The Socio-Shock Redemption.

The Shawshank Redemption, Prison Break and various other prison related stories have taught us how a prison functions. They have bells and time sheets and toughened evil guards with a greedy nose for more wealth and an uncanny taste for abusing power. In the confines of the now familiar prison, we have hierarchies of gangs which construct a certain order among the inmates. These movies have also taught us that laying low and minding your own business won't work either. You have to pledge alliance to one of these gangs, become one of them to survive this ordeal. When the bell rings, harsh and loud, you know what time it is. Its the time to get up, time for a shower, Food, Work, leisure etc. You could distract yourself from this consistency with a little hobby, or get a pet, like a crow or a rat for open hearted company. Now the problem arises if you don't want this consistency, the sweet cackle of a crow, or warm fur of a rat or the sweaty hugs of another inmate is not what you are looking for, then you are in trouble. A little imaginative and adventurous you maybe be, but be warned unless you possess a good high tolerance to pain or miraculous luck then you would be in deep shit. And since you are in prison and this is all about you, then you are definitely innocent, framed for a inhuman crime,you have been incarcerated and this is your life. You never belonged here. As always the weaker person would accept his faith., like old Morgan Freeman and almost enjoy your time here. And we all know from Freeman's very distinguishable voice-over-voice that we have become 'institutionalized'. But few of us are 'Andy Duframe'. We have our pet rock collection and a Rita Hayworth poster concealing our epic plan. Or do We?

From the time we are born, we have been conditioned to follow an invisible set of rules. Structured around a mythical set of hypothesis, we live our lives till its inevitable conclusion. As soon as we enter, and our minds are carefully diverted to fear and cower under the subliminal walls of a prison. The rules are set. The clock is wound and the guards of the prison knowingly or unknowingly controls our life. Society decrees us to start our education, and by education they mean we have to learn what they want to teach us.. From that instant onwards, we are molded into unknowing slaves. Then for almost another twenty years trained to follow orders,  then for the rest we follow them.,and slowly forget that we are in a prison. Slowly we forget that life exists beyond these metaphorical walls, and we enjoy our incarceration in this social prison. We are conditioned in a way we wont be able to survive outside the walls of this society. We get 'institutionalized'.

Tradition and mistakes has made us built a government, a government which everyone complains about, a government that everyone hates, a government we as a society decided we need. It has taken thousands of years to dilute our curiosity and channel our intelligence to a linear race. Our faith in mankind has been ripped away, now we do believe that we need a higher authority to feel safe from other humans. Without this all-governing body of similar humans, we believe that we could tear each other apart and consume the spoils. We now believe that without a governing authoritative body, we cannot survive. Society has shocked our intelligence into conforming with this.

Are we humans such vile and greedy creatures that even after years of education and social functioning are capable of destroying one another, if we didn't have a society. Are we saying that the wisdom passed on from ages, decades of education, emotional and moral legacies, the very things that make us feel superior than all the other creatures here are ineffective. Ethics and a personal moral code are just wisps in the wind held together tightly but the “society”.So everything that society has provided us, have been ineffective in evolving ourselves from the screaming, club hurling wild creature that once used to live in caves. Did society only effectively just evolve our environment and the tools we use? We are consciously the same savage creatures that has been locked up in a metaphorical prison, so instead of ravaging each other we get to ravage the environment and its resources, waiting for a chance to pound the next guy with club. My father says that when he was young, he never saw a starving person, at-least in his neighborhood. People would help each other out. There are a hundred stories of people traveling and getting help from strangers. That was behaving as a society I believe.What happen to those days? Where did that society go? Today I see a young couple, happy and cuddling, have a large scrumptious three course meal in a restaurant. They burp and on the way out, they stop to make change for the electronic weighing machine. They each take turns to see how much they weighed after the grand feast, calculating how many minutes they need to run on their treadmills. They even recheck their weights one more time. With the rest of the coins jingling in their pockets, they go out onto the streets almost kicking away an old lady,asking for some spare change.

Logically (like Spock would say) It means that our conscious has turned more barbaric than ever. If we need a leash to prevent ourselves from less human to each other then society has done nothing, but made us need that controlling leash more and more. The more tighter it because, they more less civilized we are. Of course, we have the all successful capitalistic lifestyle, where only 'more' means happiness, success. And the people with the 'more' now can make the rules and set the length of our leash. While everyone else is slowly conditioned to want 'more'. More inches on your TV screen, more shinier clothes that cant cover you, more flatter tummies and more colas, more cholesterol controlling breakfast choices and more juicy burgers and cheesier pizzas. Now it shouldn't end with us. We need to train the children too, we have to make them more taller, sharper and smarter. They have to be conditioned more faster than us, so they can join the prison and compete for the 'more' even more. With an avalanche of restrictions, conditions and ineffective education, we are socially shocked into submitting our freedom for these walls.

The pillars of society they say is education. But when I asked my teacher in kindergarten why cant B come after A, Whats the importance of the order?, no one answered me. Funny it was, the Indian languages and Arabic ( the other languages I was supposed to learn) had clubbed all similar sounding alphabets together, while English had it all jumbled. A simple doubt which anyone could have,was left unanswered. The foundation of the pillars of my society had huge holes in it ever since. I never got what I wanted to know, but instead for the next two decades I was drowned in a pool of similar holes. Most people just fill in t these holes and gaps with the lack of interest and ignorance. They hardly realize that these are the holes they can make bigger and slowly crawl out the prison. But thats your degree, your piece of paper that tells who you are.And as soon as education is over, its the race for climbing the career ladder. This is where you can almost smell the 'more', where you have to disregard every form of brotherhood and civility to climb ladder. The collateral damage being only your morality and adolescent ethics. Then its a family you need, where you can have your own little franchise of this society. Now you join forces, and register yourself as an inmate, and later breed and train another generation of free minds to join your prison, making the bars stronger and freedom much farther. Effectively shocking young imaginative thoughts and freedom into a submissive consistency.

I like to be like Andy Duframe. I don't have a rock hammer or a sensuous poster on my prison walls. But I know that I can survive outside these walls. I know that only without these metaphorical bars and rules I can truly do good and humans can live in harmony. This present generation has made the walls stronger and harder than ever. But every time I scratch at it, I can feel an nanometer closer to that freedom, redemption. A world exists beyond this prison, where doing good is not a matter of choice or compulsion or necessity, but is a product of true freedom, and comes natural to us.