KEY POINTS:
One of my mother's catchphrases was: "Make yourself useful." I think every human needs to feel that they have something, however small, to contribute, to someone or to society.
Even though we are all at the Mason Clinic because we have violated human laws in some way, we feel this need too.
Perhaps especially so because we have all done wrong. We need to make up for our bad deeds, to try to balance the scale somehow.
In a recent newspaper article about prisons, the author stated that the main desire of the prison population was to be able to make up for the harm they had done to family and society.
Apart from the odd psychopath, I guess most of us are not so evil that we can live easily with the harm we have done. In this sense, being incarcerated without anything constructive to do is truly the worst punishment.
There is no way to balance the scale, no way to contribute in the smallest way, no hope even of looking after ourselves, as everything is done for us, provided for us.
All that is left are very long days of reliving again and again the harm that we have done.
This is justice, I suppose, and when I was a normal person I would not have cared for the emotional suffering of prisoners as long as they were away from "good" people.
Now I am obsessed with the idea of redemption - I suppose it is hard to contemplate being consigned to the scrapheap for the rest of my natural life, just though this may be.
Watching Oprah today, she said what many others have expressed also, that you cannot fill your life with things, even with ambitions or achievements. The only way you can fill yourself with life is to give yourself away.
Making yourself useful, seeking redemption, giving yourself away - three ways to see the business of living.
Easily done, perhaps, when we are well and free, and something that most people do as naturally as breathing - giving time, effort and care to family, friends, neighbours, work, and leisure interests.
But when you have gone off the tracks, or have to struggle with mental illness, when you cannot work, when family and friends do not call any more, when your freedom has been taken away, how can you give?
Yet that is the only thing to live for, and when you are sure you have no way left to give, then that must also be the end of living.
So how can we incorporate usefulness, giving and redemption into this environment? There are so many limitations, society needs to be kept "safe" from us, and many of us have problems that separate us from "normal" people.
But we may still have potential to contribute, the will to work. I have met people here who are talented in art, music, writing, sport; whose talents are wasted in the aimlessness of daily life.
Although the staff do their best to facilitate outings and activities, the structure of the system and the limits of their time make this an uphill battle.
I am told that this used to be a working farm, with residents providing all the labour, producing and cooking their own food and doing all chores for themselves.
This must have been so much healthier an environment, apart from saving the taxpayer a lot of money.
The small efforts at enterprise that are provided now with organisations such as Zoo Doo are much appreciated by those who have the chance to participate. Surely this approach could be expanded so that we are all gainfully occupied each day.
The other thought that occurs is that voluntary work could be encouraged. Many residents are not considered a threat to others and do not need supervision. Could they not try to redeem themselves and make use of any potential they have by giving of themselves in any of the hundreds of volunteer organisations that exist in the community?
I understand that we have to earn the right to be trusted again with any degree of liberty.
But for those who are judged not to be a risk to society, who are trusted to go to the shops unescorted, there should be more - an opportunity to do something with that liberty, to contribute.
I believe we all want to live again, to be useful, to give.
* The author of this piece is a resident of the Mason Clinic (name withheld by request). It was submitted to the Herald but originally intended for the Mason Clinic's inhouse magazine, a quarterly publication started 18 months ago. A group of clinic residents (including Mark Burton) take all responsibility for its writing, publishing and editing.
