Welcome back readers to another incredible double-edition of The Beat Within, where our incarcerated community across the country comes together to share their opinions and experiences on our weekly topics. We’re glad to have you with us, and to share space with you in our pages.
This issue’s editorial note is brought to you by Michael Kroll, AKA Einstein, who encourages us to take the time we need for ourselves to simply just “be,” especially in our fast-paced world where we prioritize production and efficiency over leisure and enjoyment. Please join us in welcoming our longtime friend and colleague, Michael Kroll!
Begin Anew
It’s been cold and wet in the Bay Area, but the promise of spring and the potential for a new beginning is an invitation to close our eyes, and to imagine a warmer future. Because we are human, we can create in ourselves the warm and comforting environment we’d like to enjoy, whether the weather cooperates or not.
We’re thinking of this quality of starting fresh because so many readers of this unique publication are at that age where childhood is about to be left behind, and true adulthood stretches out before you into the unknown future.
This got me thinking how important it is for all of us to take a time-out from what we’re doing, to stop for a minute and look around, to remove ourselves from our most familiar and comfortable surroundings, and to spend a little time with ourselves. It’s always nice to stop work, whatever it is we define as work. And it’s always nice to go to those places we all dream about going, like Hawaii or Niagara Falls or Paris. But I’m talking about something different here.
The majority of people reading this wonderful publication are not free, and when you’re not free, there’s really no place you can go. But even those of us who are not locked up can’t always take a vacation in the usual sense of that word. Not all of us have jobs that give us time to take vacations from. And not all of us have the money to take formal vacations. So, even though we do love to travel outside our city and country, this isn’t about going anywhere.
No, what I’m talking about is taking that sometimes scary step of forcing ourselves to stop and smell the coffee (or the flowers), to be still within ourselves and just let what thoughts we have come, without the distractions of the streets, of the halls, of the staff, of our bosses, or of our co-workers. Perhaps even more important, though also more difficult, is to ignore the noise coming from our girlfriends and boyfriends, our wives and husbands, our lovers and children, and even those who call themselves our national leaders.
Naturally, there is a certain amount of pure pleasure and relaxation that comes from these time-outs. You can just sit and listen to music (or listen to nothing). You can watch movies on TV (or watch nothing). You can talk with friends (or say nothing). You can enjoy a good meal (or eat nothing). You can stop smoking those blunts for a period of time and see things the drug has kept you from seeing.
And that’s the reason why these trips into ourselves can sometimes be scary, because they force us to step out of the environment we are most comfortable in and into uncertain terrain. Everyone has the ability to do this, though not many people have the courage it takes to take advantage of that ability.
Almost four hundred years ago, the imprisoned English poet, Richard Lovelace, wrote, “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take that for an hermitage…” (“To Althea from Prison”). He was saying that through imagination, you can escape your prison environment, and that even free people can be imprisoned by the thoughts they have and the lives they lead. But he was also saying that all of us have the power to find a certain kind of sanctuary, a place of refuge (an hermitage) in “minds innocent and quiet…”
Of course, no one is innocent. We are all guilty of things we regret, whether they are actually crimes or not (and most of us are guilty of actual crimes, whether we’ve been caught or not). But the poet was talking about the innocence that comes with slowing down, with stopping, with removing ourselves from the world of hyperactivity, the world that doesn’t let us be still within ourselves.
It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing. The benefits of slowing ourselves down and being only with ourselves are unpredictable and unmeasurable.
What I’m trying to say in this thought that I’ve stretched like a rubber band about to break, is that I hope you readers will take a little time just for yourselves. Don’t wait until that dream vacation comes, because it may never come. Don’t wait for your situation, whatever it might be, to “lighten up,” because that may never happen either. In fact, don’t wait on anything or anyone at all. It’s something that you can do now, or at any time.
Maybe I’m describing meditation, but I hate to give things labels since everyone responds to them differently. All I’m saying is give yourself a little time with yourself. Let your thoughts take you wherever they take you. Allow yourself to consider all kinds of possibilities away from the people and the influences that keep you comfortable.
I don’t have a prescription for how to achieve this. How we escape from the mental prison we all live in is an entirely personal process, and how I try to get there may be entirely different from how you do. I just know it helps me to breathe easier. It helps me regenerate and even to see myself in ways I never saw myself before.
If you’re saying, “it’s easier said than done,” I agree. But then, easy is not always best. Sometimes hard is best. When I take the time to look inward, it gives me new energy and, sometimes, new insights. I hope it has the same effect on you.
-Michael “Einstein” Kroll
Thank you, Michael, for your reminder to slow down and enjoy the journey to our destination, wherever the destination may be. We don’t need a “formal vacation” to take the time we deserve for ourselves, simply spending time enjoying ourselves and the people we’re with accomplishes exactly what a vacation is meant for.
And now, dear Beat writers and readers, we turn our pages back over to you. We hope that you enjoy this latest publication, and that you spend time appreciating the people in your world that make life worth living. With Spring around the corner, we look forward to the new opportunities and perspectives that await us, and we hope that you will join us there. The Beat goes on!