When I am pushed to the edge of the abyss, I sometimes (many times) go to my beloved books for sessions of reflection and contemplation—my own little dialectical sessions that I often have with my Self. Today I read Plato’s Crito and Rousseau’s On the Social Contract—two essential texts in the study of government, politics and society. You know how I feel about that no good bastard Plato, but he is indeed essential. Rousseau is necessary as well, and interesting in some ways. A few lines from Rousseau that you might enjoy:
“It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them!”
Surely what the “good and just” in positions of power have chosen to do is self-evident: torment at all cost. Some good news: Hank—in all of his exceedingly loud and boisterous glory—just came on the section. He was moved from Death Watch over here because he just received a stay of execution. Happiness. I also just heard that several guys I’ve known for at least 8 years received execution dates. Sadness. Some awesome custom art postcards from compañera S, one with a painting of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on it! Light.
My existence is filled with an ever-changing, ever-morphing maelstrom of emotion and experience—but I live, I breathe, I overcome, I create… In this wretched Orwellian Hell where I’ve carved out my own little place of love and struggle, of life and beauty…
From the depths of isolation
In the Polunsky Death Camp
Rob