The Inexorable Drive Forward
Towards what though? Another year has come and gone, my first year out of prison. I spent almost all of the year on house arrest, so its not like I’ve really had much of a chance to do anything - not that I’d have any money to do anything if I wanted to. Mostly I spent the time working on my computer(s), attempting to start a business while stuck in a house, reading, and starting and finishing my first semester of college. I watched a supposedly significant relationship with someone I’d known for four years evaporate into the same level of superficiality and insignificance as every other interpersonal so-called “relationship” I’ve known…
You make a lot of plans in prison, I think that is a pretty universal experience. Some may just have plans to do the same old shit they had been doing before, but every prisoner makes some kind of plans. Hopes, dreams, ideas, desires - myriads of things you want to do and plan to do once you escape the living hellhole of a prison cell. And most of the time reality firmly crushes those plans. Unfortunately for a majority of prisoners, its back into a cell, and not just a realignment or adjustment of their plans in the outside world. For me, things have been somewhat more difficult than I anticipated, and some of my plans have changed, but I think I tried to implement - and have implemented - a number of my plans. Obviously I just finished my first semester of college - obtaining a Ph.D. in Computer Science has long been a goal of mine. Of course things change, and although I’m still of the mind that I want to get the Ph.D. in Computer Science, maybe some other field would be better. Math is probably my worst subject, relatively speaking. I talked to an old friend of mine from my earliest years in school a couple weeks ago - he’s a Doctor now, M.D. - and he told me he had initially also intended to pursue a degree in CS as an undergrad but switched to Philosophy after seeing how advanced so many of the other CS students were in math. I’ve been told I write rather well at times, and I’ve also planned to write for some time, but… I don’t know that I know how to make a “career” out of writing - and I’m damn well sure that I’m not interested in anything that passes for what most people call a “career” at all. Then of course is the issue of money to pay for this endeavor.
The bottom line of trying to survive in this capitalist system is money. Every goddamn thing is based on money. And I absolutely fucking hate money. Lack of money is one of the primary factors leading to my extended stay in the not-so-hospitable hands of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Ultimately I’d just like to continue studying and learning as much as I can about everything - that is the so-called “career” I intend to pursue. But unless someone can capitalize off of my learning by buying my labor or unless I can commoditize myself into some sort of saleable good or service, its not a viable life-choice within this system. And needless to say, I’m not much of a fan of this system and don’t necessarily intend to confine my goals and dreams to what this worthless system tells me is acceptable.
However, this leads to the conundrum of… not resorting to “illegal” means to survive and move towards these goals and desires. I’ve always been an outcaste and and outlaw, though I’ve very much designed my current plans to be legal and I have no intention of returning to prison. But beyond the strictly legal questions are the larger set of social questions of being an outsider. And underlying all of those questions are the existential questions pertaining to life, succinctly and eloquently elucidated in the following quote from the renowned writer Me: “What the fuck is the point of all of this?”
Another arbitrary point of temporal significance has been reached, and the people, places, and circumstances of life continue to move forward towards… something? From nothingness to nothingness, with a few pretty flashing lights and a collection of experiences dancing momentarily upon the dark landscape? Perhaps Time will tell.
