Jamais vu

Over the next few moments, take a self-psychological moment and get into the conviction of jamais vu.

Seeing eyeless allows one to gain insight and empathy into a world most know nothing about or are too afraid to invest emotionally.

Crossing the bridge onto renewing adventures is challenging. For those leaving prison and entering a new world the level of trauma is dominated by an eerie sense of misplacement.

Try to imagine entering a new world after 13 years wrongly incarcerated as Duck experienced.

One of our goals at 2^nd Chance University is to bring worlds together through life experiences from Duck, Stick, and many others contributing to our curriculum.

Don’t just read the lines from Duck, for a moment, feel each word and emotion. Come to understand crossing the bridge is not a matter of walking through an opened steel door.

Doing Time

Nothing was more intense than approaching the door for the final time. I grabbed mismatched clothes, got a bus voucher, and held my head high. No greater feeling at the time. Looking back, I don’t see release as a success. Release meant I let people down. After all, if I had done right, I would have never been sent to prison in the first place. This failure will haunt me every moment of my life.
Duck

After serving 13 years Duck entered a changed world. For a moment, place yourself in his shoes and imagine how your life would be if you were locked away for the next 13 years.

• What world would you enter?
• What do you think the most difficult adjustment you would have to make?

Escape jamais vu: See eyeless to transcend self/social-delusion.

I welcome your stories to be added into our series. If you chose to share or support, email me directly.

For those wishing to introduce 2^nd Chance University justice-involved empowerment programs into an organization, institution, or facility, step forward; together we can make a difference.

Danny Huffman
407-878-0474
2^nd Chance University
http://www.2ndChanceUniversity.org
dhuffman@2ndChanceUniversity.org

2CU: Stick / Sanity and Steel Doors

In prison, sanity is balanced by lost years and steel doors. Stick takes our workshop audiences on a quick mental venture as he compares freedom to lines captivity.

Sanity and Steel Doors

2^nd Chance University keeps the experience real, giving all a taste of what life behind bars is like in an effort to pull workshop participants back onto their path.

Stick

Lines are formed in a silent hypnotic manner as we are told how to walk, where to sit, and when to think. Don’t talk or act on your own initiative, for those things are reserved for the free world.

Obey, work, obey, work, and then you notice a faraway look in your coworker’s cold gray eyes. Where is he looking?

For some it’s 2025 and for others 2040. Still others can only look back in time to that one precious thought, that real moment in time, freedom, knowing they will never hold freedom ever again.

Interactive Insight

In the eyes of an ex-convict, what do you think freedom means? Why would Stick claim they will never hold freedom ever again?

• To an ex-convict, what do you believe freedom means?

After our work day we silently shuffle down the quarter-mile-long hallway that connects to our wings. They lead us to our six-by-nine-foot homes.

Cruel steel doors loudly slam behind us as we step inside the small, dreary existence of home. The few possessions we are allowed to keep try to fill the emptiness of our cement boxes.

Pictures from home, a small plastic radio and commissary goods are no match for the colorless white and gray that overwhelms our comfortless cells. But in this apathetic world these small concessions mean as much as having a ten thousand dollar bank account in the free-world.

Interactive Insight

• If you were in prison, what possessions would you hold most dear and why

Day becomes night and night becomes day with little variation in most of our lives.

We think back on past mistakes that relentlessly chew on our memories.

For most of us these memories are hurtful and hateful things we try to erase, but they continue to creep, crawling into our awareness like a stinging scorpion. Heartaches and headaches are now measured in choices that were wrong.

Sanity is balanced by lost years and steel doors.

We suffer from a broken past and a distant, uncertain future of when and how. When are we going to get out, and how? Walking or carried out feet first?

Depression and doubt constantly lurk in the shadows of our mind. Insanity hides just behind them.

Interactive Insight

• Do you believe Stick’s words ring true to what it’s like in prison? Why or why not? What do you think prison is like on the soul and sanity?

I welcome your stories to be added into our series. If you chose to share or support, email me directly.

For those wishing to introduce 2CU and our programs into an organization, institution, or facility, step forward; together we can make a difference.

Danny Huffman
407-878-0474
2^nd Chance University
http://www.2ndChanceUniversity.org
dhuffman@2ndChanceUniversity.org

2CU: OK, I was Wrong

Yesterday had the opportunity to attend the River Council Business Networking event and must admit… I was wrong.

Held at the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Sanford, the folks attending (and operating) were not what I had expected or were accustomed to. Professional, courteous, respectful, and genuinely interested are just a few words summarizing the experience.

Thanks to Kate Crockett from ECPI University, our non-profit targeting those who are justice-involved is developing a stronger sense of community and support.

Together we can make a difference

Here’s how I was wrong

• The event was not a waste of time
• Folks at the River Council Business Networking event care about the community

After the conclusion of the event, multiple business and individuals approached to share their stories, add to the list of contacts, and more importantly, prove this organization (and members) possess a human element.

2^nd Chance University partners with organizations/institutions dedicated to those who have stumbled. Our material and workshops take advantage of real people, real life, and real issues.

I welcome your stories to be added into our series. If you chose to share or support, email me directly. For those wishing to introduce 2CU and our programs into an organization, institution, or facility, please step forward; together we can make a difference. On this note, I will be sending out follow-up communications to those giving me their cards at the meeting…

Danny Huffman
407-878-0474
http://www.2^ndChanceUniversity.org
dhuffman@2ndChanceUniversity.org