Thinking Without the Box
THINKING WITHOUT THE BOX
Using All of Your Magical Mind
H B Gelatt
“Would you believe that so small a space could contain the images of the whole universe?” Leonardo daVinci
The brain is amazing as daVinci points out, and I believe the mind, whatever it is, is even more so. To paraphrase what someone once said about the brain, If the mind were simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to understand it.
I believe one’s mind is magical (“seemingly inexplicable or an extraordinary power or influence”) and that it is also malleable, multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. This newsletter is part of my Process of Illumination, which promotes an open-minded and inclusive worldview to save the world. The illumination strategy is to use all of your magical mind.
Erase Imaginary Boundaries
Have you ever been told to “think outside the box?” This usually means to think more creatively, to get out of your normal, common rational thinking. The fact that rational thinking is considered inside the box indicates how restrictive it is. When a group is asked to brainstorm it means to think without the normal restrictions of rationality. Its goal is to come up with more possibilities.
To think “inside the box and outside the box” is to think of two, separate, unconnected things, rational thinking (inside) vs. creative thinking (outside). What if you were told to think without the box? Thinking without the box expands your perspective by erasing the imaginary boundaries of your mind. You will use all of your magical mind … and expand your worldview to be more open and inclusive.
Do you usually think inside the box, outside the box or without the box? To help you answer that question, here is a test of your current common thinking. Don’t worry; there are no right or wrong answers and no score. Answer Yes or No.
The Thinking Test
_____ 1. Have you ever had thoughts that were not totally rational?
_____ 2. Have you ever had unrealistic fantasies about the future?
_____ 3. Have you ever made up your mind and then changed it?
_____ 4. Have you ever said “I don’t know” out loud?
_____ 5. Have you ever been taught any of these skills in school?
I have asked these questions enough to know that most people answer “yes” to the first four questions and “no” to the last. I did; did you? Although we were not taught these skills in school, we all seem to have them. The fact that we have them means that either they are innate skills or we learned them without being taught. Actually these skills are now being taught today in adult workshops and executive training programs and even in some schools. Here is an illumination method:
Apply These Untaught Skills
I like these four questions because they represent the thinking skills that expand the capacity of your mind, increase your ability to make creative decisions and promote the use of both sides of your brain. They contribute to thinking without the box --- and to a
more open-minded and inclusive worldview.
For example, having thoughts that are not totally rational involves intuition, which by definition is “the act of knowing without the use of rational processes,” Intuition, creativity, imagination, visionary thinking, flexibility, adaptability and not-knowing are all part of
Emotional Intelligence (EQ), popularized by Daniel Goleman. Goleman contends that
Americans have “too much college and too little kindergarten.” The popularity of emotional intelligence suggests that the non-rational is catching on.
Having unrealistic fantasies about the future is also receiving more respect with the general public. The concept of “positive illusions,” first introduced by Shelley Taylor, identified “unrealistic optimism for the future” as an unrealistic yet adaptive misconception of mentally healthy people. Being optimistic about your role in determining the future is likely to lead to proactive behavior. Optimism, like emotional intelligence, is now featured in professional and popular literature (e.g. positive psychology).
Being able and willing to change your mind is another skill that will be an asset in a rapidly changing future. However, we normally try to avoid it. “Given the choice between changing one’s mind and proving it is not necessary, most people get busy on the proof. John Gailbrath
Changing your mind actually isn’t good for you if you are running for political office in the United States. We don’t want to elect a leader who is indecisive or someone who says “I don’t know” out loud. So those of you who answered these questions the way I predicted, you shouldn’t run for political office. But otherwise, take advantage of your malleable mind. “Our heads are round so thoughts can change direction,” Francis Picabia.
Changing our minds and saying I don’t know is necessary if we want to learn, grow, develop and keep up-to-date. Because…“We must continually unlearn much of what we have learned, and learn to learn what we have not been taught.” R D Laing
Use Your Whole Mind
What we have learned may no longer be true. And what we have not been taught might be worth learning. I believe we all posses the world’s finest multi-sensory learning devise right behind our eyes. All we have to do is believe it and use all of it. Think of your “mind” (human consciousness) as a magical, multiple resource without borders that we don’t yet fully understand.
Think of the world as one interconnected whole, without boxes or boundaries. You cannot separate rational and creative, mind and body, one country from another, and you cannot separate yourself from others. A collective worldview like this is impossible only if we believe it is impossible. A good place to start is with you and me.
Don’t Fence Me In
“Whenever I draw a circle, I immediately want to step out of it.” Buckminster Fuller
If you and I can step out of our boundaries, we are beginning to create a positive future for everyone because we see everything connected and ourselves connected to everyone.
In his classic 1979 book, No Boundary, Ken Wilber says that “a boundary marks off nothing but an inside and an outside.” And he points out that when you are explaining your identity, your feeling of self, you are actually drawing a mental line or boundary across a whole field of experience, and everything inside of that boundary you are calling “self,” while everything outside that boundary you feel to be “not self.
Your self-identity, in other words, depends entirely on where you draw the boundary line. But the boundary is imaginary. It isn’t really there. I want to follow Buckminster Fuller’s strategy by erasing the imaginary boundaries of my mind. I am no longer outside the box, in the circle or on the fence. There is no box, circle, or fence.
At least we seem to have already eliminated the boundary between mind and body. Holistic health has generally accepted that mind and body are not separate, independent parts but a magical, interconnected, interdependent wholeness, without boundaries. Separating the parts doesn’t work. For example, a human being can run and write but none of its parts can.
Everything is Interconnected
The popular saying, “It takes a whole village” metaphorically explains the interconnected- ness. World peace is created by the whole world, not by separate countries (parts). Parents are not the only ones raising children. Schools are not the only ones educating children. There is no boundary line between the whole and its parts and there is no boundary line between my self and my “not self.”
I am an interconnected part of the whole world. Which means my worldview is connected to the future of the world. The problem for most of us is that we don’t see the whole village; we don’t see the big picture. Our worldviews include “visual fences.”
We also put the past, present, and future into boxes or with fences between them. For example, we are frequently told that the present moment is all we have, just the here and now. The past is dead and gone and the future doesn’t exist. However current brain research and our current understanding of human consciousness suggest that this may not be the case. Neuroscience research suggests that the magical mind apparently can move through time in any direction and at any speed it chooses.
Our ability to remember the past and imagine the future is a unique human trait. During the present moment the mind is going backward and forward with ease. This is the magical, multi-dimensional mind. As the Queen in Alice in Wonderland said, “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.” You have a multi-dimensional memory that can work in both directions, a multi-faceted imagination that can envision a positive future and reinterpret the past, a malleable mind that can change itself, and a magical mind that is beyond comprehension.
Reflective Illumination
Thinking Without the Box promotes erasing the box and using all of your magical mind. Are you cultivating your emotional intelligence; comfortable having some thoughts that are not totally rational; good at imagining unrealistic fantasies about the future? Can you become as capable of change as the environment?
To help in illuminating and expanding your worldview, reflect on the questions and quotations throughout the article and discuss them with others.
“We must continually unlearn much of what we have learned, and learn to learn what we have not been taught.” R D Laing
e-mail H B at hb@gelattpartners.com
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