Christian Howes

Pretty much everything that I've heard Shaka talk about has resonated with me in one way or another.

And he speaks prolifically and eloquently about all these topics.

So it's great for me to hear it from him.

To answer your question, when I was locked up, and Shaka asked me this question earlier too,

I tried to focus on like four areas of productivity.

One was like intellectual academic reading.

You know, one was my musical development.

One was just my body, you know, so working out.

And then the fourth one was that I tried to maintain interpersonal relationships, not only in prison, but really I'm talking about by writing letters.

So I would write letters to our family and to a few people back home.

Those four things, that was like kind of my, I guess, north star of like, how am I going to make the most of this four years?

Because obviously, on any given day in prison, you have a choice.

I think a lot of times people think, oh, you're in prison, well, you had nothing better to do.

So, of course, you became a great writer and you got stronger.

It's like, no, it doesn't work that way.

I always tell people, if you were on a stranded island, you'd be surprised at how easy it is to get depressed.

And like, you know, and I didn't do seven years in solitary, but I did probably about seven weeks in solitary.

So I know what it feels like.

And I remember that I would be in, and this is a perfect example, right?

Well, you don't have to tell me what you think, but when you're in solitary, you feel like, okay, today I'm going to read books.