v29.1: Thinking Inside the Box

Good morning folks,

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I'm sure most of you have heard the saying, "Think outside the box".  Well today I want to talk about "Thinking Inside the Box".

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Confused?  Don't be ashamed if you are.  We've been told all our lives that we need to think outside the box in order to get ahead.  Nobody wants to be normal, everyone wants to be extraordinary in some way, shape or form.  To think outside the box is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective.

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Now let's put away all new ideas and only think on the things we know for certain.  Instead of looking up new ways to fertilize those plants in the garden, why not go back to the way your mother and father (or grandparents) did things in the good 'ol days?  Wait a minute, isn't that going against conventional thinking?  You see folks, thinking inside the box is now the outside the box thinking since everyone now thinks outside the box, nobody is thinking inside the box any longer therefore inside is now outside.  Confused now?

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When did society get so caught up in thinking outside the box that it turned into thinking inside the box?  There is obviously a history lesson here but I will leave that to you to discover and read up on.  I will note that initially thinking outside the box only referred to writers when they were creating new stories or plays; it was never meant to be a way of common thinking in daily lives.  Of course with the imaginary geniuses of our time came new ideas.  Books about the future that talked about gadgets and ways of life that were foreign to people became things to strive for.  Thinking outside the box was no longer something for the writers but a way of life for some.  Now jump ahead to the 21st century and we see so much creative talent around us.  Everyone can be a writer now (even me) and it doesn't take much time to throw together a website or blog and start writing for the world to see.  Everyone has begun thinking outside the box.

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I'm not saying thinking outside the box is a bad thing, on the contrary.  Thinking outside the box has taken people into space, to the moon and eventually we will put people on Mars and other planets.  Thinking outside the box has enabled us to be more cautious.  How many movies about a meteor striking the Earth have you seen?  You can't tell me there isn't some government agency out there with a plan of action in the event a meteor is on a crash course with Earth in the future.  We are a society that thinks outside the box now, and as such, new ideas are created everyday; a lot of our technical advancements are a direct result of out-of-box thinking and we continue to strive for more advancements.  Remember Back to the Future and the hoverboard?  I hope some day to see a real life hoverboard and you can bet there are folks out there right now working on it as a direct result of that movie.

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So if thinking outside the box is so wonderful, then what is the point of this musing?  Nothing really, as with most of my musings.  My goal here wasn't to bash one type of thinking; my goal is to get YOU thinking.  Life is too short to sit idly by and let it pass.  Whether you think inside or outside it makes little difference since the two have become so inner mingled it is difficult to tell the difference.

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Anyway folks, I need to go and throw-up.  The harbour is smelling extra... horrible this morning and my stomach has been turning every since I caught a good wiff of it driving in this morning.  This city needs someone who can think outside the box. :)

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Cheers,

Al