Think Outside My Box

The next time someone asks you to “think out of the box”, very politely request for him or her to show you the box.

There was this student from a supposedly up-and-coming tertiary institute who received a call from his tutor. He was asked if it was the 'right' assignment that he had submitted. Confused and obviously concerned, he engaged in a discussion (I suppose, a polite argument) with her in a desperate attempt to clarify what she was on about. Finally, she said, “there are a few of you who ‘thought out of the box’, so I am just calling to clarify.” She mentioned the phrase "out of point", and then went on to dictate how he should have approached the paper.

This incident triggered a memory. Quite some years ago, I saw a tattoo on a younger person I know. Smilingly, I put on an authoritative-voice (I suppose to put a stamp on the age difference) and questioned, “Aren’t you worried about not being able to get a job in the near future?” I may not remember the exact words, but this utterance seems about there. “Who would want to work for such a close-minded organisation?” he snapped. I say he snapped for the words came out fast, and if memory serves me well, facial muscles were tense. Who could blame him? As abruptly as this exchange emerged, just as abruptly it submerged.

If the Me today had challenged the Me then, he would have asked: “Pray tell…how would a tattoo hinder his employability? At which organisation do you think he was planning to work for? How sure are you that this specific organisation would not accept him just because of a tattoo?” All questions that may have stumped the Mr Me-Then. I know we all tend to see the world through our own social milieu, but seriously...was my social milieu that limited?

As an additional example, (and let me tip-toe around this one), why are boys expected to spot short hair? Otherwise they’d look like girls? And what should a girl look like? WHO decides what a girl should look like? The same forces that decreed girls must love pink and boys, blue? Don’t get me wrong, I am not anarchistic. Rules are rules, and once implemented must be followed. No questions asked. And if it is somewhat unanimous among a group of people that it is the norm for boys to have short hair, and they want this observed, then so be it. However, if it is not that unanimous, then this calls for a healthy debate. Otherwise, we are going to have a society of either blind conformists, or very unhappy suppressees.

I put my girls to bed on most nights. This means that I might read to them, pray for/with them, answer their final queries for the day, pat them to sleep or just be present to them until they drift off into lala land. As a result, appointments that I make with friends or others tend not to stretch too late into the night. I was questioned on this recently by someone who probably assumed that since my wife stayed home full-time, and that I was "the sole bread winner", I shouldn't have to reschedule/cancel my appointments on account of having to put my girls to sleep. Putting my girls to bed is not a responsibility or duty. It is my honour and my privilege to put my girls to bed. Divine access granted to me. This is fatherhood in a pure form. We don't have forever with our children, and there is only this small window of time that our children would want us that much in their lives. I speak not from experience but based on what I have been told by those with children- teenage or slightly older. It's sometimes disconcerting to see them long wistfully for the days when their children were younger. "Better appreciate them while they are young...they grow so fast...now ask them go out wif you also dey dowan!" they tell me.

I may have drifted away, but what I would like to drive at are our assumptions; how they come about, how they control our lives and just much truth they have in them. All is required are usually a few levels of questioning, and these assumptions will be discredited. But I sense, some of these assumptions are so deeply entrenched that we find it impossible to will ourselves to think them baseless. Of course, there are simple, less entrenched debunk-able ones and my favourite of which is the “We feel that…” opinionated statement. Who is the “we”? I’d interrupt much to the annoyance of the speaker. It doesn’t take much to debunk it, and for one to realise that one person’s feelings cannot possibly be equal to that of another.

In this day and age, many parents and teachers demand for creativity without articulating their understanding of it. And worse, they confuse their poor charges by contradicting themselves via their speech, and via their actions as had been the case with the “thinking out of the box” fiasco. The onus is really upon educators to spell out the rubrics of assessment when a piece of work is assignment. And naturally, as educators, there should be this eagerness, enthusiasm to offer suggestions. But on what grounds do we assume that our way is The Right way? On what grounds do we penalise an open-ended response that meets all the requirements reflected by the rubrics, but fails to reflect any of the teacher’s suggestions?

An arrow connects a box to a flower on a cactus plant. Within the box, child writes “petal”. Answer scheme reads "Flower". Do we give this child credit for actually knowing the parts of a flower? Or do we stick rigidly to "Flower" perhaps not even accepting "flower", because the answer scheme states "Flower" with a capital "F".

What is my interpretation of thinking out of the box? Easy. Just be yourself. The most interesting compositions that I have read are those that are based on a person's real life experiences. No one person can be the same as another. I am not referring to appearances alone, but our selves in their entirety— our experiences, our opinions, our feelings, our biological make-up, and quite importantly, the set of interactions we engage in and have engaged with other individuals that shape us. When a person writes from his or her own personal experiences, you find yourself going..."Hmm. I can empathize with you..", or "Woah! I've never looked at it that way before!". And next thing you know, you're longing for a sequel. In a way, there is a celebration of uniqueness and an acknowledgement of the preciousness of this person's existence. You are essentially handed the pair of lenses owned by the child and invited to see the world through them.

Should I ever ask you to think outside the box, this box that I am referencing is none other than mine and mine alone. So, I would have to describe this box to you for you to know how to think outside of it. But beware! The box that I describe to you today might very well be different if you were to ask me to describe it some time down the road. And even if I do describe it using the exact language, expression and gestures, it is still extremely likely that you would interpret it differently. Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote: "You can never step into the same river twice." Things are constantly in motion acting on the world and being acted upon by the world. More interestingly, the anthropologist William Reddy pointed out that the very act of expressing an interpretation of something, for example this note, shapes my interpretation of creativity, fatherhood, tattoos, etc. The river changes as soon as I click Publish. The very utterance of describing the box shapes one's interpretation of the box even if it be in a minuscule way.

But I think the question that begs an answer is: how arrogant, perhaps a tad bit disrespectful or simply ignorant would it be of me to expect you to think outside MY box? Until and unless we truly acknowledge the diversity of selves in the world, we are never likely to examine our assumptions.