I don't want a holy life of prayer and contemplation.

I want a life of strife, lust, striving, seeking, struggling, and debauchery.

I'm not content to settle for one experience when there is a whole lifetime of experiences

to be had.

I'm so hungry for knowledge that I live several lives at once to acquire.

A Catholic and a Buddhist, a reader and a writer, a sinner and a philosopher, a husband

and a father, a native American and a white man.

I no longer have any desire to fit into any one category.

The canvas on the altar was also given to me.

Its calligraphy translates to moonbeams pierced to the bottom of the pools, yet in the water

not a trace remains.

I have two definitions for the word magic.

The first is knowing that I can affect change through my own will, even behind these

bars.

The other meaning is more experiential, seeing beauty for a moment in the midst of the

mundane.

In the movies, it's always the other prisoners you have to watch out for.

In real life, it's the guards and the administration.

They go out of their way to make your life harder and more stressful than it already is,

as if being on death row were not enough.

They can send a man to prison for writing bad checks, and then torment him there until

he becomes a vile and offender.

...