The Boulder | Chapter 12

Week Six

"This call is from a federal prison."

"Week six," Daniel said. "I want to talk about the blog."

"What about it?"

"I'm done."

"Why?"

"No one reads them, they suck and the staff here couldn't care less. I've written thirty-nine blogs since I got to this dump. I write them, email them to Karen, then she puts them online. You know how many people read the one she posted Tuesday?"

"How many?"

"Four. Two were probably Karen checking her typing."

"You seem angry, so it probably does no good to tell you the Stoics would say two is better than one."

"I'm not sure they would say that."

"I'm not sure either."

"I know four people read it. Maybe only two. I'm sitting in federal prison writing blogs no one reads."

"Okay."

"That's all you have?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. Tell me there is a point."

"I don't know how many people will read what you write. I don't know if the staff will ever care. You said you were going to write while you were in prison, and you've written thirty-nine entries in six weeks. That part is true."

"Maybe it is. It's just frustrating to be here, writing for an audience of one or two. I should be home working, not in a place with no fences where I could walk away at any time, but I can't. This place serves no purpose. I'm just angry."

Daniel had called every Sunday since he surrendered. The first calls were about his bunkie, commissary, food, mail and count. Over time, we talked more about the monotony of prison, how to get through the boredom and trying to rally himself for visits he did not always feel up for.

"Jokes and frustrations aside, I do like the philosophy stuff," he said. "It does help. I read some in the library, which is pretty good."

In federal prison, the phone shuts off after 15 minutes. Just before it did, I told him we would review a new thinker the following week.

"Who?"

"I haven't decided."

"Please don't give me another Stoic. No more Seleca. Please."

"Dude, keep it together. It is Seneca."

The line went dead.

My First Blog

In October 2008, five months into my sentence, Michael and I sat in the quiet room at Taft. With his help, I wrote my first blog.

When we finished, I sealed it in an envelope to mail to my mom. She would type it and put it online.

Before I dropped it in the mailbox, Michael stopped me.

"The end of this blog says you will write daily. Is that a commitment you can fulfill?"

"Yes," I said.

I had no idea who would read it other than my family. I wanted them to know I was doing more at Taft than running around the track and washing pots and pans.

My mom typed every page I mailed home. My handwriting was terrible. Through baseball, I broke my right wrist three times and had two surgeries. If I crossed out a paragraph or squeezed another sentence along the side of the page, she had to figure out where it belonged. Then I called home and asked whether she posted it.

Some prisoners mocked me.

"Tourist. You're in for a year. You don't know what real time is."

They were right about the year. Well, it was 388 days inside in total. Michael had served more than twenty years. I had been inside for a few months and was writing about prison.

Staff members, including my case manager, Ms. Mickelberry, and my counselor, Ms. Oliver, said I had not served enough time to write about it. I could see their point.

One year in a minimum-security camp did not make me an authority on overcoming adversity. I was still learning prison rules that everyone around me seemed to know.

It was easier to write about what I had done before prison. That felt more authentic. Failure was a subject I had authority on!

For more than three years, I failed. Read Lessons From Prison or Chapter 1 of this book to learn more about those specific failures.

At Taft, I started writing about it.

I did not know the blog would lead to Lessons From Prison or that lawyers would give the book to their clients. I certainly did not know Mark Werksman would call me after my awful walk through downtown Los Angeles and ask for ten copies.

It only happened because I decided to create something that did not exist. Daniel insisted he wanted to do the same, yet he was learning it was easier said than done.

Sisyphus

The next Sunday, while I was walking nine holes of golf at Mission Viejo Country Club, my phone rang.

"This call is from a federal prison."

"Do you know Sisyphus?" I asked.

"Kind of. Didn't you write about him in Lessons From Prison?"

"I did. I'll relay it to you as Michael relayed it to me."

"He was a king in Greek mythology. He tricked the gods, more than once, and they punished him by making him push a boulder up a hill. Every time he got close to the top, it rolled back down."

"And then?"

"He went down and pushed it again."

"For how long?"

"Forever."

"That's the story?"

"That's the story."

"And this is supposed to help?"

"Camus wrote about the walk back down. The boulder had rolled to the bottom again. Sisyphus knew he had to go get the damn thing, and Camus wondered what went through his mind on the way."

Camus ended the essay with:

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

"Why would he be happy?"

"Michael explained it better than I did when I was in prison. Sisyphus could not keep the boulder at the top. He could not change the punishment. The gods controlled the boulder and the hill, but they did not control what he thought about during the walk back down."

"You want me to be happy writing for four people?"

"I want Karen and your kids to imagine you happy."

"What does that mean?"

"You wake up, go through the same prison routine, go to bed and do it again the next day. That's the boulder. You cannot control the entire routine, but you can choose what you think about and what you do."

"And you think I should write."

"You told Karen and your kids you would."

"Even if four people read it?"

"Even if no one reads it."

The phone warned us that one minute remained.

"Tomorrow, the routine starts again," I said. "You decide what you do with it."

The line went dead; it literally just shuts off.

Unsolicited Advice

Daniel called the following Sunday.

"Entry forty-one," he said.

"What did you write about?"

"A kid on my unit. Twenty-six. He's doing two years for some crypto thing. He says XRP is the next big thing. He's been here about two weeks and spends all day on his bunk staring at the ceiling. When he talks, it is about XRP."

"What did you say to him?"

"I asked him what he does all day. He said, 'Not much to do. It's prison.'"

"And?"

"I started telling him about writing and the boulder."

"How did that go?"

"Terrible. He looked at me like I was a fool."

"That happens."

Giving unsolicited advice in prison is generally a bad idea. One time, I offered some to Michael. He responded by quoting Ayn Rand:

"It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener."

Prison is emasculating. Men arrive scared, angry and embarrassed. They are thinking about their family, their business, their sentence and how many days they have left. Then another prisoner walks over and starts telling them how to serve time.

Some men begin giving advice almost immediately. They learn how commissary works, which tables belong to which groups and where they should stand for count. Three days later, they sound like they have been down for twenty years.

I tried not to become one of those men at Taft. That does not mean I never did it. My aloofness helped. I did not always want people talking to me, so I was not walking around the compound looking for someone to mentor.

Michael, of course, was different.

He had served more than twenty-two years when I met him. He got up at 1:00 a.m., wrote until 7:00, ran 10 to 15 miles and taught classes in the warehouse behind the commissary. He had written books and contributed to work from Stanford Law School and Princeton.

Even then, he did not approach me and explain how I should serve my sentence.

He asked questions, then I saw what he did every day.

Back to Daniel, who had been inside seven weeks. The young man had been there for two.

"I told him he should write," Daniel said.

"Ironic," I said.

"What do you mean?" Daniel said.

"A week ago, you told me your blog was pointless. Four people read it. Now you're standing over this kid's bunk telling him he should start writing."

"I showed him my notebook," Daniel said.

"What did you say?"

"I told him I had been writing every day. I showed him the entries."

"What did he do?"

"He flipped through the notebook for a few seconds, handed it back and walked away."

"When I was talking to him, I realized I had been wrong the week before," Daniel said.

"About what?"

"Saying there was no value because no one read the blog."

"What changed?"

"I felt like I could help him. Maybe I shouldn't have offered advice, but I wasn't telling him to do something I wasn't doing. I get up every day and write. Some days I don't want to. I do it anyway."

Daniel had been pushing the boulder up the hill and walking back down. The next morning, he started again: it did not matter if two people, two thousand or two million people read it. What mattered was that he did what he said he would do.

Chapter 12 Reflection Journal

Daniel committed in his release plan to continue writing in prison. What have you promised your family you would continue doing after sentencing?

Daniel wanted people to read what he wrote. When does wanting an audience become a reason to stop?

Daniel offered advice that no one requested. Why did he feel he was in a position to offer it?