A rehabilitated mind

Since i don't really have anything to write about, i thought i'll recommend TED-Ed to you. I've benefited a lot from this site. It's an humbling experience. In any case, the TED platform seems like a great place to exchange ideas. But then, somebody told me that nothing is accomplished there other than talking. To which, i retorted that that's not true. There's a lot of listening going on there too.  

Speaking of which, we don't listen anymore. It's a dying art form. Everybody wants to be on the stage and nobody wants to be in the audience. A young boy who committed a horrible crime is about to work free in our country. The society is obviously scared as well as furious. But what's surprising here is the same society somehow manages to make peace with the unmentionable acts by our politicians and entertainers. Which is why it's time we revisited Red in that parole room of The Shawshank Redemption (1994), not only to understand what rehabilitation is all about but also why some wrongs can never be righted.  

Officer: "Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?"

Red: "Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means."

Officer: "Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society..."

Red: "I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it's just a made up word—a politician's word—so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?"

Officer: "Well, are you?"

Red: "There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."