PEACE, JOY, AND “THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX?”
YouTube is fantastic for learning things—all kinds of things—especially “beginning guitar techniques. Yesterday, I was learning the intro to a song or two and the “teacher” kept referring to playing in a box. Now he was talking about a pentatonic scale located in a particular. Spot along the neck (fretboard” of the guitar. Anyway near the end of the. Video he says “you’ll be okay as long as you don’t get too far outside the box.” A little later I was listening to a podcast about food waste and found out that in developing countries it is estimated that 50% of the food produced by or for the people in these countries goes to waste because”the governments and the people lack the education to ‘think outside the box’ when it comes to the many ways to prepare, use, and store, food.” There’s that box again....
Well... because these recurring themes crash together in my head a lot, I started musing about the concept of this all important container otherwise known as “the box.” I have a lot of boxes in my garage that I have moved around the country and I don’t know what is in some of them so who knows if the things in them would be better to be “outside the box?” Then there is my kitchen where there is a variety of boxes. I started to wonder. How many things in my kitchen I could identify by their box alone or by the shape of the box and the sound it makes when shaken. There’s the boxes that contain pop or soda depending on how you say it,—the cereal boxes, the round oatmeal box, the box with dishwasher detergent, the baking soda box the egg carton, the lactate free milk carton, and a bunch more that are pretty easy to identify. So.. I have to concede boxes.have their place and yet my thinking about boxes wasn’t anywhere close to done.
I left the kitchen and opened up a webpage that asked me for some demographic information. Holy moly there were a bunch of boxes—-gender—race—-age—city—country etc... In order to get a “free” newsletter I was supposed to put myself in all those boxes for someone in order for them to figure out who I. Am. Wouldn’t a small text box that said “tell us three important thins about you” be better? If I’ve got to be in boxes, I’d rather choose. My own. The landline rang (so my car warranty is expiring or someone wants my opinion on a politician. There’s another big box. I took 20 seconds to explain that I felt government. In general was merely a discussion of how we were going to choose to do things that no individual can do on their own—no more —no less—so I really couldn’t say I’m in your party’s box or more importantly, I wasn’t going to listen to why I shouldn’t be in a different party’s box.
So...coming around to the point...what does all this have to do with peace and joy?
Apparently the world requires a. Lot of boxes that are of different sizes and shapes and apparently there is some human need to sure these to sort people and things out. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder how much time we spend sorting out things/people who might fit into lots of boxes? How many times do we put round pegs in triangular holes? I bet you thought I was going to say square holes right? What if I tried to put a rhombus shaped peg in a hexagon shaped groove? The point is, I wonder how much of a whole person or a whole idea we shave off to make it fit in our anticipated. Meaning of who they.are or what concepts the thoughts represent? Not only do we lessen out experience of those people. And ideas, but how much time do we use trying to keep the people and ideas neatly in their assigned place? Instead of using creativity. To resolve problems are we busier putting people in boxes to determine that it is someone else’s fault? Plus how much energy does it take to judge everyone and everything? What happens when. We finally admit something or someone doesn’t really fit in a particular box...yes a garbage bag and duct tape can be real helpful...but seriously. Is thinking outside or without. A box more productive when you are seeking peace and joy? Is there more. Joy in helping someone to become The person they wish to become or do you gain satisfaction in convincing them to be more like you? Can you learn anything from someone who is exactly like you or do you seek out people who have been other places on the path that you might want to take?
Well thathat’s about. All I can. Put into this box for now... like the boxes in my garage you might just put this on a shelf somewhere and wonder why you held on to it. So I’ll leave you with this....If you spend a lot of time. Putting lots of things in boxes, those boxes are going to get heavy, hard to move, and hard to carry around so keep your back straight and bend your knees. Or maybe have a lighter life by thinking without the box.
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