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Five Keys to Inner Strength From Five Years in Prison

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By Ross Ulbricht

Source: Bitcoin Magazine

October 1, 2018, marked five years since I was imprisoned. My physical surroundings today are ironically similar to what they were after my arrest back in 2013. I’m in the SHU again (Special Housing Unit, aka “the hole”). It means permanent lockdown, separated from the general prison population, in a small cell. There is a slot in the heavy metal door for food trays, a small steel toilet, a concrete bunk with thick rings at four points (I guess that’s how I’ll get strapped down if I go crazy), chipped paint on the walls and floor with gang names and desperate Bible quotes etched in, and everywhere thick marks counting the days spent here by former inhabitants (some collections are terrifyingly large).

The initial shock of entering the cell — and all it meant for my immediate future — gave way after a few days to a helpless, restless dread and a burning need to get out. This feeling had to be stuffed down to avoid madness, and eventually a numb acceptance took over, but it was a precarious arrangement. Desperate frustration simmered constantly beneath the surface.

When I was first arrested, I was put in the hole against my will at three different prisons as they bounced me across the country from San Francisco where I was arrested to New York where I was prosecuted. The only reason I was given for this was that I was “high profile.” After six weeks, I was let out and never returned … until now. This time, I’m actually glad to be here because the alternative is life-threatening.

I was forced by some other inmates to make a choice: assault someone or be assaulted. Morally I knew I couldn’t initiate violence against another, but if I refused, I would be seriously hurt and would face an uncertain future, not knowing how long I’d be in the hole under protective custody or whether I’d be sent to another prison where I’d meet the same fate.

When the dreadful situation arose, I managed to ask for protective custody before anything happened to me. I was immediately cuffed and escorted to this cell where I’m writing from. I chose the hole rather than hurt another man.

When they dropped me in the SHU after my arrest, I did my best, but it was a tough six weeks, going from a life of freedom straight in. I broke down when I got my first phone call, and, after one week, I completely lost track of time and grounding. It makes me anxious just remembering it.

Maybe after five-plus years I’m used to doing time, but I think it’s how I’ve done my time that has made me mentally tough, that has made the difference between how I handled the hole back then and how I’m handling it now. I want to share this hard-won wisdom with you. Here are the five keys to inner strength I’ve learned from five years in prison.

Patience

My first night locked up was in a San Francisco holding cell: just painted concrete, toilet and sink. There was blood splatter staining the wall. I was so impatient for that night to be over. I almost felt I couldn’t survive it, as if it would never end. Of course it did, but I’ve never felt time move so slowly.

Prison has its own pace. One time, getting two pages of medical records printed took three months. I once had a faucet running day and night for five weeks before it was fixed. A clogged toilet took two months and a complaint to the Office of the Inspector General. Another time, I spotted a letter addressed to me in the corner of a guard’s office. It had been there for four months.

I’ve learned that patience means doing what you can today then letting go. It means settling in to this moment and letting things come in their own time. Impatience and boredom do not bring results faster, but they do rob you of your happiness here and now.

Will to Fight

After a long day of working in the lab as an undergraduate research assistant back in 2005, my mentor asked me if I had ever boxed. I told him no, nor had I been in a real fight. Compared to many, I had a sheltered upbringing in safe schools and neighborhoods. I had no need to fight. He pulled out some 14-ounce gloves and we went a few rounds in the hall outside our office, blowing off steam and having fun. From then on, whenever the stress of work got high, we’d get the gloves out at night before heading home.

When I was arrested and thrown in jail, I faced an opponent in a real fight for the first time in my life. The prosecution wanted to take my life as I knew it. They wanted — and still want to — keep me in a cage forever. I found myself on an alien battlefield and my opponent had every advantage. Being initially locked up in a detention center was like fighting while under water, most of my energy going to day-to-day survival and dealing with prison bureaucracy.

At trial, I stepped into the ring hoping for a chance, for a fair fight. When my lawyer wasn’t allowed to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses and I wasn’t allowed to call my own, my hands were tied behind my back. And when the prosecution was allowed to hide corrupt agents from my jury and present unreliable and tainted digital evidence, they were handed a metal bat. It wasn’t a fight. It was a massacre. The defeats kept coming, first at the appellate court, then at the Supreme Court.

I remember one time when I decided to stay out late on the prison yard. The sun was setting, and it was just me and a few others out there. I walked over to a metal picnic table where a man I’ll call Big Mike sat alone. Big Mike was the biggest person I’ve ever met. He weighs twice as much as I do, and his arms are as thick as my legs. He once told me that he doesn’t work out because he gets too big and scares people. We chatted for a while and he told me about the arguments he was preparing for his next motion to the court.

“I need to keep working on my case every single day until I go free,” I said, inspired by his efforts.

His expression became stern. He stared me down then went into a half hour rant that only ended because we were called off the yard for the night. “Yes you do,” he said. “No one is going to fight for your freedom like you. These people got you tied in a knot and you’ll never get out if you don’t struggle and fight. You’re fighting for your life. They took your life from you. Only you can get it back.” He was still going as we walked into the cell block.

Big Mike had fought his entire life. He grew up on the streets of Philly. He fought to survive, and now he was fighting the last shreds of doubt and defeat still left in my heart. He won that night and lit a fire in me that’s been burning ever since.

The will to fight is primal. It’s in all of us. Like me, many of us have never needed it and it lays dormant. Yet you don’t need to wait until you are under attack and your life is in danger to learn to fight. You can fight for who you love, for what matters, for what you believe in, like your life depends on it. And truly it does because a life worth living is worth fighting for.

Forgiveness

A few months after I was sentenced, I lay down on my bunk after the cell door had been locked for the night. As my conscious mind slowed down and sleep approached, the faces of those who put me away for life bubbled up and captured my attention: the judges, prosecutors, politicians and agents, and they were looking down on me with mocking smiles. A cocktail of emotions accompanied these images, including anger, frustration, helplessness, even the beginnings of hate. My heart beat fast and my mind raced until I snapped fully awake and lay there trying to drift off again. After a few cycles of this, I sat up in bed. This wasn’t the first time I couldn’t stop these negative feelings. I had to get a grip.

While I was tossing and turning, those people were probably sleeping, comfortable and sound, in big comfy beds in big comfy houses. Or were they? Maybe they were also sitting up at night tormented by the thought of all the people like me they had condemned. Or maybe they didn’t care and rationalized the pain away. The truth, I realized, was that I had no idea. And further, all my anger wasn’t hurting them one bit. It was all right there with me in that cell. I wasn’t getting back at them by holding a grudge, but I was poisoning my mind.

As revolting as it felt at first, I had to forgive them. I purposely cultivated thoughts like “It wasn’t personal, they don’t even know me” and “Their hearts must be so calloused by what they do, I feel sorry for them.” I focused on feelings of love and kindness and imagined them radiating out and healing those who had hurt me. I don’t know if that had an effect on any of them, but I certainly started sleeping better.

As time went on, I became ruthless with these hateful thoughts whenever they entered my mind and would rewire them immediately as I had that night. I could not indulge in them because I had come to learn this simple truth: hate does not hurt the hated, it hurts the hater. It’s been years since I wasted my energy hating those people and I’m so much better off for having forgiven them.

Faith

Being condemned to grow old and die in prison with two life sentences plus 40 years is like staring into an abyss. My future as I knew it disappeared, replaced by darkness and uncertainty. In the face of this nightmare, faith became a matter of survival.

The day I was sentenced I returned to the detention center and was given hugs, condolences and a hot meal from my fellow prisoners. When I found some time alone that night, I saw two roads before me. One was a downward spiral. I could see that the further I went down, the harder it would be to claw my way back. At the bottom, the demons of despair, hatred and crushing sadness were waiting to devour me. The other path soared upward, but I couldn’t find the steps. There weren’t any. There was no reason to hope that I could hold onto.

In the following months, I had to leap, stumble and scramble toward that upward path. With all evidence to the contrary, I had to have faith that God would see me through whatever was to come. I realized I’m not strong enough on my own to keep from falling into that ever-present abyss. It may be irrational to believe without proof, to have faith, but it’s also irrational to forsake the hope, love and joy that faith brings, because it gives you the strength to fight and ultimately win. In a situation as desperate as mine, keeping faith alive is the difference between freedom and a slow, caged death.

Acceptance and Gratitude

There are endless opportunities for suffering in prison. You can suffer when they lock you in the cell and you feel like you’ll explode if you can’t get out; when your back spasms from the hard bunk; when you’re sick and feel isolated; when you notice the filth; when the door slams and locks behind your loved ones after a visit; when you feel like you’re drowning and just need one last day of freedom to breathe; when you wish you could keep sleeping but you have to get your boots on because what if a riot pops off; when you imagine the shank you saw pierce the last man is piercing your flesh; when you realize you haven’t had a moment of privacy in years and everything around you is cold and hard; when someone dies and you never got to say goodbye to.

I’ve had countless occasions for suffering. In each case the pain is unavoidable. It hits without warning and you feel it, whether you like it or not. And of course, the nature of pain is to not like it. Our natural reaction is to resist it, to fight it, to push it away or down. This aversion to pain is suffering.

To resist what is so and long for something better is to suffer. Pain and suffering seem hopelessly entangled in prison, but I’ve learned that suffering is not the unavoidable consequence of pain.

While pain is inevitable in my circumstances, suffering is entirely optional. Pain, even emotional pain, is just a physical sensation: the knot in my stomach, the ache in my heart and head. It is neither positive nor negative on its own. It just is. Suffering is our negative response to pain which compounds and amplifies it and drags it on and on.

I’ve come to believe that the antidote to suffering, the path out of it, is acceptance and gratitude. Acceptance turns “I can’t take another day in this hell” into “I am where I am, and yes, it hurts.” Gratitude goes a step further: “At least I have clean water and enough food. At least I’m alive and surviving. Thank you.” Suffering always arises in the context of inadequacy because you want what you don’t have. Acceptance and gratitude flip your context to one of abundance because you are focused on what you do have and are thankful for it. It’s the difference between misery and joy and it’s available to each of us every moment of the day.

So here I am in the hole, counting my many blessings and refusing to indulge in suffering. Hopefully, you can benefit from these five keys to inner strength without having to go through what I have. That would be a nice silver lining, to know what’s happened to me can make a difference for you. That is one more thing to be grateful for.

Why the Darknet Matters

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By Luther Blissett and J. F. Sebastian of Arkesoul

In February 2015 Ross Ulbricht was convicted of money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to traffic narcotics for his role (either with or as Dread Pirate Roberts) in creating and administrating the darknet market Silk Road. For this, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison without possibility for parole. Why was Ulbricht treated more severely than most murderers and child molesters (not to mention wall street and state criminals who do far more societal harm than all others combined)? The only logical explanation is that they needed to make an example out of him not just for his actions but for what he represented. The draconian sentence sends a message that the government is doubling down on its destructive and wasteful war on drugs and is clearly threatened by agorists (ie. those advocating for a society of voluntary exchanges and counter-economics without violence or authority) who utilize the darknet to make their ideas manifest. To understand the scope of the threat this poses to governments one must understand what the darknet is.

The darknet is an anonymous overlay network accessed through special software, configurations and/or protocols. It was created in the 1970s to designate anonymous networks isolated from ARPANET (an early form of the internet) which, for security purposes, had addresses hidden from network lists and were unresponsive to pings or other inquiries. The World Wide Web content that exists on darknets (known as the dark web) can only be accessed through anonymous browsers such as the Freenet or TOR Browser Bundle. The darknet and dark web are part of the deep web, the content of the World Wide Web not discoverable by means of standard search engines.

Interest in and use of the darknet has grown dramatically since TOR was released to the public in 2003. Much like when the internet was new, the darknet is often slow, though it has more to do with the complex random rerouting necessary for anonymity than the hardware or infrastructure. And like the early internet, the darknet is widely viewed as the new “wild west”. The darknet does attract its share of fringe subcultures including cryptoanarchists, transhumanists, digital pirates, sexual fetishists, drug users and dealers of different types, etc., but the groups that have arguably been the most empowered by the technology are political dissidents such as whistleblowers and activists.

As governments and corporations gain increasing power over the physical realm through laws, economics, violence and surveillance, one of the few remaining options for anyone wanting to bring about systemic change without fear of retribution, is the darknet. The government would of course never openly admit their fear of such a threat, though it’s apparent that law enforcement and intelligence agencies (who behave as if they’re entitled to the right to monitor all activity) are threatened enough even by less overtly political darknet sites such as Silk Road. They may claim concern over drug gang violence and addiction justifies the crackdown, but if that were actually the case they would have ended the war on (some) drugs years ago when more than enough data was available proving harm reduction to be a more humane and effective strategy.

Of course violent and cruel behavior can be found on the darknet, just as it exists offline. One could argue such cases should be investigated in ways that don’t jeopardize the anonymity of all users. What about the safety of victims attempting to evade dangerous individuals and groups? Whistleblowers need anonymity as well if releasing information on crimes committed by people in power.

As law enforcement struggles to defeat darknet anonymity with new tools such as Memex (a data-trawling program), programmers innovate to make darknet sites more decentralized, private, secure, and user friendly. Improved user interface will draw more users to the darknet, especially as awareness of internet privacy and security issues increase. Government efforts to police and regulate the darknet will also increase further as aspects of the darknet become both more mainstream and fringe, the darknet marketplace expands exponentially and improved cryptocurrencies are developed to meet demand.

As is, the Darknet is a system that is continually evolving. And, inasmuch as it poses a threat and a risk to authority, there is friction between the two. On the one hand, there is the axiom for control and security, which often times conflates manipulation with exploitation. On the other, freedom and liberty of expression, which often times conflates a lack of cohesion with relativism.

Regarding the first side of the debate, it’s a natural product of strategic rationality to calculate safe scenarios as to ensure survival. Vertical hierarchies often times result in perverse agendas that funnel the interests of the few on the top. However, these exist to ensure safety for a particular collective. That is the very paradox of government: The criterion for peace, however illusory, is to make up a contract with the State and its people. “I give up certain rights in exchange of safety”. This is game theory: Predict the behavior of others so as to ensure safety. The government fulfills this need through law and order. Let’s minimise risk, and up control as well as safety, which produces a space to live and grow. In this model, the assumption is to always expect the worst, while paradoxically ensuring productivity through an illusory cohesion and identity. In a collective that is afraid of itself, everybody is “doing their part”, but as well miss out on having a say on the big issues. Government is a fail switch for everything absurd, illogical, and different. The infamous saying applies: “Fear what you don’t understand”.

On the other side of the debate, the inverse is suiting. Greater freedom involves having a voice. The trade off is becoming segregated as an outsider, because having an opinion comes with a price. Refusing to accept the “game rules” of “law and order”, is anathema to cohesion and identity. This philosophy is natural to fringe culture, because often times fringe culture is made up of victims of a system that doesn’t respond to the needs and demands of its people. That’s the problem: If everybody played by the rules, including those at the top, then the big illusion would make sense. There’d be intrinsic justice to the operational structures of society. That’s another paradox, power perverts when it should essentially allow and protect human flourishing and expression. That’s what we are taught, right? Civilization is supposed to be good. But it seems more and more evident that we haven’t yet learnt how to keep our governments at bay and working for the people. Because ideas fracture models by confronting power structures of domination and corruption, we essentially have a duty to be creative and protect what we rightfully are as a species. Ideas are revolutionary, because they add to the frame of possibilities and suggest ways in which the old modes of thinking are outdated. They pose a danger for the status quo, insofar as they fragment cultural psyches. They allow people to think. This is not what Government wants. Our freedom in exchange for safety. Censorship in exchange for control. Our voices in exchange for capital.

At odds, therefore, is the fear for different things versus the need for expression. The Darknet is an idea. It’s not perfect. It fails in many ways, particularly in allowing terrible transactions to happen. However, these are already there with or without the Darknet. If the government was smarter, it would learn to cooperate with the Darknet. It would stop trying to silence voices by hammering the stick. It would offer incentives for creativity and solutions. Yes, the Darknet might be a channel for people to do bad things. But it also allows for new and positive changes. Change is good. Change is evolution. We move forward as we learn. At some point, the Darknet will learn how to push the bad and to cohere the good. If we admonish the Darknet we also chastise our right to expression. We need to challenge our governments, and the Darknet meets that demand. One could argue there’s many pressing problems as important (if not more so) as electronic freedom, but few could have as much of an effect on the outcome of every other struggle. Government can’t silence our voices, it must adapt to them. The battle over the Darknet symbolizes a crossroads in history where decisions made now will have an increasingly large impact on our lives in the future. If freedom prevails, we have an opportunity to make a great idea function for an even greater and much more illuminating goal.

 

Some day, we could be a shining beacon of hope for the oppressed people of the world just as so many oppressed and violated souls have found refuge here already. Will it happen overnight? No. Will it happen in a lifetime? I don’t know. Is it worth fighting for until my last breath. Of course. Once you’ve seen what’s possible, how can you do otherwise? How can you plug yourself into the tax eating, life sucking, violent, sadistic, war mongering, oppressive machine ever again? How can you kneel when you’ve felt the power of your own legs? Felt them stretch and flex as you learn to walk and think as a free person? I would rather live my life in rags now than in golden chains. And now we can have both! Now it is profitable to throw off one’s chains, with amazing crypto technology reducing the risk of doing so dramatically. How many niches have yet to be filled in the world of anonymous online markets? The opportunity to prosper and take part in a revolution of epic proportions is at our fingertips!

I have no one to share my thoughts with in physical space. Security does not permit it, so thanks for listening. I hope my words can be an inspiration just as I am given so much by everyone here.
Dread Pirate Roberts  [3/20/2012]

When Drug Users Aren’t People

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By Ryan Calhoun

Source: Center for a Stateless Society

Judge Katherine Forrest’s decision to lock up Ross Ulbricht for the rest of his life is a momentous tragedy. There were other tragic circumstances on display during Ulbricht’s trial, however. Submitted as evidence against the integrity of the Silk Road were stories of drug overdoses that were allegedly tied to products bought on the darknet drug market. The loss of life in these cases is something we should never look at as unimportant, but their use in condemning Ulbricht’s market are seriously problematic.

“I have no doubt in my mind, that if Preston had not taken that drug which one of his friends had purchased off the internet Silk Road, he would still be alive today,” wrote one grieving mother from Australia. Her son had jumped to his death after purchasing what he may have thought was LSD, but was actually a synthetic known as NBOMe. First please let us take note of where such synthetics come from, a need to produce new designer chemicals which are often more unstable, untested, and easily passed off as what we know to be much safer psychoactive chemicals. The parents and siblings grieving in these cases misplace their ire. What truly led to many people ingesting dangerous chemicals was in fact the laws that are now being used to send Ross Ulbricht to prison. Also worth recognizing is that at the time of ingestion, there was no federal ban on these substances and, at least in America, they could be found or sold discreetly in wholly legal forms of exchange.

Notice also the subtle dehumanization of drug users masquerading as compassion. When someone overdoses people do not recognize the choice of the individual. They do not talk about these people as individual agents, but as symptoms of the individual. In the Silk Road case, parents condemn what Ulbricht’s venue provided for their children — a safe and discreet way to obtain psychoactive chemicals. They would have never sought out these drugs had it not been for Silk Road. This is doubly dehumanizing. They characterize their son’s purchase as somehow inevitable, that he was too weak to help himself and too ignorant to know the dangers inherent in hard drug use. But what compounds the dehumanization of drug consumers in this treatment is that they declare that drug markets OUGHT to be unsafe, ought to be insecure. Their son is a mere exception to the scummy and disposable drug world, he was corrupted by looking through a window to a drug trade which didn’t pose enormous risk to his safety. Drug users, drug distributors, they don’t deserve safety to these people.

Many who are involved in drug subcultures aim to make consumption safer for those who choose freely to consume these substances. Along with being able to read customer reviews that keep merchants within these bazaars held accountable by reputation, there is frequent encouragement to buy test kits for these chemicals. Across the internet you will find no shortage of FAQs on how to prudently go into an experience with drugs, especially for psychedelic experiences which are often delicate and require a good deal of coaching to ensure the best set and setting. At raves across the country people are encouraged by their peers to consume judiciously, to stay hydrated, and most of all to enjoy their experience — which is a frame of mind directly hindered by drug laws and cultural taboos.

These are all voluntary, spontaneous modes of behavior, many born out of a genuine concern for one’s fellow drug users. They are treated as individuals, not addicts. They are met with care, compassion, and resources both physical and mental. What drove these markets underground, what made them more dangerous than they ever needed to be is the intention behind these laws and tragically behind the condemnation of Ulbricht and others as “psychopaths” from people who lost those they loved. It is this legislation, this judicial process, and these cultural norms that must change. We must recognize drug users not as inherently sick and lascivious, but as people who come from the same world as we do, who sought these chemicals not out of an alien urge that overtook them, but because drugs come with a great deal of reward to the user. We can’t let that reward go unchecked from the dangers that are there for those who choose willingly to accept it. We must abolish not only the laws, but the puritanical attitudes which make us see our neighbors and our loved ones as fraught with illness for wanting to get high. It’s time. We must step out of the shadows, break the back of the system that has kept us there, and bring this enormous wealth of human experience into its proper social context. Free Ross Ulbricht, free all drug criminals, and end this dehumanization campaign once and for all.