A man learns friendship, finds corruption, befriends both good and bad men—seeing innocence in even the guilty—whilst he sits behind bars within prison, serving time for a crime he never committed. Then one day…he’s gone. Everyday, behind the poster in his cell, he slowly chips away. 20 years of quietly hammering and chipping and scraping. Day by day, chip by chip, he crawls out through that hole, finding his escape through the sewage pipes. Covered in shit in the pouring rain on that black, stormy night: he is free.
Why does this story resonate with so many people? Why do even those who will never step foot within a prison, let alone near one, why do they find this story so meaningful? So many people are in a prison. They are lost behind bars that they do not see. Confined to a life they don’t want in a world that regards them as little more than a tool and a mere cog to the machine of civilization.
Stuck in a job they hate.
Trapped in a toxic relationship.
Confined to their own poisonous thoughts.
They are chained to a situation where they feel there is no escape.
Such is the fate of so many people. Men, women, children…
And hence we find inspiration in the man who escapes prison. The man who doesn’t tell a soul of his plan, who works throughout the night secretly carrying out his escape. Then, after a long, long while, he finally sculpts his way to freedom. The prison escapee is akin to the man who saves money, penny by penny, over a course of many years, to escape his financial situation. He is akin to the artist who writes a great story or paints a great picture, word by word, stroke by stroke, day after day, to be set free into the life they always wanted. He is akin to the obsessed inventor who, after a thousand failed designs, finally creates a revolutionary working product.
The idea of his escape plan is found in a single moment. An epiphany comes to him in the dead of the night. In that thought comes his redemption, his hope. And he is obsessed with it. He is obsessed with visions of green, open pastures where he can roam freely. And the plan isn’t something that he carries out in a day; it is a plan that he tirelessly works on for years on end. Yet, while in the prison, he acts as though he is already a free man. He is, isn’t he? If one conceives of their freedom, then they may act free knowing they WILL be free.
I used to think that hope was the enemy of freedom. That hope traps you behind a cell, hoping that someone or something will set you free. It very well is. However, what the protagonist of Shawshank Redemption has isn’t really hope: it is conviction. Conviction that he WILL escape. That he WILL succeed in his plan. That no matter what, he will continue. That he WILL be free. So, behind those walls, he must learn to be free even as he’s trapped. In his freedom, he is ABLE to set himself free. For if one is to believe themselves as trapped and imprisoned, they will never have the courage to escape their cell. The free man is not free because he found a way out of his jail; he is free because he believes he can find a way out. Because he works towards finding a way out. Because he carries out his plan no matter how preposterous it may seem.
If one receives a gift, they already have what is contained within; it is just a matter of opening it. So many people get their gifts and never believe they can unwrap them. Or maybe the box is overlooked. It sits on a dusty shelf somewhere, tucked behind old things they never use. Unwrapping the gift is hard. Sometimes it takes only a minute. Sometimes it takes 20 years plus blood, sweat, and tears. Or maybe its just a word. Maybe its just a letter you write to that person or job you need to leave. Maybe its years of study, time, work, and dedication. But whatever it may be, it is still just a matter of simply unwrapping the gift.
I am reminded of the Gnostics. Those ancient people who would pray in secret—who meditated and practiced their rituals under the shadows of the Roman empire. Trapped in an oppressive kingdom, they sought out a Kingdom of Heaven tucked just behind the crevices of their own minds. Behind the lock of a door that they themselves had the key to, they dedicated their lives to entering the paradise that they ALWAYS had access to. So too do Buddhist Monks spend a lifetime meditating and abandoning Earthly attachments to reach enlightenment.
Humankind feel themselves to be slaves and prisoners. Chained by desire, money, people, jobs, and their own minds. Both Christianity and Buddhism offer ideas on how to escape these prisons—at least, how to escape them within one’s own mind. In both religions, the general schema is that at first one is trapped. For Christians, they are trapped by sin. For Buddhists, they are trapped by suffering and desire. There is then an extinguishing of sin or suffering. For Christians, this is through forgiveness, faith, and prayer, aiming towards the highest ideal. For Buddhists, it is through meditation, gratitude, and mindfulness, aiming towards a feeling of ultimate oneness. Then finally, there is rebirth. The Christian is resurrected from the corpse of their past into the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Buddhist awakens to find themselves to be one with the universe. Similarly, although Nietzsche was a stark critic of both Christianity and Buddhism, calling them ‘nihilistic’ religions, he believed there were three metamorphoses of the spirit: Camel, Lion, and Child.
First, one is a slave to an ideal, whether that be their religion, government, desires, beliefs, or dreams. Their master is a dragon with shiny scales that scream “thou shalts and thou shalt nots” upon them. The second metamorphosis is the lion, who roars a sacred “No!” to the dragon—to each and every last one of its scales. For the lion is the destroyer, ripping apart to shreds every last ideal they are enslaved by. Finally, the lion becomes the child who is free to create new ideals, new stories, new art. The child screams out to the void a sacred “YES!”.
Andy from Shawshank Redemption is that child. But he became the child the day that he started chipping away at that wall. He became the child when the walls in his prison—the prison within his own mind—collapsed. He became the child when he realized there was no prison to begin with. He became the child when he decided that he was free. That despite how many chains they attached him to, how many bars he was put behind, he was nonetheless a free man.
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