VENTURING OUT OF THE BOX

By David J. Carr

Last month, I went to the doctor for a routine checkup. Noting a throat irritation, he asked if I was still smoking cigars and suggested that it might be time for me to “get out of the box” – the cigar box, that is.  Cliché as it sounded, it got me thinking more about boxes than giving up my prized tobacco pops.

Think about it. Whether three-dimensional or two, boxes permeate every level of our daily lives. We have boxes that regulate access: in and out boxes, mailboxes, lockboxes, suggestion boxes, box offices, outer office waiting rooms and those nasty telephone answering machines with their myriad of numbered choices, none of which quite apply to our situation. Then we have checkboxes on applications and exams that chart the course of much of our lives. There, even the revered circle is but a checkbox without corners. 

From cradle to grave, we reside, work, fight, play, travel, rejuvenate and exit life in boxes of one kind or another:  cribs, playpens, sandboxes, playhouses, barracks, homes, cubicles, vans, buses, trains and planes, forts, tanks, bunkers, prison cells, resorts, hospitals and burial vaults to name a few.

And through it all, we rely on even smaller boxes to keep safe what George Carlin so humorously characterized as our “stuff”.  Such things as toy boxes, storage sheds, luggage, safety deposit boxes, lockers, trunks, closets, freezers, cabinets, crates, pet cages and jewelry boxes.  And for our most prized rhetoric, I would be remiss to omit from the list the revered text box.

What’s significant about all these boxes, though, is what they tell us about ourselves: that box-like patterns dominate our thought processes. But what of the boxes that never manifest physically, those unseen metaphoric boxes that delimit our world views and in so doing, shape our behaviors. I like to call them mind boxes.  These boxes evolve or, some might argue, are implanted in us in as we develop to adulthood.

Why do such boxes warrant our scrutiny? Because they closet sensory gatekeepers, our very own in-house spin doctors, if you will.  Given free reign, they hobble our truly God-given ability to observe, to think objectively and to fairly interpret what our five senses deliver from the outside.

But where is the evidence mind boxes exist, you ask? One has only to look to our clichés.  For example: Where did the expressions “thinking out of the box” and “get out of the box” come from in the first place if there are no boxes from which to escape?  Then there are phrases such as “he just doesn’t fit in.” Just what is it about him that doesn’t fit in, and into what? Could such clichés be referring to the beliefs and behaviors defined as acceptable in a metaphoric mind box of the person pronouncing judgment?  Probably, but what do I know?

The news media pumps out the artifacts of mind boxes on a daily basis, reports of confrontational behaviors and rhetorical saber rattling between peoples of different cultures, religions and nationalities. Simultaneously, we bear witness to innuendo and stereotyping which exploit differences in ethnicity, gender, regional origins, class, education, age, appearance, dress and yes, even intelligence. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the cliché goes. “Judge not lest  ye be judged’” says another. I like that one.  But what do I know? 

The pernicious grip of mind boxes is supported as well by mankind’s seemingly stagnated emotional and intellectual development over thousands of years of recorded history. Given this evolutionary quagmire, it’s no wonder that some challenge the validity of Darwin’s theories. But subjected to the same criteria, intelligent design, a mind box spin to reframe creationism as science, seems as an alternative no better an explanation -- and hardly an intelligent one.  Could it be that both sides are correct: that Darwin’s theory represents the real-time implementation of intelligent design? If so, it would suggest that we humans are geometrically challenged, unable to grasp concepts that extend beyond three dimensions to include time. Makes sense to me, but maybe that’s opening Pandora’s box. 

Suffice it to say that while our beloved little mind boxes ensure community and shared beliefs within their bounds, they limit the ability and willingness of those within to appreciate outsiders whose view of the world is seasoned by boxes dissimilar in values, norms and beliefs. And witness the fruits? Intolerance. Extremism. Human rights violations. Terrorism. Suppression. Exclusion. Prejudice. War. Perhaps it’s nature’s plan that we all live and die as victims of metaphoric boxes, whether of our own or another’s making. 

Consider for a moment my aging cocker spaniel, Abby. As a puppy, she was housebroken using a cage.  At age 11, a back injury returned her to the same cage for six weeks of bed rest.  I feared she’d view being caged as punishment, but she didn’t.  With bed rest now weeks behind her, she continues to use the cage as her private retreat.

Conventional wisdom asserts that we become more like our parents in behavior and rhetoric as we age?  Is this a genetic switch redirecting us to the mind box in which we were metaphorically housebroken? Probably, but what do I know?

Whatever the truth may be, It seems to me that we waste all too much of our life energies trying to proliferate, defend, reinforce, explore or escape our own metaphoric boxes instead of moving on, in an evolutionary sense, to a higher plane, a more comprehensive box with ample room inside for other small boxes, boxes different from our own. Could it be that Mother Nature’s genetic switch arrests our evolution much as a governor throttles down a city bus when a pre-programmed speed level is exceeded? I remember almost to the day some 11 years ago when Abby’s seemingly unbridled cognitive development inexplicably ground to a halt. It was if her head had simply filled up.

But what does this rambling expository say of my cigar habit, my micro-mind box if you will? I glance at the now empty box on my office credenza and feel an oncoming attack writer’s block.  Yes. What I failed to tell my doctor was that I have come to associate writing with cigar smoking. Without a lit cigar, my precious prose goes missing.  Then, as panic is about to set in, I hear the approaching UPS van.

I return to my desk, freed of anxiety by a fresh box of 50 cigars. From within the package come the familiar siren calls, tobacco mermaids luring me to their treacherous jagged shoals where my prose is being held hostage.  I try to steer away, but Mother Nature’s governor throttles back my resolve and my hand is drawn toward the package. As I rip away its outer wrappings and pluck out a cigar, I vow that this will be my last box, but wonder: Am I deluding myself?

The answer comes from Abby, who watches me contentedly through the open gate of her cage as I light up. It dawns on me that her repeated return to the cage is motivated not by its physical attributes, but by the comforting delusion of security and control she perceives when inside. I savor my first puff and reflect humbly as my prose once again flows freely onto the blank page. Not easy to “get out of the box”. Not easy at all.