Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. I don't know if you've ever heard of it before, but there's a place here in the United States, actually in Florence, Colorado, where the United

States government sends the worst of the worst prisoners.

These are people who have committed heinous crimes or they are so hard to keep manageable because they

attack other guards or the prisoners that this is where they send the worst of the worst.

It's called SuperMax Prison. And we can go ahead and research it and learn a little bit about

what a day is like in that prison. Mostly, it's one of solitude. They spend 23 hours of

their day in a prison cell and that's it.

They just spend it in that cell.

And that's what the US government has come up with as the worst form of punishment

towards prisoners who have done heinous crimes.

And what about us?

Is it?

Is that the worst form of punishment we can think of

outside of corporal punishment in regards to someone who's created a horrible act,

basically have them be by themselves 23 hours a day.

I wonder.

I do think for most people, this would be absolutely horrible. I mean just absolutely

positively the worst thing they could think of having to do for the rest of

their lives, basically being in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives.

But as we explore the world, what we're going to find is there are actually people around the world who choose

to spend time alone like this as a way of growth, as a way of developing who they are,

as a way of finding spirituality in their life.

...