Limitation inspires more invention than freedom.

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It's an impression I've had for a very long time. I don't talk about it. I'm not sure where the feeling comes from. I never felt like a prisoner when I was a child. It may have started when my family moved to Ohio. Maybe the changeover from sunny skies and fresh country air to the overcast gray of urban Cleveland had something to do with it.

I felt like an exile for years after the move. Did I conflate exile with prisoner? Don't know. Maybe it was just a quirk of adolescence - except that the feeling persisted.

Maybe it was something else.

I know only that the impression of being imprisoned has lingered in my mind for many years. It doesn't trouble me. My blessings have been long and many. The vague suspicion of being incarcerated hasn't kept me from chasing attractions that came my way.

I don't brood about my nearly subconscious notion of being a prisoner, although that peculiar conviction may account for my odd interest in the general condition of imprisonment. I'm not interested in the usual drama of crime and punishment. What does interest me is the way individuals souls cope with limited possibilities.

Limitation inspires more invention than freedom.

Prisoners are the extreme case, but none of us are free from limitation. Limitation focus us to concentrate on what can be done. Limitation keeps us from daydreaming. Consciousness of limitation frees our time for useful effort. If you can't do whatever you like, then, what can you do? Limitation illuminates opportunity.

The Birdman of Alcatraz used his prison time to study common canary diseases that puzzled the ornithology of his time. He found cures, wrote books about his cures, and his work was gratefully received by bird lovers and scientists, alike.

He had a "lifers" time to do all this. He never got out of his cell.

It's an irony that when you're not chased by time, you have time to do more.

The thought pleases me. I may think myself a sort of prisoner but it doesn't trouble me because I'm too busy doing what my limitations allow.

Everyone on this Earth is a prisoner doing a lifetime sentence. There's nothing to be gained by fretting about what can't be controlled, and very little can be controlled. That's why wise men of every philosophy tell us to appreciate what we have, be kind to our fellow prisoners, and forgive those who know not what they do.

We're only here a while.

Heaven awaits.

By K. L. Shipley