Unlocking his potential

The kid lived in a decaying and dangerous neighbourhood that should have been wrapped in police tape.

Chris Young grew up in a sordid backwater in Clarksville, Tenn., never knew his father, had a drug addict for a mother and, to stay alive, had to make money the only way he could in his world: dealing drugs in his neighbourhood.

By age 22, with three convictions for selling paltry amounts, Young was locked up in a maximum-security federal prison for life without parole under harsh mandatory drug sentencing laws. He had all the future of a cat in a dog kennel.

The Wound Is Where the Light Enters is an extraordinary book about a brilliant young man who has gone to hell and back, and knows how to put it into words without conceit or servility. It is about his resolute explanation of why it is better to take command of your future rather than accept it. It is powerful medicine likely to help the rudderless, people who find life bewildering or aimless. It is a zig-zag saga of growing up, much of it written behind bars.

The title of Young’s book is taken from a quotation by 13th-century Persian poet Rumi — that pain can be the harbinger of healing and growth, if you let it.

The Wound is the last place on earth you’d expect to find mindful elation, but Young leaves the darkness and embraces the joy of living. When he describes that change, the words speak both of status and authority. He is very believable.

Behind what Young writes is the compass of forethought. His story is incredible, even more so because it was kick-started in one of the world’s most depressive places: a tomb of nothingness called solitary confinement.

Young was in pre-trial custody for four years before his case came up, largely because he refused to plead guilty even when, several times, the court was willing to charge him with a lesser offence. He wanted his day in court.

Prison walls say the same aching thing to those inside them, that you’re forbidden the luxury of choice: turning a lightbulb on or off, showering alone, deciding what and when to eat, missing somebody’s body heat, being unable to say no without weighing the consequences, sleeping in.

But on one very ordinary day, Young was locked in the freezing, neglected and vermin-occupied library while guards were tossing his cell when a red book caught his eye. He went over and tipped it from the shelf; it was an encyclopedia. Young began reading it. It became very clear: his mind was like an engine in idle until something put it in drive, and books were the fuel.

Young marinated in all the books he could find. For the first time in his life, his mind was engaged. He absorbed everything on politics, anthropology, history, philosophy, art and physics. In the ugly hopelessness of that cage, Young taught his mind to fly. It flew to wherever it wanted to be.

“I kept my eye on those red-leather covers. It was like they were calling to me, and I listened,” he writes. Young’s resolve demonstrates the power of reading at a time when an increasing number of people aren’t. His metamorphasis from inmate to beautiful mind was as potent an exchange as a matchbook for a flamethrower. From books, he figured out how to code without a computer and how to make sense of the stock market.

Young’s drug case finally came to court. Asked if he had anything to say, he spoke for an hour. The presiding judge, Kevin Sharp, who called the mandatory sentence unjust, had no choice but to impose it.

Sharp was so impressed by what Young said that when he later resigned from the bench and was in private practice, he pledged to help him, as did attorney Brittany Barnett and businesswoman/media personality Kim Kardashian. “Chris’s presence in my courtroom transformed my life,” said Sharp.

Young was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2021 after 10 years in penitentiary. Said Sharp, who sentenced Young: “Seeing him free was one of the greatest joys of my life.” He went on to graduate from Southern Methodist University with a degree in economics and public policy.

Today Young is a motivational speaker and founder of Coherence Consulting, which advises organizations on technology, policy and their social impact. As a speaker, Young helps audiences unlock their potential.

Says Young: “I started writing this book in solitary. That’s where the Federal Bureau of Prisons tossed me to keep me safe from COVID-19.”

Jail was hell, no question. “We were chattels to our keepers, no better than animals. They treated animals better. But those hours I spent reading, studying, thinking? That was different. In my mind, I felt freer than I’d ever felt in my entire life,” he writes.

Young concluded upon his release: “The wound is where the light enters — but it’s also where light expands. Where survival becomes vision, and pain becomes purpose. I used to think freedom was a destination. Now I know it’s a state of mind. And I’m still letting the light in. ”

Chris Young: page by page, from solitary to sunlight.

Barry Craig is a retired journalist.