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Category: kindness

Posted
April 6, 2015
Category
character sketch, kindness, life philosophy
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On my block

Last year my 79-year-old neighbor went into my locker while I was on the yard and stole a bag of Doritos. He was positively identified by an eyewitness, a slightly younger old man (74) with eyes like a hawk and no reason to lie.

It put me in a difficult position. A man can’t allow people to steal from him in prison. But on the other hand, come on … the dude is a senior citizen. Spoiler alert: there was no fist fight. I didn’t even want to embarrass him by calling him out on his behavior.

Maybe he was suffering from a bout of dementia and didn’t even remember going into my locker. Maybe he just wanted someone to smash him and put him out of his misery. Or maybe he was just hungry, broke and desperate. In our three years as bunkies, I’ve never seen him receive a money receipt or even a letter.

In the end, I pulled him aside, said I was missing some food and that while I had no idea who stole it, IF it was him, all he had to do was ask. He stopped speaking to me after that. It was no big loss. This is not your stereotypical grandfatherly old man. He’s so abrasive, so grumpy, so racially insensitive that some of the younger inmates nicknamed him Hitler. He snores, his dentures slide halfway out of his mouth when he sleeps. He has tufts of gray hair sprouting from his ears, and he never covers his mouth when he coughs or sneezes. His boycotting of me was more of a blessing than a punishment. He barely existed in my universe anyway. For almost a year we didn’t speak.

Until last night, when out of the blue, he looked over at me and started talking again.

He was born in 1935. He turns 80 this year. He never had a run-in with the law until 1998 when his wife of 41 years died of cancer. Since then it’s been one DUI after the next. As I listened to his story, I could almost physically feel my heart opening. That’s when it hit me. It’s funny how I can do weeks, months, years on autopilot — head down, chest out, face set in a natural prison yard scowl. Me against the world. But then I’ll have a conversation like that and suddenly I’ll remember: “Oh, yeah. Kindness. This feels awesome. This is what it’s all about.”

Unfortunately, the moment always fades and as the days pass, I slip back into unconscious living and forget again. Until the next time. Only kindness matters.

Posted
October 30, 2014
Category
kindness, life philosophy, My Story, On My Block
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The radical choice of militant kindness

The first lesson every young man learns upon entering the prison system is that aggression is king and violence is law. The traits that are valued in the real world — honesty, generosity, friendliness — are viewed as weaknesses in prison. Weaknesses that are pounced upon and exploited. Survival in this world depends on at least the perception of brutality and if you’re not particularly brutal, you had better be a damn good actor.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 22 years. Acting. Acting tough, acting hard, acting cold. Acting as if I don’t see the loneliness and sadness and brokenness that surrounds me. Why? Simple: Fear.

In 1992, a scrawny teenage version of myself looked around at the savage world of prison and said to my mind, “Help! I don’t wanna be jumped or stabbed or raped or beaten to death by abusive guards. I wanna make it back home in one piece!” And my mind, amazing babbling problem-solver that it is, said, “I got this,” and went to work on building a wall and posting the ultra-sensitive ego as a sentry to ward off any potential threats. My job was to act. And act I did. I spent so much time acting that I almost lost myself inside the faรงade that was supposed to be protecting me. Almost.

But looking at prison through the eyes of a 40-year-old man is a much different experience than seeing it through the eyes of a scared little 18-year-old kid. And recently, after decades of fortifying this hardened exterior and living with a conditioned mindset that places toughness over all other attributes, a series of books, films, and extraordinary people have wandered into my life with an unmistakable message: there is nothing more honorable, more radical, more standup than the path of kindness. Especially in such a hopeless world.

Suddenly — no, not suddenly — gradually, I wanted this more than anything else. Militant kindness. Love without fear. A wide open heart. For someone who has spent years coveting the appearance of fearlessness and physical strength, the concept of kindness, regardless of consequence, was a revelation. A last shot at a life of meaning and authenticity. I wanted to get back to the me I was before all of this acting BS began, back to the kid I built these walls to protect.

Kindness. It seems like such an easy choice. But a crazy thing happens when you drop your guard and step from behind that icy standoffish barrier: people become comfortable around you. Comfortable enough to open up, to confide in you, and occasionally, comfortable enough to hurt you. Or at least say things that are damaging to your ego. But that is what we want, isn’t it? It’s what I want. This lonely half-life of keeping the world at arm’s length for a false sense of safety and to defend the ego is a fool’s game and the exhaustive struggle to continue propping up an illusion is not only cowardice, it’s treasonous.

Only kindness matters.

[This post also appeared on Huffington Post on 11/29/14.]

Posted
September 15, 2014
Category
addiction, interconnectedness, kindness, life philosophy, raising children
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How to make a REAL difference

There is something unsustainable going on in this country. It’s happening in every project building and trailer park across the nation. Babies are being born into poverty, if they are lucky enough to make it that far, as many are discarded with the trash.

These kids grow up like weeds, forgotten by incarcerated and addicted parents — many of whom are still kids themselves — ignored by society, bouncing around state foster care systems and juvenile detention centers, raised by the streets.

When I was smoking crack, I remember driving to my local ghetto to score some dope one morning. I was amazed by how many kids mobbed my car. Eleven and 12-year-olds, pushing and shoving each other outside my window, holding out baggies of the rock cocaine I sought, vying to make the coveted sell. Even in my drug-addled mind, I remember wondering why these kids weren’t in school.

Now, ten years into a 30-year prison sentence, I see those same kids moving into the neighboring bunks in my dorm; 18-year-old boys with 50- and 60-year sentences, their lives already over. I know people will say they made their own choices, but when a child grows up unraised and unloved, when he has to hustle and scrap for everything he gets, when the only environment he knows is one of crime and violence, when the heroes of his community are gangsters and criminals, when the music he’s been listening to his entire life trumpets murder, robbery, and dope-dealing as a realistic, viable life path … it’s difficult to wake up one day and decide to get a GED. Maybe in Hollywood; rarely in real life.

The newspapers say crime is down 4 percent in this country. Somebody is skewing those numbers. With the rise of physically addictive prescription drugs, and heroin rearing its ugly head, there is no way the crime rate is dropping. The problem is not going to go away. It is a festering sore on the face of society that is expanding exponentially. And there’s only one way to stop it: Love.

Naรฏve as it may sound, if every child in this country were loved and nurtured, there would be a lot less violent crime in America 15 years from now. So let’s set aside the whales and the trees and the ozone for a minute. If we really want to make a difference, we need to save the kids.

Because there is no them; only us.

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