Metaphorical self portrait; poor attempt to provide a visual image to represent not how I view myself, but my perception of how I’m viewed by others within a socio-spiritual paradigm.

Over the course of my four and a half decades of confinement, 80% of that in maximum security facilities, I’ve been witness to how the availability of library-oriented services can impact the social strata that inevitably materialize in these places, both positively and negatively in their social paradigms.

Facilities that promote and budget their libraries, in my experience, see a markedly significant drop in overall violence and disruptive stress based behaviors. Isolating one’s mind from the external input it needs to grow and expand the understanding one needs to navigate this realm’s journey and move forward in life is directly related to the information one has available as a resource.

As for me, the more I was able to learn about the world in general, the better I was able to see myself. All change and growth come from within and must originate from within. This natural drive to evolve and learn cannot occur if the information isn’t available.

There’s never just one solution, but promoting library services has never impacted the incarcerative process in a negative way. Ever.

As for this metaphorical self portrait tilted: Watch Me See You…See Me: It isn’t so much how I see myself, but how I perceive myself being seen. This isn’t in any way what that perception was even 10 years ago, and it’s not for me to define how I’m seen; that’s up to those doing the ‘seeing.’