Panopticon

Three fourteen-inch thick concrete block walls surround me. They feel cold to touch, with the matching floors, hard and foreign. The interlocking bars are almost surreal, but once I feel them in my grasp, I realize that no thing, and no man can break this. Ultimately, it is not the metal and concrete stronghold are not what keeps me captive. I see the tall, brooding tower in the center, right in front of my barred door and feel the eyes surround me on all sides. Suddenly, this transforms into reality.

One of the most intriguing social theorists and philosophers, Jeremy Bentham, had a theory. He created a complex building design for prison systems that was Big Brother far ahead of its time. Essentially, it made prisoners feel as though they were being watched at all times, though the reality was that the design was an elaborate scarecrow.

Eventually, it becomes normal. The scarecrow remains scary, but it becomes a backdrop of the routine life for which one has been dealt. 

Although not many people escape the panopticon, many can outsmart its cheap design. After all, the way of the world is built on this destiny. To overcome the cage, the prison, the valleys, we realize that the prison guard was really just a scarecrow after all. And we valiantly march forward to destiny, hope, and the reality that we make for ourselves, no holds, and certainly, no bars. 

All the Unfamiliar Places

He brought me the the airport on a day that he and I had planned for nearly a year in advance.  I knew that little intricate details of my perfectly planned life had an expiration date for reasons that I have yet to comprehend.

After a tearful goodbye, I patted him on the chest and said, "see ya in a month."  What I really knew was the opposite.  It was more of a Billie Holiday-esque intention.  I'll be seeing you--maybe?

It became clear to me that this was my fate when I turned around in the security line for the final wave. I looked for his bright blue shirt, but he was nowhere to be found.  He had already left.  I knew coming from him, this was a permanent goodbye. I had buried myself in mounds of German language books and European travel guides with a focus on companion travel. Yet I already felt alone.

One month passed and contact fizzled. Then two months crawled by. So much more than an ocean separated us.  He did not have to say anything to me, because I already understood that he would never be stepping off of that plane like we had meticulously planned.

One day, I felt the gold metal around my finger, suddenly cold and foreign. Slipping it off delicately, I buried it deep inside of boxes and bags in my tiny attic of a room on a cold winter evening. Out of sight, out of mind?

I made my way across the train tracks to a place I had lingered outside of in contemplation at least a hundred times before on the way into the city center.  It was quiet, but the pub was bursting with light, laughter and music.

As I opened the door, the whipping wind slammed it behind me, decidedly so. The warmth of the pub instantly surrounded me like a lovely, familiar embrace.

I nestled myself into a comfortable table close to the fireplace.  A smile sprawled across the kind bartender's face. I was impressed with her impeccable English as she asked for my drink order. 

Little did she know that her smile was like a life ring in the middle of an ocean. It made me forget the reason that I had come here and made me be present in time with who I was in the place that I was in. 

I would continue on this journey for the next few months, living as I was, for who I was, never allowing plans to impede the opportunity for bigger things to happen.  Even if only internally beneficial, these few months were the happiest of my life.

When plans fall through, with open eyes and and open mind, life happens, friends are met, and love enters in.