Transcript
Cabin fever? You are not alone. Think about this: currently we are experiencing a world wide crisis due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Our elected leaders have been constantly emphasizing the vital importance of people staying inside their homes (self-isolating and self-quarantining) in order to contain, slow down and stop the spread of this deadly virus. It was initially recommended that people stay in for a period of 14 days to help flatten the curve of the virus. However, people, especially younger people, are having so much trouble staying in their own homes that governors through out the country have now issued executive orders (law) to save lives. Even celebrities, stars and other millionaires are finding it difficult to stay in their large spacious homes and estates even though they are with their families and have all sorts of entertainment to amuse themselves with. It is only for a couple of weeks people are being asked to do this, and the end result is that it will save lives! People know this, yet still find excuses and rationalize reasons to go out. The reason is that man is a social creature and to confine people--even for a few days--is so unnatural that we are willing to risk our very lives just to socialize. That being said, now imagine being forced to stay in a single room, roughly the size of a midsize parking space, not for a few days or weeks, but for months even years often times without any form of entertainment at all. You do not have the luxury of leaving to go to the grocery store or even to the bathroom because all your meals are brought to you and there is already a toilet and sink further reducing the space inside your mid-size room. In fact, within 168 hour week you only get 1 hour outside 5 days and 3 fifteen minute showers should you choose. That's 5 hours and 45 minutes inside a 168 hour week. Welcome to my world and the world of thousands of others like me living in real social isolation AKA segregation, restrictive housing or more popularly known as solitary confinement inside America's penal system. Therefore, I ask you to please, please stop crying about being asked to spend a couple of weeks--not years--in the confines of your own homes--not a cell--in order to save your own lives and the lives of others. You have not even had a taste of what I've been forced to eat every day year in and year out. I suspect that there is going to be some of you who will try to dismiss the point I am trying to make and say we are here because we broke the laws of society. Most likely it will be coming from those who don't have enough sense, consideration for others and willpower to stay in the house. Nonetheless, I say to you that we were not sentenced to the mental and emotional torture of solitary confinement. We were sentenced to do time in prison within population with others because we too are humans, and thus, social creatures. No man should be alone, especially in solitary confinement, away from others. It is not right, and even God said that in Gen. 2:18. Thanks for listening, D Harris-El
