Prison is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time; to an inmate, both are palpable.

Time is water, and the Venetians conquered both by building a city on water, and framed time with their canals. Or tamed time. Or fenced it in. Or caged it.

Prison is, indeed, a translation of your metaphysics, ethics, sense of history and whatnot into the compact terms of your daily deportment.

For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life -- the lesson of your utter insignificance.

Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of oil.

It's not that prison makes you shed your abstract notions. On the contrary, it pares them down to their most succinct articulations. Prison is, indeed, a translation of your metaphysics, ethics, sense of history and whatnot into the compact terms of your daily deportment.