Dear Tenzin, Reply ID: aawi 1-5-2020
Hey! I understand how you feel about inane chat. But on gossiping, I'm of the mind of looking past that part of people's personalities because so many people do it. Almost everyone I meet, at some point, I'll have to inform them I'm not interested in their opinion of a particular individual because I know them. And their gossip puts me in a compromising position. We develop our opinions of others based on our views of morality and the world. So another's opinion does nothing to add to our opinion of someone else without corrupting it first. Because most gossip comes from bias, prejudice, anger, resentment, envy... a comment here & there, cool. But all-out gossiping is a warning sign, you know?
It sounds like you'll have more peace in life with the decision you've made. And in turn, maybe she'll reflect and decide to change this part of herself...?
I haven't seen the program 60 days in. But it's something I'd watch. See how accurate it is if it truly sheds light on the worst. If someone did that on death row... it'd created a firestorm. You are quite right that this system is doomed to fail. And society is being dragged behind it. People get locked up and are harassed and worse by staff and develop anger that they carry back to the outside world. But that's how the system feeds itself. Taxpayers pay to feed & care for us but stockholders get rich. The more slave labor the prison system provides, the riched the rich get. Thus, the lack of motivation to correct this problem.
I really like what you wrote: "Life doesn't happen between the paragraphs or sentences of a page in a book, it happens between heartbeats." I'm going to meditate on the meaning of this.
On the topic of bad things that happen, I"m now going through our grievance procedure because a guard here assaulted me last week and the Sgt. who was helping him escort me to medical has threatened violence against me twice. The 2nd time being just moments before the assault - the outcome of this is almost certainly going to be a denial of my grievance and further harassment but he put his hands on me... I'm not ignoring that. When things like this happen, I've rarely ever gotten help. Death row has many blind spots and it seems intentional. Do me a favor will you, let me know if you received this. I'm curious if it's going to be intercepted & trashed or not.
I hope you're doing well and I get to hear from you again soon. Take care!
Yours truly,
Doug