Thoughts on making the best of a situation

I've been trying to focus my reading in a more "serious" direction lately. That is, more non-fiction and general "serious"fiction rather than my usual fare which can only be called literary "junk food". A guilty pleasure, but not something worth contemplating or discussion with anyone.

I've just started reading this book "Fieldwork" By Micha Berlinski. How I'll feel about the book it's too early to say, but very early on it has me deep in thought. The main character is listening to a story over dinner, from a man who visited a woman in a Thai prison. She is serving a life sentence for murder and inherited some money from an uncle. The man was sent to inform her of the inheritance and make arrangements for what she wanted done with the money. In her situation, this money could give her a chance at freedom, but instead of using it to bribe her way out of jail, she gives most of it to charity and uses the rest to purchase the supplies she needs to complete two anthropological studies of prison life.

This was stunning to me. What sort of person chooses to, in spite of having a way out, stay in a bad situation and essentially, work to make the best of it. I would think most people would not hesitate to escape and yet this woman stays to study the political and economic systems that form in jails.

This is all told in the first 30 pages of the book, so clearly I will learn more about this woman along the way, but I am already completely engrossed in thoughts about this topic.

What would the world be like if we all, regardless of where we found ourselves, did whatever we could to make a difference or impact the world in some way. This woman made her stay in jail not just about punishment or rehabilitation, but about helping the world understand the unique interaction of people in a prison setting.

Is it possible that this is the very thing we are all meant to do? Each of us has a unique situation in which it is our challenge to find a way to make it meaningful. I guess what strikes me is, this woman, who was in a Thai prison, for the rest of her life, found a way to make it meaningful, found a way to leave the world with more knowledge than it had before she came along. What possible excuse do the rest of us have to not find a way to leave the world better in some way than before we were here?

After all, you may think you have it bad, but you aren't stuck in a Thai prison for the rest of your life, how bad can it really be?

-peace

Life moves fast...everything that's true is a lie and everything thats up is down...

...15 lbs later and i've been working my ass off. Literally.
Life always likes to toss shit at you tho, doesn't it?
Suddenly, I've lost someone so important in my life, I really can't say which way is up. I used a phrase the other day and really it describes things so well, I didn't realize how well until I stopped to think about it.

I've dropped my basket. Everything is rolling away in a million different directions and all I can do is watch as it does and cry.

Not everything I've got is gone. I know this and inspite of feeling absolutely horrid, like someone is repeatedly punching me in the stomach, I am determined to hold on to what I've got left. That includes the focus I have on getting myself in shape and healthy. It took me a long time to get my motivation back and if there is anything that I can keep him from taking from me it will be that.