Do you mean as a metaphor?
If the answer you’re going for
here, should you, of course, be
going for a particular answer
from me...are you? If the ans
wer that you’d like to hear is
by chance that it would mean
to me that you are asking me
to think outside the box, then
kudos. I mean, sure, that’s the
first thing that came to my mind,
but in all honesty, for me there is
nothing metaphorical about color
ing outside of the lines. I’m so
messy with visual arts, and cray
on coloring is absolutely no except
ion. On the other hand, the already
at least once elevated metaphor of
thinking outside of the box – is the
box a cubicle? is it your house? – or
it could go further: Is a box simply
where we each just normally exist?
Does it equal routine, normalcy
and/or boring? Is it a prison meta
phor? Either way, it’s all pie in the
sky stuff, which, and no, we don’t
have to discuss what a pie in the
sky is, how literal, how figurative,
how imaginative, except when I
hear the phrase I have always
imagined one of mom’s apple pies
way out there, spinning around like
a flying saucer, only something
so delicious for a potential and
eventual encounterer. Unless
it was taken as a mode of agg
ression. Let me just tell you
the difference to me. Color
ing outside the lines is
messy and awkward and
insecure me. Trying hard
as I might to make some
thing pretty. Never able
to do so beyond perhaps
ugly-functional. Thinking
outside the box, on the other
hand, is always looking out
for that fresh approach,
disproving everything old
is new again, disproving
there’s nothing new under
the sun, giving one (myself;
others, perhaps) a new per
spective at something they
either were on a never-end
ing attempt at finding, that
new way of looking at something
a flying saucer, only something
so delicious for a potential and
eventual encounterer. Unless
it was taken as a mode of agg
ression. Let me just tell you
the difference to me. Color
ing outside the lines is
messy and awkward and
insecure me. Trying hard
as I might to make some
thing pretty. Never able
to do so beyond perhaps
ugly-functional. Thinking
outside the box, on the other
hand, is always looking out
for that fresh approach,
disproving everything old
is new again, disproving
there’s nothing new under
the sun, giving one (myself;
others, perhaps) a new per
spective at something they
either were on a never-end
ing attempt at finding, that
new way of looking at something
ordinary or, better yet, that way
of seeing something they are
either always looking at or
never even knew existed, or
anywhere on that spectrum,
that is either poignant, enter
taining, enlightening, odd,
out there, that has potential
to be an obssessive thought,
perhaps become a quest,
something that quenches
a thirst and gets one exc
ited about a thing, that can
never be unlearned or erased.
Like imagining coloring out
side of the lines a metaphor for
thinking outside of the box, say.
Making my messiness meaning
ful. And I am certainly all for that.
of seeing something they are
either always looking at or
never even knew existed, or
anywhere on that spectrum,
that is either poignant, enter
taining, enlightening, odd,
out there, that has potential
to be an obssessive thought,
perhaps become a quest,
something that quenches
a thirst and gets one exc
ited about a thing, that can
never be unlearned or erased.
Like imagining coloring out
side of the lines a metaphor for
thinking outside of the box, say.
Making my messiness meaning
ful. And I am certainly all for that.
