Ken Hall

Transcript

i'm 19 years old and i'm standing outside mimico correctional center i'm about to go to jail no no not like that let me explain no no i'm a visitor not a resident uh see i'm in my first year of college and taking the social service worker program at centennial and as part of this we get to do a class field trip and a lot of our prospective future clients are going to be people that have gone through the criminal justice system now mimiko itself is a medium security prison meaning that all of the people out of the hundreds of inmates that they house everyone here

has been sentenced to uh two and a half years less a day or anything less than that and i gotta say walking into prison there's a particular feeling that you get and you become very aware of your surroundings there's a cold concrete that curls around you there's a chain-link fence adorned with razor while there's guards that are marching looking very intimidating there's no disguising prison is dreary depressing and it feels dangerous and the prison guards were escorting us through various buildings that day and we went into one building we stepped into what's called a range and a range is just very like a large cell

that houses between maybe 12 to 20 people stacked on bunks and uh there's a hallway the bars are on the left we're walking down i hear my name being called from the other side of those bars and i hear hey kenny what's up man that's my buddy jj and jj is very tall lanky very high-strung kind of guy he's got tattoos he's got a tattoo of an eyeball on his elbow and i'm like hey jg and i kid you not just moments after that i hear my name being called for a second time behind those bars hey kenny man what's happening uh that's my friend

peter who is also very tall lanky he doesn't have any tattoos he's got long shoulder-length hair and he's sort of like still stuck in the 70s a little bit and so i go over to them and i'm shaking their hands as if i'm running for mayor and i'm quickly reprimanded you cannot touch the inmates i found that out i did not realize that and so this is the prison guard is uh is getting this way bye guys and then i hear jj go to be like you know this guy and he's like yeah man that's my buddy yeah those are my friends that's my social

network right there and maybe that's a story for another time they didn't even know each other which was hilarious it was like a hallmark moment right there uh and i didn't realize that as i was leaving that day a literal prison i was stepping into a figurative one merely days after that i developed some very significant mental health issues very debilitating anxiety and real crushing depression and i didn't see that coming it made me feel really really bad now i don't know there's people here that have experienced really significant anxiety or depression in your life but it really feels like you're doing time like you're

doing hard time in your mind with no escape and for me in my life i just felt bad i couldn't work so i had to go in welfare then i went on disability and then i drank a lot which made me feel good until the next day which made me feel twice as bad and i just kept repeating that psycho bad after bad bad it gets bad and it was like there was a judge and jury in me that it somehow at some point i committed crimes and now i was being sentenced to a life that i did not choose and i realized something to

when you think of a jail or an institution something like that tell me what is something positive that can grow in a system that is designed to punish and i realized that it took me a while to check this out to realize that if you plan negative you get negative and vice versa do you plan positive chances are you're going to get positive back the math is simple it's an easy equation you might not get that payoff today but it's going to be down the road possibly in my late 20s i realized i needed to make some big changes because my life was going down

big time my 20s were lost they were wiped out so i decided to quit drinking and within that even just the fact that if you just stop planting negative seeds just stopping stopping alone then you allow a space to grow and if you think about all of the stock and surplus of all the negativity that you have absorbed in your entire life that begins to dwindle that begins to go down and that sentence that i felt that i'd been living was starting to get shorter and shorter and shorter until i realize ah if you plant positive scenes things can change and so i started planting

some positive seeds i started volunteering at a youth shelter i did that for a year positive seeds i started working part time planting some seeds positive start taking credit writing in high school classes started doing comedy and improv class my comedy partner best friend isaac is here he won the ward earlier congratulations buddy positive seeds hannah my friend is here amazing people watching at home amazing positive seeds until that time gets reduced so i stand before you here today i've done my time i have served my sentence and then some and i know i know with certainty that it was not far off the mark

that i could have been behind those bars with jj and pete easily or worse yet i may not have made it out of my twenties and so i think of the great words of andy the frame one of my favorite movies of all time the shawshank redemption and i'm going to get busy living and my question that i want to leave with you today is what have you planted today that's going to change your tomorrow and if it isn't something positive get busy planting thank you you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

Transcript

hi I'm Ken and I'm sorry the reason I'm apologizing is because I'm really good at apologizing I've been apologizing for quite a long time you see the thing that I'm sorry about is me I used to show up in life and apologize for me being me always and often I'm physically different in a lot of ways I'm 47 and 3/4 so I'm fairly small I also have scoliosis meaning that I have a curvature of my spine and one of the more defining moments of my life happened in public school with this sense that I didn't belong that somehow fundamentally there was something wrong with me

that on a deep molecular level that this was wrong that this didn't really have a place in the world and I felt like that had been echoed through many experiences in my life but there was one that really stayed with me because it repeated every single new school year so at the start of the school year what would happen is that we would have gym class and I would have to have this conversation with every single new teacher and I don't want to have this conversation at all uh I'm a kid and I think adults are kind of scary I don't know what to say

saying and so I would put it off but I'd have to sit there and watch the clock ticking ticking ticking down and I could feel the butterflies and my stomach shuring up and multiplying and such when the pressure Dismounts and inevitability happens gym class is called and so we have to get up and walk outside and my window of opportunity is slowly narrowing and I have to pull the teacher aside someone that I don't even really know and I have to say these words I have to say I'm sorry I can't take gym class because of my back and I don't even know how often

I would be able to even get the word back out because every single time for quite a few years I would burst into tears cuz as a child I'd have to tell this to an adult that there's something wrong with me and that I didn't fit in or at least I I really felt very on the outs always looking in and so I would have to sit there and watch my friends participating in gym class and playing while I would be sitting up to the side nting a lot of self-hatred and a lot of Shame and as I've grown up I've collected a lot of

experience that just Amplified that cuz the world is so un forgiving when it comes to differences the world often throws at you these messages that says that there's no room here for you that you don't fit in but as an adult I've looked at this contract and I've decided to make some changes because I don't believe it the mere fact that I exist that makes that there's a place for me at this great Global table and those very things that just make me different they're just that they just make me different we don't need to add on so much more meaning on top of that

and those very things that initially that I did not feel comfortable with as an adult now I can honestly say those are the very things that make me quite exceptional in a lot of what I do they're not all of me but they're just a big part of me and so moving forward it's not about trying to change me or fix me or to try and turn me into someone that I can be acceptable or normal I don't want to be normal I want to be me so I've learned a great life lesson that's to let go and to accept this cuz this exists and

this is good and I'm not going to apologize for

Transcript generated from the recording and shown as captured, without added punctuation. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

Transcript

hi i'm ken and i'm sorry the reason i'm apologizing is because i'm really good at apologizing i've been apologizing for quite a long time you see the thing that i'm sorry about is me i used to show up in life and apologize for me being me always and often i'm physically different in a lot of ways i'm four seven and three quarters so i'm fairly small i also have major scoliosis meaning that i have a curvature of my spine and one of the more defining moments of my life happened in public school with this sense that i didn't belong that somehow fundamentally there was something

wrong with me that on a deep molecular level that this was wrong that this didn't really have a place in the world and i felt like that had been echoed through many experiences in my life but there was one that really stayed with me because it repeated every single new school year so the start of the school year what would happen is that we would have gym class and i would have to have this conversation with every single new teacher and i don't want to have this conversation at all uh i'm a kid and i think adults are kind of scary i don't know what

to say and so i would put it off but i'd have to sit there and watch the clock ticking ticking ticking down and i could feel the butterflies in my stomach churning up and multiplying and such when the pressure dismounts and the inevitability happens gym class is called and so we have to get up and walk outside and my window of opportunity is slowly narrowing and i have to pull the teacher aside someone that i don't even really know and i have to say these words i have to say i'm sorry i can't take gym class because of my back and i don't even know

how often i would be able to even get the word back out because every single time for quite a few years i would burst into tears because as a child i'd have to tell this to an adult that there's something wrong with me and that i didn't fit in or at least i i really felt very on the outs always looking in and so i would have to sit there and watch my friends participating in gym class and playing well i would be sitting off to the side nesting a lot of self-hatred and a lot of shame and as i've grown up i've collected a

lot of experiences just amplified that because the world is so unforgiving when it comes to differences the world often throws at you these messages that says that there's no room here for you that you don't fit in but as an adult i've looked at this contract and i've decided to make some changes because i don't believe it the mere fact that i exist that makes that there's a place for me at this great global table and those very things that just make me different they're just that they just make me different we don't need to add on so much more meaning on top of that

and those very things that initially that i did not feel comfortable with as an adult now i can honestly say those are the very things that make me quite exceptional in a lot of what i do they're not all of me but they're just a big part of me and so moving forward it's not about trying to change me or fix me or to try and turn me into someone that i can be acceptable or normal i don't want to be normal i want to be me so i've learned a great life lesson that's to let go and to accept this because this exists and

this is good and i'm not going to apologize for that thank you you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

Transcript

there were three questions that I commonly got asked growing up the first one was a very curious slightly accusatory question which was hey where'd you get your red hair and freckles I don't know they were here when I got here question number two and question number three were often coupled and linked together and question number two was more optional you could choose to ask that or not some people just Leap Frog right to question number three question number two is this do you mind if I ask you a personal question all right okay I know where this is going question number three was right after

that and I'm like okay are you ready for question number three here we go question number three was this what is wrong with you yeah yeah ouch ouch what is wrong with me well as a kid growing up it was really hard to find the vocabulary and to really comprehend an answer that would satisfy to think okay well what is really wrong with me I've always been a small person I've yeah thank you thank you wasn't expecting that that's great and I've always had more or less major scoliosis so for me growing up and getting asked that question was always cutting because I didn't know

really know how to respond and I always felt bad being asked that question but now as an adult I can really have an appreciation for what I like to call the uniqueness of me but it didn't happen overnight in fact it took a very long time to get to this place you see growing up it felt like most of my life I was putting together assembling a jigsaw puzzle and you know when you have like the box and you're supposed to match up the image with all the pieces I couldn't really figure that out and I really had a sense of like being ill equipped

to assemble this together and this wasn't just my own interpretation or assessment this was something that was echoed and Amplified by the people all around me my brother he was assembling his with great flourish and flare and I had peers that were putting theirs together and it looked like they were having fun I wasn't having fun it didn't feel good it was laborous and arduous and has tried as much as I could to find those connections I couldn't make them fit I didn't fit I did not fit in and that was a big theme throughout my entire life the sense of not really feeling belonging

or a place within the world some things kind of changed though when I was 12 I found something that kind of gave me a bit of a boost I found punk rock music or maybe punk rock found me and that started it was great actually it helped me find my voice it helped me find a community as well it helped me find my anger and it helped me find my armor and I could suit up to go out there not to thrive but merely to survive and up until that Point I've been feeling like I'd been emotionally malnourished I was starving for a sense of

fitting in a starving for a sense of belonging me and Marlin would have got along great cuz I broke bad and I Walter wided my way down a path that may not have been the best Robert Frost be like no no no you probably don't want to no okay he's going to go down good luck with that okay so I started smoking I started doing Dr started to get tattoos and I started drinking a lot and I really liked drinking a lot the first time I got drunk it was like a warm welcome from an old friend and it's true many friends are here tonight

not me and yeah I I really took to it because it was it felt good and it was a rest bit it was it was a bit of relief it was a rescue for from feeling bad all the time and I felt like that was a good trade-off I felt like that was okay to feel a momentary sense of relief just to feel a little bit normal just to feel a little bit of relief and so my drinking escalated into my teens and then into my 20s The Roaring 20s as I like to call them and I encountered something pretty early on that really got

in the way and that was mental illness and I was diagnosed with a cluster of anxiety disorders all under the this wonderful Banner of major depression go figure so I was given a whole variety of prescriptions of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication which did nothing it did not make a difference so I kept on drinking oh boy and did I drink wow I broke records I got to my the near the end of my 20s I was about 28 or so things got really bad they got really messy I was falling down I was injuring myself I was blocking out I was even speaking some people

were saying in almost like in tongues it would get that bad so the writing was on the wall this was not going to end well and so after a night a pretty bad night the next morning my best friend at the time called me and he said Ken I think you have a problem and this is my best friend who like our friendship was like fermented by our mutual love of Suds and this is him say you got a problem but instead of being defensive I I received it and that act of compassion really started to make a difference in my life I made a

choice literally that night I'm like either I go to a punk rock gig or go to an AA meeting and that day I quit drinking thank you you see up until up until that point the drinking the drugs the tattoos bad tattoos all of that they were they were problems and they became even even bigger problems that got exasperated but they weren't the problem they were just symptoms of the problem and so this process of quitting drinking stopping something so that I could let something much more positive in really laid a foundation a very fertile Foundation to plant positive scenes and what I found is

that there was an excavation that took place and I had to discover who I was who did I want to be and who could I be to get rid of all those labels and I found something after taking small steps I signed up for an improv SL acting class and that changed my life thank you so what happen learning improvisation I don't know if anyone here has done any improv but in improvisation all right yes amazing I clap Focus to you great my offer it's an improv exercise but it allowed me to to really connect with other people and put myself out there and for

the first time in my life getting affirmation that this is actually good and the rules of improvisation the idea of yes anding really reset and recalibrate my compass my default was to always say no in life so I started saying yes in my improv scenes and in my life out there and I started to see things were changing and so many good things were coming from that and now I get to teach adults how to play and how to reconnect with with that sense and I think back of all the tenacity and the resiliency that brought me to this moment and I'm truly grateful and

appreciative of the uniqueness of me thank you

Transcript generated from the recording and shown as captured, without added punctuation. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.