Think Outside the Box - Maybe

 It’s all we ever hear these days.  But did you hear the one about the fellow who was thinking so far outside of the box he got lost? It happens. Leave behind what you know for too long and you may never recover.

So what is it, this thinking outside the box?  A brilliant insight at just the right moment?  A clever explanation served up quickly? A cowboy tap-dance on a difficult problem with the perfect solution, like from outta nowhere?  A new idea to treat some disease? A clever new routing strategy. Figuring who the criminal actually is? All of these? Basically, it is thinking beyond, differently, unconventionally, inferentially, intuitively, or creatively.

 Albert Einstein begged the question with this: "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." The “difficulty” happens because we are boxed-in.  The opportunity comes when thinking outside the box.

 It has been suggested the term “outside the box” came from the nine-dot puzzle.  Connect all nine dots by at most four straight lines, without lifting the pencil, that crosses each dot only once. The solution must go outside the box containing the nine dots. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box

   

However, the term also applies to the “sandbox” of your life which contains what you know, your methods, your tricks, your tools, and your trade. It is the day-in and day-out you.

While thinking outside the box may be valued, you can do it only if you know what’s already inside.  What’s in it is more than experience. It’s what the schools teach, or suppose to teach. They are supposed to fill up the box, gradually making it bigger over the years, and big enough to handle life.

Look at what doctors and lawyers do.  They become experts with what’s in the box, though for each it’s a mighty big box. All of their training tells them to stay inside. The outside is risky. For the hunter, the box is the weapon, the territory, the weather, a full mental map, and long experience. Why would the hunter venture outside where many unknowns and uncertainties await? For the cleric, the box is church doctrine from which they are forbidden to journey outside. Perhaps a bit of a stretch would be to say St. Thomas Aquinas built the walls of his box even higher. Evidently, for some, think outside the box only when absolutely necessary.

Thinking outside the box is hard. You go to an unknown place looking for an unknown solution. You need equipment, such as a life of learning, thinking, and solving. Most folks never learn this.  Most are happy to stay in the box if they can. Don’t expect luck on the outside. There are false solutions on the outside, and you are less prepared to recognize them.

For others, thinking on the outside is more than just hard. It’s impossible. Consider. What’s out there is new.  And those with neophobia (look online) have a deep fear of anything new or unfamiliar. They can’t venture outside their box, out of sheer fright.  This condition is not dissimilar to agoraphobia – the fear of open spaces. It is related to xenophobia, the fear of the unfamiliar, though the term has broadly become a race-baiting disapprobation. Some people spend their whole lives in their box, happy and content that everything is close at hand, familiar, and comfortable. Let’s give a new term, ex-boxaphobia, the fear of thinking outside one’s box.  Many can be very successful and live productive lives. 

Alas, the outside is mysterious, exciting, unknown, and tantalizing.  You start thinking just any idea from the outside must be great.  Mostly, ideas from the outside only sound cool. Mostly, they don’t really solve the problem. You just think they do, because they’re new. And “new” doesn’t necessarily imply “good.” Finding good solutions on the outside is just plain hard work.  It’s not a slap-dash revelation. 

The lesson is simple: Learn to play, and play well, in your own sandbox before you go jumping outside. There’s junk out there, just like inside.  So, pick your preference, known or unknown junk. What the genius won’t tell you is that on the outside they conjure up false or bad solutions all the time.  While the rest of us dither on a particular one, they discard the bad ones at a fantastic rate, a skill learned inside the box. Yes, a mark of true intelligence is the ability to discard bad ideas quickly. A corollary of this is the expression that he/she “does not suffer fools.”     

All the same, complete “ex-boxaphobia” is undesired, as well. So, get out there from time-to-time.