Doing Time

As I said, I've been thinking about time alot lately. Other than thinking about time, I've also had the privelidge of being able to watch a couple of films, that otherwise are not released outside of the cinema yet. I really liked "A Prophet", or "Un prophète" I should say.

The last French film I watched was "La Haine," quite some time ago, and I regard it as one of the best that I have ever seen. It sparked an interest into French society, and the social problems with race and identity that are so prominent over there. I held high expectations for "Un prophète," and although in complete retrospect I felt like the storyline may have been slightly stagnated in places, it is a fantastic work of art, and provides an interesting insight into French organised crime.

The main character, Malik, is the same age as me, 19, and at the start of the film he receives a prison sentence for 6 years. Prison is one thing that has always really scared me, but at the same time I find the dynamics of the insular 'prison society' fascinating. My main fears surrounding prison are time related, and the thought of spending 6 years on the inside is pretty harrowing.

"Un prophète" actually does relay the fact that, to an extent, there are certain things that you can do to occupy your time on the inside, that do not involve gang rape, eating really bad food and trialling for Ian Wright's 'mean machine' style football team on Sky One. Well, in France anyway.

Howard Marks, at the peak of his drug career, was said to have accounted for 10% of the world's marijuana trade. He grew up in Wales, studied at Oxford, and ironically done some postgraduate stuff at my University, Sussex. He claimed to never have used violence and only dealt in the holy spirit of the lord ganja, no crack or anything like that. He ended up in an American prison at 'Terre Haute,' in Indiana, and I'm pretty sure I've come across it on "America's Toughest Prisons," whilst scratching my nuts and aimlessly flicking through our 900-or-so channels post-midnight.

In his autobiography, aptly titled "Mr Nice", Marks talks of his journey through life in general, and how he spent time in prison amongst murderers, gang-bangers and generally undesirable people, and also, how he taught them grammar. It's an extremely valuable journal of an extremely entertaining story. It looks like this:



My point is, everyone perceives time differently. This is what I have been reading about. There is no one established 'time'. There are different time zones, different calenders, different clocks, different theories; to be honest I'm starting to think it's all a load of bollocks. This is why I think I should go to prison.

I'm joking. But I think it would most definitely define a perspective from whence I could observe 'time.' Prison is the one place where everything, every single minute aspect of your day to day lifestyle boils down to time. I find it so wierd to think that, in prison, society tells us that you 'lose time.' Months or even years of your life where you can't open doors, have sex (debatable), shower in peace et cetera. Howard Marks proves more than anyone, however, that what counts is what you do with your time. Wherever you may be.