Is there a box to think outside of?

“Think outside of the box” is a cliche phrase used to refer to looking at a problem from a fresh perspective. It has a strong message, but why is it that so many people become obsessed with it? Almost everyone has the “think outside of the box” advice ready to fire at someone else – and by doing so they’re not really thinking outside of the box themselves.Be aware that this is not your usual article about the benefits of thinking outside of the box.

Origins of “the box”

The origins of this catchphrase can be found in the nine dots puzzle. This puzzle first appeared in Sam Loyd’s 1914 Cyclopedia of Puzzles and then in the 1951 compilation The Puzzle-Mine: Puzzles Collected from the Works of the Late Henry Ernest Dudeney.

Lexicographer David Barnhart reports that he first encountered the “think outside of the box” phrase in 1975.

(the nine dots puzzle)

What’s the nine dots puzzle? It is a puzzle game where you are presented with a square made of 9 dots (picture above) and you have to connect all the dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines without lifting the pencil from the paper. To solve the puzzle, you have to literally think outside of the box.

The box

Of course that “thinking outside of the box” is used mostly in a metaphorical sense, but what if this metaphorical box doesn’t exist at all? After all, “there is no spoon.”

There is no spoon

Here I am, with yet another connection to The Matrix movie. Let’s take a look at the “there is no spoon” scene.

After his initial training, Neo, the main character of the movie, is taken to the “Oracle,” an old lady who seems to be able to see the future. While he was waiting to see her we have an important scene. Neo is left in a room with a group of children who appear to be adepts of doing impossible things. One is also reading a book in Chinese. One young boy, who is dressed and groomed like Mahâtmâ Gandhi, is calmly sitting in a Lotus position making spoons bend through telekinesis. The extraordinary thing about the world of The Matrix is that we have no difficulty understanding how this is possible. Paranormal abilities are no longer miraculous when we know that they are just computer simulations. But Neo, actually living in this world, of course, has a little more difficulty grasping exactly how to do it. So the boy explains with perhaps the most important line of the movie, “There is no spoon.” Now, this is a great philosophical phrase.

The idea originates in Buddhism. The spoon is “empty,” it has “no self nature,” no essence or enduring reality. The spoon exists only relative to everything else.

There is no box

Just like there is no spoon to bend, there is no box to think outside of. The box which creates boundaries for our mind is a mere illusion that we ourselves have built and maintained. It is a sum of wrong concepts about reality picked up from the people with which we came in contact. The box building process starts early with school, and some people live within the boundaries of this imaginary fake box their entire lives.

Like the spoon, “the box” exists only relative to everything else. It doesn’t exist as such.

Copyblogger‘s Brian Clark writes in one of his articles:

“You create your own imaginary boxes simply by living life and accepting certain things as “real” when they are just as illusory as the beliefs of a paranoid delusional. The difference is, enough people agree that certain man-made concepts are “real,” so you’re viewed as “normal.”

One of the many real concepts that most people agree with is that these boxes that we have to think outside of are real… If you believe in that philosophy you’re viewed as normal. But the price to pay for believing in this mis-belief is enormous. It can cost you your dreams, your happiness, your creativity and your happy life.

In the end, what matters is not to think outside of an illusional box, but to have the courage to be different than the rest of the crowd – if you are different.

Don’t think outside of the box, thinking will suffice.

Second-hand concepts create more victims than second-hand smoke.