We are on Mars

Several years ago there was a supervisory chaplain here named Rabbi Laskin A”H. I liked him very much and we would frequently sit in his office and talk. One particular day we were having a conversation about one thing or another having to do something with the craziness of prison. At one point I sat back and expressed my complete dumbfoundedness. In response Rabbi Laskin leaned forward and said to me, “Mr. Marcinski, what makes sense in the world, does not make sense in here; what makes sense in here does not make sense in the world. Mr. Marcinski, we are on Mars and I’m afraid that WE are the martians”.

What the Rabbi said made so much sense. Prison is an upside-down and backwards world. No one can really fully understand what it is like in here unless they lived here. There are education departments that don’t promote education, leisure activities departments that discourage leisure activities, food service departments that serves food less than appetizing, and religious services departments that actually employ “evil personified” staff (I guess HR really takes “equal opportunity employer” seriously and to a whole new level).

Even the word “corrections” is hyperbole. Prison for the most part does not promote correcting our past and/or our current behavior, it doesn’t seek to rehabilitate anyone. In this topsy-turvy environment it is incumbent upon the person to chose what direction to take in prison. You can chose positive change or you can get sucked into the negativity that is pervasive in prison. Not many people chose the positive route which could be why our recidivism rate is so high in America. Unfortunately, the negativity that permeates this place is paved wide and people fall into this path all too easily.

For me, its like the movie “Martian” with Matt Damon. I’m the survivor on Mars and I need to get home. I will do all that I can to get there but in the end I still need help from the rescue ship because I can’t do it alone. Near the end of the movie where Matt Damon is teaching a new class of astronauts he talks about survival and how he did it. By solving one problem at a time. Solve one, move on to the next, and then the next, and then the next, till you get home. I continue to learn and I continue to make mistakes, but I want to become the best version of myself that I can be and I will not give up. I owe at least that much to all of those people that I’ve hurt.

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