SELF CONTAINED

LITTLE BOXES

"little boxes on the hillside
little boxes made of ticky tacky
little boxes on the hillside

little boxes all the same" 

...“Are you happy with the box you’ve placed YOURSELF in?” my friend asked me today over coffee.

I was rambling on about boxes and how I didn’t like the pre-folded ones that come with most stereotypes. So she challenged me with this question. I love that.

I get all twisted up over classification boxes often used to describe a larger group of individuals, because it’s difficult to fit anyone REAL in those pre-fabs. They’re usually too narrow — or just the opposite: overly roomy; made for way too many over-generalizations.

No one person would fit comfortably in any of those without banging around; knocking into all the pre (ill?)-conceived notions, let alone entire nations. We see this played out today with devastating clarity, as we watch current events unfold. 

It is difficult to process, when you find yourself/your country placed into a crate of misunderstanding and hatred so big, the issue becomes about the box itself — you, lost somewhere inside trying to get out.

Yet I find all day long we either are steered or walk on our own volition into these wide-sweeping categorizations. It makes me uncomfortable when I find myself being encapsulated or me being the "encapsulater." Don’t do that — in either case.

As the election looms, I'll jet out and declare my position — I don’t like the wide sweeping inclusions with the words “Republican,” or “Democrat.” I find values in either to which I relate, and many things in both to which I don’t. (Yet the term “Independent” seems too vague.). I believe in the structure our founding fathers created, and in the notion of balance. I try to navigate through all the noise to find that for myself. 

When I watch two major parties  desecrate each other in an attempt to place their weighty box on top in a power struggle, I wonder which one will get there, and think one or both is bound to topple, and take my individuality with it. I do believe strongly the answer rests in the great variety of we, the people. Not in any one person, or leader.

With all my misgivings about boxes,  I didn't respond directly to the question my friend posed — at first. I drifted off into an entire MAZE  of box-related analogies. Eventually (after changing the subject as a tactic to allow myself time to think) I rejoined her with something like this:

“I guess I like the box I made for myself right now, but ask me again in a few years. My box just may look different then.”

(P.S. My husband’s response to this post was typically rational; providing a perspective balancer to my often tippy canoe. He pointed out that stereotypes, while often broad-reaching and damaging, aren't ALL necessarily bad, or dangerous. They are a way to process and filter; while still being able to function and move forward. Food for thought.)