After almost one year has passed by since a certain chain of events have led to a global pandemic, one of the things we are still dealing right now with is ISOLATION.
A lot of experts and people giving personal accounts would already have given a ton of advice on how to cope with it, different internet platforms being one of the greatest savior for people to connect.
But something different caught my attention today, a documentary
on Maximum Security Men | Indiana’s Death Row Inmates: Part Two.
At around 9:36 they introduce some of the apparently most dangerous inmates, one among whom is Ronald Sanford who was given 170-years in prison for his part in a double-homicide he’d committed when he was 13. Nothing much intimidating at this point.
It’s when (22:50) they show where he has been for the past 25+ years that shocked me.
There was something uncanny about this small block with no windows where he has to live for 23 hours every day. Though this was unsettling at first the tone of the video next is what completely gets me to a different state of mind . (a short version of this specific part of the documentary
)
“My life has been living in this prison and it seems as though I’ve been in this prison so long I’ve never been free” “Those deep questions about man , where it comes from , where we’re going and who we are essentially.”
The interviewer: “These are the parameters of your existence”
Sanford : “Absolutely, these 4 walls”
interviewer: “It’s a pretty isolating place”
Sanford: “It really is if you see it as such, it’s isolated only to the extent that you think it is, you know. Those books allow for a great escape and to be able to leave the confines of the world “
It made me realize that this person understands a thing or two more about life than I ever will, maybe because I have not valued the freedom I have in my life. The amount of freedom we have in our lives and the amount of which we take it for granted while enjoying it, all starred visibly at me. All the complaining about how isolated and boring life had become since the lock down and restrictions suddenly all faded away.
The internet and the breath of stuff we could do here essentially had taken away all the depth from it. Interacting with around a 100 people online and not actually knowing anyone had made certain holes in life that are hard to fill. The need for someone with whom you could share your worst feelings is what I felt the most need for yet came nowhere close.
Also it made me think what are the escapes that we use in our day to day life and how much value it actually adds to it. The continuous dedication and work doing one thing which could lead us to the path of discovery was replaced by mindless online products as mere distractions to kill off our time for momentary satisfaction.
It’s never late for a change and we could all start from today. Time will almost certainly keep moving forward but what we can do is to decide the space about which it proceeds. Maybe Sanford is sometimes more free than we are with all our choices (think).
The freedom we have of making choices is not something to be taken for granted.
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time” (– Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace) …..and freedom” – me
A few writings from Sanford’s room
