en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2432380 Comments by jkleban http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/if-prison-has-taken-anything-away-from-me/#IDComment144932072 I found this blog to be very poetic. I found it to also be very interesting to see a prisoners perspective on something that he never knew and probably will never know. I have always bee told that if you do not know something, such as color or feeling, it is very hard to have someone teach it to you. Imagine having someone try to teach you what the color red looked like if you had never seen color. If you had never seen the light of day, what reference would you use to describe how you see the color? Similarly, try explaining to this prisoner what deep love is. How would you say it? What words would you use to explain the feelings that you get when you see the person you are in love with? Sociologically, how would you explain to this prisoner that there are people in the world that are made for each other? How would you explain how people fit together? If someone has missed out on something his whole life, it is almost impossible to explain the feelings you get or the memories you can make, especially with someone you love. Its very sad that this man never had the chance to love, but honestly because of the invisible strings, he never will have the chance to love. He was put on a path for his life and it turned out the way it did because it was supposed to. He ended up in prison because that is where the strings directed him. Although he did not have much of a choice where he would go, he did have some say. He could have done things slightly differently and experienced things that he did not get the chance to experience and lived his life in a different way because of one small choice. But he did not see that he had a chance to change his life so he ended up where he did and he is experiencing and not experiencing things that he will never know the other side to. He will never know true love and he will never know what it is like to be completely free. Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:29:28 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/if-prison-has-taken-anything-away-from-me/#IDComment144932072 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment142644279 Words are, both sociologically and culturally, very important things for us. Words help us to communicate thoughts, ideas, and feelings in the simplest of ways. They are what we use to get our points across and display our deepest secrets to others. I think people do not really understand the meaning of words and how they truly affect our lives. Imagine living a life with no words, no phrases, and no simple way of communicating other than facial expressions or hand symbols. How hard that would be if all we had to go on was other people’s interpretations of what we were trying to say. I think what this “lifer” was talking about in his letter was how hard it is to be able to communicate with people, other than those in prison, and how hard it is to constantly be fighting against stereotypes and who people think you are, or their interpretations of you. What makes people think of stereotypes? What motivates them to say something about maybe one person, if that, is true about a whole population? Is it how they were raised? Is it their invisible strings that are telling them what they think is true, or guiding them in a certain way? Sociologically, I think that people are scared of what to think of themselves, or scared to admit to themselves who the strings guided them to be. People pick certain words and certain phrases because they do not know what to do with themselves and they do not know how to act because of the invisible strings. Bottom line, people think of stereotypes to help them understand people they would not have understood previously. In this example, the teacher of the class somewhat crushed the stereotypes, or eased the invisible strings that were on each of the individuals so that they would further be able to communicate with each other. Stereotypes are just small factors of the strings and all they really do is help to solidify what we all want to be true, because of the invisible strings. For this reason, people should be able to distinguish what they think is true and what they want to be true without even knowing. Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:35:58 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/lifer/#IDComment142644279 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/what-a-man-is/#IDComment141147531 This blog made a lot of sense to me. Most men do not see women as what and who they really are. Most men look at women and see what they see in rap videos or in movies. Truthfully, women are beautiful and nothing like how they are portrayed in those movies and videos. Well, most women that is. Just like in the video we watched in class on rap videos exploiting women, the way women are made to seem is completely false. More women need to be seen the way that this man sees them. I think that this man is looking at the woman in the eyes of what he thinks she is, but still from a man’s perspective. I agree with everything he is saying, but I would like to know if other women think that there are men out there who still want to be nice and do the right thing for women. But really, why do people do this? Why are women made to be these objects of desire and these beings that can be made out to be something they are not at all. I also agree with what the rap video analysis was saying when it just basically questioned the motives of the people making these videos. Why do they want women to look like this? Why do they want even the women who are watching these videos to think that this is how people are? Honestly, I think there are still people out there who act like this man and who think like this man does. But it’s the mostly men who are making these other videos and counteracting what this prisoner is writing that really are a problem to our society. Those are the men, with the invisible strings attached which are making them act like the way that they are acting, that are going to truly harm our culture. I think that more men need to shift the strings that are attached, and shift their ways of thinking to how this prisoner is thinking. He seems to really know the meaning of what a woman wants, but through a mans perspective. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 02:38:56 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/what-a-man-is/#IDComment141147531 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139189777 I really agree with what this man was saying in this blog. You really do not know a person until you step into their shoes and see how they are living. This man's family does not understand what he is going through and probably never will because, from what he made it seem, none of them will ever be in prison. They do not understand how hard it must be for him to be going through what he is, which is having to wake up in a room that is close to the size of most people’s bathrooms and having to live with the decisions he made and have to live with himself. The saying about not knowing someone until you walk a mile in their shoes is very true, especially here. The family does not know how hard it is for him to have to worry about their support and worry or wonder if he is going to get a letter from them or not. I think that it is very sad that he started off with their support but it dwindled after time. To start off with that, and then have to deal with it slowly going away must be very hard for this man to deal with. For most people, family bonds are the strongest, so to be hurt by your family like this man was and have them almost forget about you, must be very hard. The invisible strings that connect and shape our actions, I think, also connect us to people and strengthen depending on our upbringing and where we are. This man's strings connected him to many of the other inmates and the strings attached to him placed him in the category to be like a father figure for the younger men. This man was placed into this category, in the situation he's in and is acting accordingly. Whether he knew it or not, he was going to act this way and do the things he's doing because that is how he needs to act. Sociologically, he is doing what he subconsciously has to do. Fri, 1 Apr 2011 20:20:42 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139189777 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139189596 I really agree with what this man was saying in this blog. You really do not know a person until you step into their shoes and see how they are living. This man's family does not understand what he is going through and probably never will because, from what he made it seem, none of them will ever be in prison. They do not understand how hard it must be for him to be going through what he is, which is having to wake up in a room that is close to the size of most people’s bathrooms and having to live with the decisions he made and have to live with himself. The saying about not knowing someone until you walk a mile in their shoes is very true, especially here. The family does not know how hard it is for him to have to worry about their support and worry or wonder if he is going to get a letter from them or not. I think that it is very sad that he started off with their support but it dwindled after time. To start off with that, and then have to deal with it slowly going away must be very hard for this man to deal with. For most people, family bonds are the strongest, so to be hurt by your family like this man was and have them almost forget about you, must be very hard. The invisible strings that connect and shape our actions, I think, also connect us to people and strengthen depending on our upbringing and where we are. This man's strings connected him to many of the other inmates and the strings attached to him placed him in the category to be like a father figure for the younger men. This man was placed into this category, in the situation he's in and is acting accordingly. Whether he knew it or not, he was going to act this way and do the things he's doing because that is how he needs to act. Sociologically, he is doing what he subconsciously has to do. Fri, 1 Apr 2011 20:19:42 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139189596 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/b-s-response/#IDComment137589669 I think that it was very admirable for this man to come out and stand up for himself the way he did. He knew that what people were saying about him was false, and he was able to come out and stand up for himself to prove that the stereotypes and prove that people’s perceptions of him were not true. That being said, I thought it was very interesting that when he spoke of his newfound talent for things such as painting and playing the guitar, he spoke of others who were not lucky enough to be able to do such things. When he was discussing these other people, such as the man who won Iron Man, but was missing one leg, he chose to discuss only people with physical ailments. He did not discuss people with other problems such as their family situations, or how they were raised, but only discussed how the people he had heard of that were physically unable to do something, overcame those things and proved everyone wrong. Why is that? Why did he only discuss physical things? Are physical things the most important or most substantial problems that people are able to overcome? I think in some situations they are. The invisible strings affected all of those people in different ways, but because they were physical ways, they are more prominent because those are the things everyone sees. That man who did Iron man with one leg and the little girl who is now going through life with only one arm and only one leg had to push past their most noticeable “problems” and prove to everyone that they can do what they want, even if no one else thinks they can. Those two people were predetermined and prejudged to have these things happen to them or to have people form their own opinions, but they were not predetermined to deal with them. That man still was able to compete and win and that girl is still able to get out of bed in the morning. I just agree with B because of the way he described physical ailments and what I took from that was that freedom is not only defined as what you can and cannot do, but also how you deal with whatever situation you are put in. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:08:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/b-s-response/#IDComment137589669 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment135904025 This letter was very interesting to me. I think that this man, whoever he is and whatever crime he committed, is very admirable. The way that he accepted the fact that his girlfriend’s father was blatantly racist towards him and he did not do anything and met them any way shows that he is a very strong person. That being said, I think that whatever he did to be in jail, which must have included murder if he is in for life, must have been a slip up on his part. From just reading this short letter from him, I began to understand a little bit about his character. To me, this man seemed to be understanding and seemed to stay calm through this situation. Obviously I was not there for what happened with his girlfriend’s parents, but from the way the story was told, this is how it seemed to me. Sociologically, this man is a perfect example of the invisible strings coming into play and controlling his life without him even knowing. Because he is a man who is not white, he was predetermined to commit a crime, such as murder. Racism aside, men who are not white have been found more likely to commit crimes because of their backgrounds and their upbringings, as well as their surroundings. The invisible strings came down into this man’s life and attached to him, causing him to be set into a category without him even knowing. Before he was even born, before he went to school or college, he was put into this category of man with similar hair, skin, and personality traits that also have committed crimes like he has. Whatever he did, and to whomever it was to, this man could still technically be a good person, but he was just put into a group of men to which the invisible strings all attach. It is sad the way that his life had to plan out, but looking at his background and where he lived, I would guess that there were many other men like him who went on to do similar things, because of the invisible strings. Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:31:39 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/07/who-am-i/#IDComment135904025 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/fear/#IDComment131738771 Fear, I think, is the most powerful of all emotions. Along with shame or guilt, fear is something that can really impact a person’s life. The difference between concept fears and fear of physical things is very interesting to me. For example, the fear of a situation like being robbed versus fear of an actual thing like spiders is strange because it’s the same emotion but the one is way worse than the other. To me, being robbed or having something like my family taken from me, is a terrifying idea. This, also, is very interesting to me. These men that are in prison, and the man who wrote this letter, are generally the ones who carry out these fears on others. I do not know what this man did or why he is in prison, but if it is anything like the stories I have heard, it was a very scary thing. For him to be able to admit that he is scared of things, even though he did these things to other people, is a hard concept for me to imagine. Maybe he has never truly felt fear. Maybe he does not know what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night petrified from a nightmare. Or maybe he does. Maybe these men have felt fear and maybe that motivated them to do the things they did. If that’s true, that is the part that is hard for me to understand. Why if you have something so bad as fear happen to you, do you want to impose that feeling on another? Why would anyone ever want someone to feel the worst emotion that you could feel, have the worst pain in your gut that you could feel? I guess that is just the way that the invisible strings work. People are predetermined to commit crimes, just because of the way that they were born. People are meant to do things, good or bad, and although some things like a negative thing in your life may be a catalyst to what will happen, you will do what you are meant to do. Wed, 2 Mar 2011 01:47:14 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/fear/#IDComment131738771 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/16/reflections/#IDComment128722849 To be honest, this is one of the more interesting posts I have read. I say this because all of the other ones I have read have only talked about what is going on in their cell and how much time they have. This one, however, actually took a deeper look into the mind of a prisoner and helps you understand how it is they find peace. This man took the reader the whole way through the process for how he found himself in prison and although it took him twenty years, he did it. He went through everything in his life and broke it all down to find how his life ended up the way it did. And honestly, I feel like if I were in his position, I would have done the exact same thing. After thinking for as long as he did, he finally found himself. If it were me, I would be digging apart everything that I did and every situation that I was put in or part of to try to explain to myself why I was in the situation I was in, although hopefully I would never be in that situation. The whole idea of being trapped in a room alone with nothing but my own thoughts actually scares me. To look back at everything, all of the mistakes I have made or the things I did not do but should have, would show me things I am not sure I would want to see. But I feel like if I were in prison, I would have to do that. I would have to find myself; I would have to come to peace with myself, if I ever wanted to get out of bed in the morning. Most importantly, I think the idea of finding oneself in prison has the purpose to also give self forgiveness. Sociologically, people do what they do for whatever reason, because of whatever invisible strings attach themselves to them. People need to do things in order to deal with those invisible strings, whatever that may be, but I think the most important part of being in prison is not only being forgiven but forgiving yourself. Fri, 18 Feb 2011 03:20:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/16/reflections/#IDComment128722849 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/09/4092/#IDComment127407735 After reading this letter, which was very poetic, I came to the realization that not all inmates have happy stories about finding peace. Of all the other stories and letters that I have read over the past couple weeks, this one is the saddest, and the most honest. I think that most men who are put in prison do not know how to react, so when given the opportunity to tell their story to people like me, they try to sugar coat their experiences and make it seem like prison has not been that bad for them. In reality, but not that I would know, prison is a very scary place, even for grown men who, on the outside, would have no question that they would be able to defend themselves. This story shows that there is a real and sad side to being in prison. This inmate obviously feels terrible about the crime he committed, especially since it was to a boy so young he did not even know the real meaning of life. But this letter also shows that there is a realistic side to being in the worst of all situations. This man obviously did what he did without fully thinking it through, and although he may not regret it, he knows that it was wrong and that he should never have done it. But on the same note, I completely understand what he is saying when he discussed how much hurt he caused his family and the family of the victim. Also, I agreed with his reasoning when he discussed the fact that the men in society had not forgiven him, God had. When in prison, the opinions of those around you matter very little when there is no escape. When there is no chance to run away from the crimes you have committed and when there is no escape from yourself. In the end, God is the only one who can judge these men and God is the only one whos opinion really matters. Most men that go to prison do truly find God, but this man seems to have found God and what it really does mean to know that what you did was wrong. Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:10:56 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/09/4092/#IDComment127407735 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/30/the-other-side-of-life/#IDComment126013306 Stories like these truly intrigue me. Hearing the story, but not the details, of something as huge as taking another man’s life really fascinate me. While reading this man’s story, I was hit with so many questions. Why did he do this? Did he think his decision through before he did it? Did he think he would get caught? But most importantly, what does he do with the countless hours he had and has had in jail? As I spoke about in my last post, the true personal test it so be locked in a jail cell for countless days, hours, minutes, seconds, with just your thoughts. Just you and just all the things you have done in your life, whether those things be good or bad. To be honest, the thought of being in an eight foot by eight foot cell for the rest of my life, surrounded by people who most likely have done worse things than you have, scares me. I wonder how more people do not go crazy with just their own thoughts. The only thing they can do is think. Think about the past, think about a hopeful future, and think about what could have happened if they had not committed their crime. On the same note, the thoughts that all these men must be thinking, must scare them as well. Do they know that they were predetermined to commit their crimes? The invisible strings came down and because of their families, their home lives or even where they grew up, they were almost made to act the way they did. Each crime and each criminal are different but they are all predetermined by the invisible strings we talked about in class to do the things that they did. This man for example, must have had a tough life growing up. Not a bad life necessarily, but a tough life. He could have grown up in a rough area, his parents might not have ever been around, or he could have had siblings that they did not get along with, but either way, these men were predetermined to do what they did, whether they knew it or not. Fri, 4 Feb 2011 23:17:08 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/30/the-other-side-of-life/#IDComment126013306 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/i-too-am-free/#IDComment124388813 After reading this prisoners words about freedom, it really made me think about my own freedom. Reading and thinking about how many freedoms that we have that are all taken for granted really shocked me into wanted to change my appreciation for the things around me. As I sit and write, the freedoms that I have here are overwhelming, but do people even realize how important they are? I had the freedom to make the choice to get up today, to go to class today and many, many other things I wouldn’t have even thought about yesterday. But what does it all mean? It really just comes down to the freedom of choice. I can decide where I want to go and when and pretty much no one can stop me. But for the men now living in prison, they no longer really have that choice and still feel free. I think as this man stated in his letter, the freedom of thought is another very important one. No one can stop me from thinking overly negative thoughts, just as no one can stop me from thinking overly positive thoughts. It’s when you act on those thoughts that your freedom starts to slowly drift away. I think the bottom line is that it’s a very important quality to know your freedoms, when basically you have nothing. These men in prison really know what they have because they use their freedom of thought to really understand that they have everything, even more than most people that are not in prison. These men are able to sit with just their own thoughts and minimal distractions and really think deeply about what they’ve done and how it has affected their lives. That is the most important thing that anyone could have. To be able to fully understand yourself and your own thoughts is the true use of the freedom of thought. Being able to understand things with no distractions or outside opinions is how freedom and understanding can really be achieved. I think that more people that are not in prison need to interact with or read more letters from prisoners so that they really understand what freedom is and how important it is to have it. Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:03:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/i-too-am-free/#IDComment124388813 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9ck%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment123576292 SOC 001 Tue, 25 Jan 2011 03:25:55 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9ck%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment123576292 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/04/21/letter-from-an-inmate/#IDComment122856397 This letter was truly a shock to me. Normally, prisoners are looked at as big, mean, tough guys who only want to fight with each other in their free time. This letter gives a whole new perspective. Having to wake up every day with almost nothing to do other than sit in a cell, lined with cement walls and bars on the windows, would sound like torture to even the strongest of people. But people make decisions and have to pay for them in all different ways. The weirdest part of this whole letter to me was that, without knowing this man previously, he seems like not the kind of person who did not graduate high school or the person who has killed another, but someone who truly cares about the people around him, whomever they may be. His explanation of the situation in which he is describing was amazing. With eloquence and understanding that there is more to life than sitting in a prison for every day for the rest of his life, this man truly seems to understand the meaning of not only his life, but the lives of those around him. Ironic isn’t it? That a man who has taken the life of another man, for whatever reason, is so understanding of the true meaning of life and what it means to live. As we spoke about in class, some of these men in prison know more about life than those who have never seen the inside of a prison. So what’s the difference between them and us? Honestly, it’s the concept of deep thought. We can go about our everyday lives as those who do not live in prison may; going to work, eating meals with friends, going to school and so on. But really, what are we doing? We are continuously engaging in these monotonous activities, but for what? The man that’s in prison may get up, if allowed out of his cell, socialize maybe a little, but really nothing more. The rest of his time is spent thinking. Thinking about how he got into prison, thinking about other mistakes he’s made, or maybe thinking about happier, more positive times just to keep his mind occupied. The man that wrote this letter seems to have spent much of his time really thinking and digging deep inside himself to find the true meaning of his own life. Maybe he doesn’t regret his decision to take another man’s life, or maybe he does. Regardless, he seems to really have learned from it and found the true meaning of what it means to be alive. Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:00:39 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/04/21/letter-from-an-inmate/#IDComment122856397