There are a lot of different names for prison in Asian languages, to the point of almost romanticizing the idea of it. There are words that express the idea of "justice implementation station," a "holding cell," a "man house," and even a "pig box" in Japanese. Even in English there's various connotations including "the slammer," the "big house," "penitentiary" (with the idea to pay penitence for your crimes), "juvie," the "joint," etc., etc. It makes prison seem like some sort of fantasy land, and Hollywood has glorified the idea of being locked up in various movies (Shawshank Redemption, the Rock, The Green Mile come to mind).
I would not do well in jail. Not only am I physically weak causing me to be bullied (or worse) by other inmates, I dislike very much the idea of staying in one place all the time, and being trapped. Which is why I feel like I'm in prison sitting at my desk for approximately 80 hours a week, week after week. I get a brief respite to get on a subway to get home and sleep, but otherwise I spend 12 of my 16 or so waking hours in the same room, trapped to my yearning to make more money. It's a metaphorical prison that I live in, always yearning to achieve financial independence but never really ever getting there. There are so many different types of prisons and restrictions in life!
Which is why the lotto (record 1.6 billion dollars!) could be my salvation! On another level, I'm in a wealth prison of being stuck in the middle class (a good problem to have considering the plight of those living in poverty who can't escape poverty), but as it stands now I won't be able to unlock the door into the upper-middle class or the top 1%, which is fine I guess but those people seem like they have it all! It'd be better if I was ignorant of that wealthy class, didn't know about the fresh air outside the prison, but I do and it's all around us, seemingly just beyond our reach inside those glass houses and fancy dinner parties that I just can't break into and won't for the foreseeable future.
I think I have an abnormal need to move around from time to time; it's kind of why I run around a lot (to change my location) and partly why I shake my leg while sitting which MJ sits: I'm anxious to change location, change scenery, get new stimulus. Some people are content with having a home (in fact, some people like prison and enjoy the free healthcare, rent, and provisions). Being trapped in a cage would be torturous spiritually in that I can't access the outside world, go where I want to, and experience something new. That sometimes is the real prison for me: being trapped in the same existence, reliving the same day over and over again, like a rat in a maze (or labyrinth!)
My water weight is being locked in a prison inside my body right now: no matter how much I run in Chicago, the weather has cooled down enough to make my body not sweat at all, and the water is totally absorbed into the body, unable to be dispersed through sweat. And I drink a lot of water at work to keep hydrated and to keep my skin from drying out, so that water has nowhere to go. No wonder I gain weight every time in Chicago, even if I don't eat italian beef sandwiches, deep dish pizza, hot dogs, or all the different kinds of yummy but fatty food they got around here. In LA I would do 2 miles or so every day and by the time I got home I would have worked up a pretty good sweat.
No comments:
Post a Comment