Wherefore the Box?

[Billy Britt]

The phrase “think outside the box,” is a long-used maxim that is in dire need of retirement. A leftover of the 70s and 80s pop-business seminars, it is a slogan so logically flawed it is the intellectual equivalent of suggesting your brother-in-law open a Pontiac automobile dealership.Of course, the saying was intended to encourage people to think differently in order to find a new perspective.But do we really want everyone doing this? I mean the box is there for a reason!Do we really want the guy driving the school bus to be thinking about anything other than driving the bus? We don’t want them thinking about nuclear fusion in a mayonnaise jar.Do we want armed police officers acting in a manner inconsistent with procedure?René Descartes, whose writings became the foundation of Western philosophy said, “Cogito, ergo sum” (English: “I think, therefore I am”).While the nuance of Descartes’ meaning is much deeper than this context, (I cannot resist using Latin whenever possible, because I want to think I am thinking).However, most people only think they think, what they are really doing is parroting the thinking of others, and this, by itself, is not necessarily harmful, as long as it is not granted the weight of personal reasoning.Ergo, the box.If one lacks the ability to think within the box we certainly should caution them from wondering beyond their existing bounds.The fundamental reason that the box was invented is so that there is a method to the madness. Only those who have mastered the fundamentals need worry about much else.What are the fundamentals?They are the basics of classical education, not what is the Similac-laced brain rot that passes for academics in today’s public schools.They are the Trivium, which are, grammar, logic and rhetoric.Educator Sister Miriam Joseph explained, “The function of the Trivium is the training of the mind for the study of matter and spirit, which together constitute the sum of reality.”Simply put, grammar is the use and workings of language, logic is the organizing of thought and analysis and rhetoric is using language to instruct and persuade.Sister Miriam Joseph described the three parts as follows, “Logic is the art of thinking; grammar, the art of inventing symbols and combining them to express thought; and rhetoric, the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance.”Now, a person does not need a PhD to learn to think, (many times the PhD hurts more than it helps). However, it is a learning process, something that requires work.Many times people mistake reaction for thought; the two are very different actions with very little in common.Reaction is easy it is hardwired in the brain, thinking on the other hand is messy and requires a discipline process.People on the whole tend to be either reactionary or reasonable. Our species may be taking a step backwards because we no longer consider reason and logic above pure emotion. (Take a look at TV, and the Internet.) While we in the mean are better informed we are yet taking less time to evaluate the data placed before us. Basically, we have entered the Age of Unenlightenment. We have knowledge but lack wisdom to truly process.I know a mind can be like a bad neighborhood; you don't really want to go in there alone. Yet, I want to think, so, I go heavily armed.Thinking, let’s face it, it is difficult, time consuming and extremely chaotic. This is why most people avoid it like a dental drill, they wait until it has decayed and then want someone else to fix it.So, the next time someone suggest an out of the box thinking experience decide if they may really be looking to open a Pontiac dealership.Love

[lois gueli]

Hope, thanks for the compliment. The body is my daughter Allison. The hat is Aretha's. The man is our president and the face is MINE!!!

[Janet Gause(Orlando)]

How about this " If you continue in my word, you slall Know the truth and the truth shall make you free".
Maybe its not thinking outside the " box" , but rather that the more time we devote to the word the larger our faith becomes. This to mind "Lord, enlarge our faith". Robert Gause

[lois gueli]

Here I am with Obama wearing my "Pill BoX Hat"!

[lois gueli]

[John and Janet Ruiz]

Pairabucks -

[Kevin Nye]

I love paradigms...

[John and Janet Ruiz]

Of mice, men and boxes...

Back in the 90's the word "paradigm" hit the business world. I forget when I first ran across it, somewhere in computer programming way back when. Then one year it seemed that paradigms and specifically paradigm shifts were all I heard about - every speaker, article, book and new, newer and newest author to hit the shelves and speaking circuit was wrapping their ideas in paradigm paper. This seemed to get the hottest in the middle of the "dot com" boom, which can be dated as right before the "dot com" fashizzle. Not that a lot of good didn't come out of it that era. Just that many of the forays into The New Paradigm Frontier seemed to underscore some very Old Paradigm points.

Or as Dilbert said "Change is good - you go first". Indeed, those who skate out onto the thin ice find the cracks first and there's been a lot of that these last 20 years or so and a lot of successes. Today I'd phrase it - "Learning is good - but can we not do a team building exercise in this week's meeting and discuss our projects and whether they're on track or not?"

What I found was that the "out of the box" thinking uh, paradigm thingie amounted to, amounts to, progress. Improvement. Staying lean and mean, hungry, assuming nothing but the new day and a new opportunity to get out and get 'er done.

At the core of a business is some kind of service or product. Is it any good? Are the customers happy? Are we giving them what they want? What opportunities are we missing? Any we can get more out of? Who's bringing the coffee this week? Good, basic questions, all and always ripe for review and thought.

Old or new, we have some basic paradigms, or models, that never change. Value, bang for the buck, getting what you paid for, providing something of value and worth. "Expectations" being met, exceeded.

Some things never change. How we do them, sure. It's important to not get lost in the process though and remain focused on what it is we're actually trying to accomplish so that the processes reflect that, change as they will and do.

[Kevin Nye]

I graduated from the Harry Lundberg School Of Seamanship in Piney Point Maryland back in 1973. I have been a Merchant Marine since then but didn't go to sea during my years in The Way (75-89). I went back to sea up here in Alaska, working for the Alaska Marine Highway where my daughter now works as an engineer. She's even on one of my old ships and has my old crew quarters and my old bunk! There's pictures there of all of that at my page...

And yes, this blog page has had many a twist and turn, no need to give it another one!

Love you...

[Mike and Lisa Tracy]

Yeah Kevin - I have had to deal with stuff like that too and it is really no fun amd there is almost no good way to handle it.

On another topic - did I read in some post in here somewhere that you had been in the maritime college (probably not what it is called but you have to give landlubbers like me a break on that). If that is the case I will ask a question on your page about the whole pirate deal. This blog has had so many twists and turns I don't want to start another.

[Kevin Nye]

"My only issue is that sometimes I have heard people make promises on God's behalf - usually hoping for a miracle of deliverance - when God had not told them to speak".

Exactly. This was the case with the person who set up the 48 hours of prayer for the guy who eventually died. The person who set it up "promised" that God would deliver they guy if everyone prayed fervently. Gods' promises are yay and amen, it is only we who so many times are not "yay and amen".

It really messed a lot of people up, and I got to walk right in on it as their new "leader". Oh de joy...