What Future?

Maybes and what-ifs don't get us very far. While its possible to predict, to a limited degree, what'll happen in the next few minutes, at the end of the movie, or in tomorrow's Zoom meeting, what happens next is unknowable. Anxiety and expectation remove us from the here and now, transporting our minds to a realm of fantasy that we call the future. Tomorrow is an obscure subject, even less trustworthy than a dream. Even so, I can't help but let my thoughts run away with me as I prepare to file a habeas corpus petition in the Missouri Court of Appeals.

Habeas corpus (literally "have the body," from Latin) is a legal process in which, basically, a prisoner shows the court why no legal reason exists for them to be held. In my case there are several of these reasons, based on newly discovered evidence, that show my accuser's tale of murder to be the fabrication that it is. Since a blog post wouldn't be a prudent venue to divulge particulars, suffice it to say that my issues are significant. They could well get me out of prison.

While being mindful not to lose myself in fanciful ideas, I still find it hard not to think about how life would be if I were suddenly released. A life untethered! Free, after twenty-one years in captivity! What would that look like for me, now? Dare I even imagine it? Against my best judgment, I dare. Exactly where would I live? What would I do for work? What kind of schedule would I keep? Would writing still play a big role in my life? How involved might I get with a real-world Buddhist community? What kind of car would I drive? Would I consent to reconnecting with old friends who dropped out of contact during my decades in prison? How mindfully would I shop? Would I expose any of my day-to-day life on social media? From the crucial to the trivial, nothing escapes notice when you're thinking of how to create a fully fledged life from scratch. Without chastising myself for having these thoughts, I gently explore them, peering into their motivations and conditions, watch their rising and falling away. In thinking about these (largely material, often insignificant) matters, I smile generously at my own habitual grasping. I've said before that prison's what you make it. Anyone being intellectually honest has to agree that there are far worse places to be trapped. Naturally, the philosopher in me asks, "What's out there that you don't have here?" If you're shocked, you don't understand the question. It's rhetorical. This is not an effort to talk myself into or out of anything. I'm just challenging myself, offering up a test, checking up. It's not pass/fail, it's just the stuff of an examined life, the kind we're told is the best lived. I've said before that there isn't much else of use that this environment can teach me, and I still stand by that assessment. Of course, even with the most solidly ironclad evidence, filing for a writ of habeas corpus can be a crap shoot. I'm not building myself up to be knocked down – not again. This time, I'm looking as much at possible futures as I'm looking at the here and now. What can I do, today, in this moment, to reap the most benefit for everyone? Whatever the answer is in a given moment, that's what I do. And then I'll do something else. Then something else.

Driving down an unlit highway late at night, you can't see past the reach of the headlights, but you can make the entire journey that way. Our lives are like that, too, whether we're moving at 75 miles per hour or sitting in a concrete box.