Think Outside The Box
Understanding the box and its whereabouts
Recently, I came across the image, and I am sure many have said and many have heard this out-of-the-world instruction — “Think Outside the Box”. Looking at this image made me wonder what it really means.
On the first look, I had 2 major concerns:
- Why is “Think” inside the box, when it is itself asking us to think outside the box?
- Why is “Box” outside the box?
It’s maybe not that big a deal and I am being curious to an unreasonable extent, but it also makes me wonder what do we really want people to do when we tell them to think outside the box? That is a very vague instruction, and this diagrammatic representation makes things worse, at least for me.
Anyways, I searched and found different versions of the same concept. I discussed with a friend as well and he had seen this image before as well, but as soon as I shared my concern, he too was a bit skeptical of this representation.
The Box
So, before we start thinking outside the box, let’s get inside the box. But where is the box, and where is it?
The box represents normalcy, ordinariness, stagnancy, stillness, and everything that represents what is “thinkable” by everyone. Technically, “thinking” refers to considering something and analyzing it, so how can anyone think about or consider something that hasn’t already been thought about or considered?
Look at the image once again and tell me what you see. Is that not a box containing the words “Think Outside The”, and the word “Box” written outside the box, below it?
Think again!
Why do we tend to think that this is a box? That’s just four black lines, forming a square. That doesn’t have to be a box, does it? Let’s consider that it’s not a box. What can it be then?
Can’t think of anything? That’s fine.
Now look at this image, and see what you get from this?
Get it?
We were never told to think of the square in the image as a box. But we still did it. Why? Maybe because it’s us who are in the box! We tend to jump to conclusions on the basis of what we know, and what we know is what we have been told. But what about things that we have not been told? Does our not knowing of them relieve them from the burden of existence? Does our not knowing relieve us from the burden of responsibility to explore? And how will we know if we don’t discover? And how will we do that, if we don’t explore?
When a dog can come and bite us, why should we not do the same to it? That is because we can think better than that. We cannot win against a dog in a dogfight. So to survive against a dog, we have to design a game that we can play better than the dog and win. That is outside the box of that dog.
Thinking Outside the Box doesn’t necessarily mean to think new — it just means that you have to think different from what you are expected to think in a situation, so that you can behave different from how you are expected to behave to make sure that the outcome of the situation is different from one would expect it to be.
So when some tells you to think out of the box, they are not really asking you to think outside your box. They are looking for ideas outside of their own box. That is why, whenever you think of anything that they have already a dy thought of, it doesn’t really matter how innovative it is.
That is how a square on a paper can become something other than a box — maybe the way out of the box that everyone else is already existing in.
