Sing Singing the Blues
By ice rivers
- 377 reads
The world is always moving. We become so relatively used to planetary movement that only rarely do we become aware of our personal world moving within the perpetual motion without. This awareness is a product of the dizzying assimilation of sense and intuition.
One of my favorite paradoxes is that all things physical as well as actions historical are, in fact, metaphors waiting to happen. The more accurate the description of the physical "thing" or the historical action; the more valid is the metaphor.
Here's a fact waiting to become a metaphor. In 1826, a work crew of convicts quariied marble for the first cell block in Sing Sing. The men had been sent from Auburn, New York state's second prison to construct Sing Sing, its third.
This actuall happened, you can look it up.
How would that feel to build your own prison?
Look around to see the 'prisons" we have built for ourselves. See other self-convicted folks around us in the process of building their own prisons.
Watch me quarry my own marble.
Here's another fact, just for the twisted grins of yardbirds like us.
Inmates in Sing Sing today complain about their six by nine cells.
Back in 1830, two men shared a three and a half by seven foot cell. One of the men probably had TB. The tiny cells had no central heating or pumbing with open sewer channels inside and very little light.
After we build our "prisons" we become claustrophobic that we ourselves or others like us have built. Our claustrophobia is only slightly diminished when we remember or observe other humans who have built or are in the process of building even tinier, more infectious, ranker, more claustrophobic "prisons" for themselves.
Forgive the gloomy imagery.
The world is moving and we are moving upon it.
As free as we allow ourselves to be.
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