Transcript
Sisyphean Prisoner I stand before you stripped bare, naked as the day I came into this world. I feel completely alone, isolated from all other living beings. I am stuck in an abyss from which I can never break free. Fear and uncertainty are my constant companions, which I believe is in large part due to my overriding concern that although I may live four score or more years, I may never achieve anything truly consequential throughout my entire life, or it may be the result of my having no actual proof of God's existence. Ultimately, if there is no God there is no afterlife, so whatever actions one takes in this life are ultimately futile. Even if there is a God I am precluded from doing the good I so desperately want to do because of a single night of what now seems to have been incomprehensible nefarious conduct on my part when I was but sixteen years of age. It seems no matter what I do is for naught, as I am in prison sentence to life. In so many ways my life can be compared to that of Sisyphus, a Greek King who fell out of favor with the gods, and so was sentenced to a terrible fate in the underworld (Hades). His task was to roll an enormous rock to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll back to the bottom. Sisyphus then had to trudge down the hill to begin the task again, repeating this for all eternity. Comparable with Sisyphus, do I have any truly viable option to improve my life, or should I just give up and commit suicide. Which seems so rational, knowing that in the eyes of the criminal justice system I supposedly have no redeeming qualities whatsoever? Under my current circumstance all I have to look forward to is aging, suffering, and eventually dying in prison. How I so desperately would like to communicate with Sisyphus and ask how do we create meaning in a meaningless existence? How my heart so desperately wants to speak to my former sixteen year old self and state: Child do you not realize you are forsaking the ability to experience love? To have your own children- to hold them and feel God's presence at work. That one day you will become consciously aware that your action have condemn you to a dark cell for all of eternity!!!!
