A Blog Introduction

I was a child of the 80's. I grew up in a time when boxes were despised. "Think outside the box", our teachers kept telling us. You are unique, like a snowflake. You are special. Celebrate your specialness.

As time went on, I saw the rise of a new type of minimalist architecture and fashion, one that I did not find at all beautiful. It was made of slim curves and white or tan tones, and it was called "Modern". "Modern stair rails were curved, plain lines. Modern chairs looked like alien space pods. Modern clothing was unadorned. I grew up with Star Trek: The Next Generation, so much about its look seemed natural to me, but I was always struck by how little decoration I saw. Nobody seemed to have pretty clothing or ornate picture frames. Blankets looked like tin foil. Along with "modern" came "abstract", which is basically a few colored swirls that are meant to "mean multiple things to multiple people". Now, I do not hate "all things abstract", but I dislike most of it.

As we roared into the 90's, I began to see that "outside the box" did not mean "outside the box" after all. None of my teachers were interested in "outside the box" thoughts, feelings, or stylings that did not fit inside their new little boxes. I began to realize that "outside the box" was not true freedom, but merely a rebellion against all that had gone before. Somehow, strange as it may seem, I attached that feeling to those newer 90's and 00's "McMansions", which showed their creativity and individuality by displaying identical huge arched picture windows above the front door, as if to say, "There! It's not square!" I hated it on sight. It reminded me of a line from the animated show "Batman Begins", from a teenager talking about an extreme form of body art. "I just wanted to express myself as an individual, just like the rest of my friends." The camera pulls away to show that his friends, of slightly different shapes and sizes, have the exact same clothing and body art.

I had to wonder, where did it all go wrong? When did "outside the box" become a far tighter box than "inside"? More people are being diagnosed with ADHD and forms of autism so mild that they didn't need a name in a less rigid society. Is "Aspergers" real? Or is it just how we label the people who, having never been taught the codes of etiquette, failed to magically intuit them on their own? What was the point of being more creative if it took us to a place where fewer people create?

Now the tide is turning. We are starting to create more. People are building their own boxes for themselves. You can find plenty of articles on making a simpler wardrobe, a smaller pantry, food plans, exercise plans, Being given far more choices than ever before, we are setting limits, so that we will have time to do something other than make decisions. Many are actually paying other people simply to make the daily decisions for them!

I don't have an unrealistic view of the past. I can't think of any time in history where I'd rather live. For all the benefits of the old ways, there were plenty of detriments. In this new world, though, where we are increasingly being separated from traditional things and corralled into a tight box of eternal choices (mutually exclusive as that may sound, it's pretty much what is happening), can't we take the best of the old and leave the rest? Is racism designed into a 1950's flowered dress? Is plague indelibly imprinted upon a simple 1700's "Low Tea"? I would say that it most certainly is not. Ironically, in this increasingly tight modern box of "freedom", there are many who would eschew any activity that was ever performed by anybody who did anything they did not like. With this, I disagree.

With this blog, I want to celebrate all of the things that I've been told to forget, and all of the things that are making a resurgence, like food-shopping on a tight budget, "making over" clothing, furniture and decorations with their own purpose and personality, studying author intent rather than engaging in the mental cud-chewing of asking "what the work means to me", and various other forms of thinking inside the box.