Greetings, Another Thursday and more from friends… ANOTHER VIEW OF INCARCERATION From my long-time friend, Mark DiMaria, a thoughtful perspective on criminality and incarceration: Before moving to the more populated and thus civilized L.A. metropolis in my freshman year of high school, I grew up in much less urban (if not outright rural) areas of upstate New York, where as a kid I was exposed to everything and everyone in that more unfiltered and undomesticated world. Those years made many strong impressions on a very sensitive kid, with respect to human nature. I learned pretty early on that, among other things, one's qualities as a person had nothing at all to do with whatever ethnic, economic, or religious group one's family happened to hail from, and that every individual was a world unto, and saw the rest of the world from the perspective of, him or her own self, as the protagonist in their reality. For that reason, I am a great believer in rehabilitation, evolution of character, and empathy for those who are caught up in the criminal justice system because they came from an unenlightening environment, got caught up in a bad peer group, didn't think through what they were doing, or were just stupid. We have all done regrettable things, and that visceral experience of coming to understand and regret them is how we develop empathy and wisdom.
#146 Musings from the Bunker 8/6/20
#146 Musings from the Bunker 8/6/20
#146 Musings from the Bunker 8/6/20
Greetings, Another Thursday and more from friends… ANOTHER VIEW OF INCARCERATION From my long-time friend, Mark DiMaria, a thoughtful perspective on criminality and incarceration: Before moving to the more populated and thus civilized L.A. metropolis in my freshman year of high school, I grew up in much less urban (if not outright rural) areas of upstate New York, where as a kid I was exposed to everything and everyone in that more unfiltered and undomesticated world. Those years made many strong impressions on a very sensitive kid, with respect to human nature. I learned pretty early on that, among other things, one's qualities as a person had nothing at all to do with whatever ethnic, economic, or religious group one's family happened to hail from, and that every individual was a world unto, and saw the rest of the world from the perspective of, him or her own self, as the protagonist in their reality. For that reason, I am a great believer in rehabilitation, evolution of character, and empathy for those who are caught up in the criminal justice system because they came from an unenlightening environment, got caught up in a bad peer group, didn't think through what they were doing, or were just stupid. We have all done regrettable things, and that visceral experience of coming to understand and regret them is how we develop empathy and wisdom.