom, which our country is getting closer to achieving as
more and more people awaken to our potential, means that every man, child and
woman has the right do whatever it is they please. The reason it is possible is because we were
all born with logic, reason, guilt, shame and morals. If we all exist inside love and kindness, and
we can remove the small groups of controllers that are addicted to power (and,
therefore, addicted to stifling our potential as a human race), then we can
achieve true freedom. But, this topic is
for another class…
Okay. So, this is where I come in. Hi, it’s Joshua here. Craig and I have discussed this very topic of
what freedom is on many a day in many a cell. We've given it a lot of thought. So, bear with me as I present to you a re-evaluation
of a word - an idea - that has been the greatest cause of change in my life.
Craig mentioned ‘love’ earlier in this essay. Love.
What is it? Can we use this powerful word without
understanding it’s nature; its core? What is it that we mean when we say, “I love
you”? To understand this, we must break
down the sentence and define each of the words.
So, let’s go backwards. Who
is the ‘you’ that is being spoken to? Is
that only a bag of bones? Flesh and
blood? Are we saying that we love the
shell of skin holding in your contents?
Well, when we put it this way, we realize that this is not at
all what we mean. When we say, “I love
you”, we are not speaking to the kidney, liver or lungs.
So, then, if not the organs…what?
Let’s think about this ‘bag of bones’. What does it do? It moves. It speaks. It thinks. It acts.
These are the qualities and attributes of the bag of bones. So, when we are talking about love, we are
saying that we love the things that the
bag of bones does; it's attributes. We
are saying that we love when it is kind, honest and caring. All those good
things which we value in individuals. The individual’s virtues.
But, then, what if we say, “I love you” to someone who does not
have these attributes? What if we said
this to a bag of bones who stole, cheated, lied or manipulated? What are we saying then? That we love thieves, cheaters, liars and
manipulators? That we love vice?
Do we really? Is that
what you love? You love being stolen
from? You love being lied too? Do you really? I think not.
When I say, “I love you”, I don’t love you (the bag of bones), I love your
virtues.
So, what of the word love then? What does it mean? I think that we can all agree that this is an
emotional response to something.
So, if we don’t love being lied to, do we love honesty? And, is honesty a virtue? Okay, we are getting somewhere. The emotional response we call love is an involuntary response to the virtue of
the individual we are speaking to. We
love virtue. And, it is an involuntary
response because it is human nature,
it is natural, for us to love virtue.
Lastly, we get to the word “I”. Who are we? Are we organs?
Or, are we, too, the things that we do? Are we our actions? And, if we are liars, thieves or manipulators,
are we deserving of love?
No, we are not worthy
of love if we have no virtues. For me,
this realization was a mind blower. I
realized that I was unworthy of love, that I had to make serious changes. I realized that I had to change vice into
virtue. That, just as love is an
involuntary reaction to the recognition of virtue, hate is an involuntary
reaction to the recognition of vice.
And, these things are objective.
There is no argument as to whether honesty is a virtue and lying is a
vice.
Remember what Craig mentioned earlier. I can say this with confidence because I am
able to recognize truth through my independent mind. I don’t have to attempt and force this
information onto you through a religious dogma or a congressional statute
because we can all recognize right from wrong.
(Of course, there are a few grey areas that can be argued if people
would like to do so. But, we should all
be able to agree that you don’t physically harm another human being and that
you don’t steal. Those are the only two
basic crimes we can commit as human beings.)
This is why I believe that so many people
are so unhappy. It's because they literally
hate themselves! We hate a liar. We hate a cheat. And, so many scoundrels put up a mask
pretending to be virtuous. But, behind
the mask they are full of vice! So,
behind their mask, they are full of self-hatred. This is also when I realized that I hated
myself.
Mind blower. Complete
epiphany. So, I put this epiphany to
practice. By and by, and over time, I
stopped lying, cheating and stealing. I
replaced those things with honesty, loyalty and hard work. I made myself worthy of love.
A few months ago, my parole officer asked
me something along the lines of, “How in the hell did you come under my
supervision?” He was asking me how
someone ‘like me’ got locked up. He
could not believe that I robbed those people. And, I did. I’m 100% guilty of those robberies. But, I have changed so much that this was hard
for him to understand. My response was,
“I used to be an asshole”.
And, this now brings us to freedom. I, on an Amtrak train heading to North
Carolina as we speak, am free. I will
never have shackles put on my body ever again through my own guilt. Why? Because I made myself worthy of love. Make yourself worthy of love. You are worth it.
“Before you can love
another, you must first love yourself.”
We must
understand that freedom is obtained through morality first. Freedom…is
a choice. You have a choice to act morally or not. Again, it starts with you. The only moral obligation you have is an
obligation to be true to yourself. Anyone
that tells you different does not understand morality because you cannot (and
it is not necessary to) force ‘right
from wrong’ on another human being. We
already know. And, being true to others
naturally follows along once you become true to yourself.
Morality is the fundamental principle that separates right
from wrong and it is found inside every one of us. If you don’t agree that we all know right
from wrong, then you are not using a
rational mind. And, if you are not using
your rational mind, then you will not survive too long on this planet and you
will not find true happiness.
You use and build your code of morals, your moral code, through every single choice
you make in every moment of your life.
This is what you do (when you are not in jail), all day, every day. One free choice after the other. Right is good. Wrong is bad.
In the morning, you choose to brush your teeth because your
morality tells you that it is right and
good to maintain your health in that
area of the body. Around noon, you
choose to eat a meal because your morality tells you that it is right and good to eat to survive. You
return from your lunch break on time because your morality tells you that it is
right and good to keep the relationship with your employer intact and
healthy.
You are kind to your mother because you have a highly valued
relationship with her and that relationship is right and good. You make sure to get 6 hours of sleep at
night because your morality tells you that it is right and good to care
for your body and it’s need for rest and relaxation. Every single free choice you make is based
upon what is right for you and your survival.
This principle, knowing right from wrong (the same as
knowing true from false, good from bad, life or death – it’s all the same), allows
us to coexist and evolve consistently as a human race. Our rational mind tells us the difference
between earned happiness and our
futile attempts at reversing the law of cause and effect. We know
an honest day of work will bring us true happiness as opposed to stealing
the neighbor’s car.
We have all the tools inside of us. At the core, we are all the same. And, because of this, we should be able to
function and grow on a consistent basis; personality and creativity being the
beautiful difference maker of life.
The fundamental of human interaction and coexistence is the voluntary
exchange; the trade. We work, and we produce. What one man has, and another man needs, we
exchange. The ‘free’ market is a natural
phenomenon of life.
We exchange material items for cash (or what should be gold) at the grocery store and
we exchange value for value when we enter in to a relationship with
someone. If you value the virtues of a
young woman and enter in to a voluntary relationship, you are still trading
value for value. Morality is giving all the
parties involved in the exchange a choice with the full disclosure of information that is necessary for them to make a
rational decision.
Just to be clear what we all already know on a subconscious
level at all times, I’ll present a typical situation that we have all come
across in our history of immorality and living dishonestly to ourselves and
others:
You may ask your sister to borrow money in order to pay a
bill, but then use the money to purchase drugs.
Under the principles of morality and rationality, this is theft.
This person gave you the money in good faith that the cash was going
towards a bill that was necessary for your survival. She was under the impression that the
relationship was valued on both ends and that this exchange would benefit both parties.
Her, for feeling good about herself and helping a loved
one. And, you, for getting the bill paid
and earning a chance to build to the relationship by paying her back in timely
fashion. Taking the money and spending
it on drugs is no different then putting a gun to the person’s head and robbing them. That’s how
morality works. There are no lies or
sugar-coated explanations or maybe’s or benefits of doubt. It was wrong,
and you knew it.
This exchange, or trade, which is the basic form of
relationship-building between rational human beings, was not done through
freedom and morality. It was not an act
worthy of love. It was an act that has
earned you hate. Using a rational mind
(in other words, thinking without lying to yourself, making excuses or distorting
reality to make something seem less then what it is), you can see the action
for exactly what it is.
The philosophy behind this message is important to note
because we need to be honest with ourselves as we move along on this
journey. We are all building a code of
morals and attempting to earn true happiness.
Hard work, and helping the fellow man as opposed to taking from him, are
very simple, basic principles that you can rest assured will get you moving in the
right direction in life.
This is not some sort of ‘death sentence’ towards a boring
and uneventful life. You just have to
stop attempting to get around the natural law of cause and effect, find a
passion you’d enjoy pursuing for work and earn your way back to a life worth
living.
And, if no one ever told you this before in this particular
way, we’ve just explained what it takes to be
a free man with virtue. Imagine if
that taught that in 5th
grade. You might be a fucking engineer
of a military jet fighter by now. Back
to the starting line with you. We’ll be
seeing you out here sooner than you know.
***We believe the message contained in this essay is imp ortant. And, if you feel the same way as we do,
please pass this on to as many people as you can. If it’s possible to make copies at the
library, feel free to do so. Discuss the
empowerment of the individual and the importance of reaching our potential and
staying out of handcuffs with anyone on the block that you feel may be interested
or could possibly benefit from the message.
The Thresholds class is a great opportunity to make the most of your
time in jail. So, do us a favor and try
to get more inmates to sign up for the class.
This will help us in our goal of expanding the program to other counties
across the state. ***
Josh and I are always open for discussion or feedback. We can be reached via email. craigborz@gmail.com onebeardlove@gmail.com
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