Your Reality Box

I am mostly considered to be a sane, intelligent person in my 'right' mind. I am a responsible citizen and homeowner who works a job, pays taxes, obeys laws, etc.

Let's suppose for a minute that, as I was driving home from work one day, I claim to have witnessed a hit-and-run accident in which a bicycle rider was killed. I am the only witness, the only other car present on that 2-lane country road. When, a week later, they find the vehicle I carefully described including a partial plate number, it has had recent body work and a fresh paint job. Circumstantial evidence indicates that the owner of the vehicle was likely to have been driving on that road at that time, but he won't admit it and no one else noticed him. The case has gone to trial, and you are on the jury. I am on the witness stand swearing to you that I saw that vehicle, driven by the defendant, hit the bicyclist and then take off. The only other evidence is circumstantial. Do you vote guilty, or not? Ask yourself, and decide before you read the next paragraph.

If you voted guilty, you just sentenced a man to prison on my word. You decided the course of the rest of a man's life based on what I say that I saw. And you don't even know me. (If you voted not guilty, get lost! Why are you reading my blog if you don't believe a word I say?) (Just kidding!)

Now suppose I have witnessed something a little .. different. Here I am, still the same person, still swearing that I'm telling the truth and willing to take a lie detector test, but what I have seen was .. a UFO .. or Bigfoot .. or a ghost .. or a pterodactyl (thunderbird). Now what do you think? That I'm crazy, or having delusions, or lying? Why? You trusted me when you decided the fate of the hit-and-run driver, why don't you trust me now?

Because what I say I've seen is outside your Reality Box, that's why. Yes, you have one. We all do. Mine is probably bigger than most, but I do have one and there are some things that aren't in it .. like the idea that our President is really a shape-shifting reptoid alien. If ghosts, or UFO's, or bigfoot, are inside your reality box, you had no more trouble believing what I said I saw than you did believing me about the hit-and-run driver. But if these things are outside your reality box, I lost you as soon as I said I saw one of them. In fact, some people probably stopped reading this blog before they reached the end of the 2nd sentence in the 4th paragraph. (Did I make you go look? )

On TV, and sometimes in real life, we see examples of people whose Reality Box is smaller than ours, sometimes in very specific ways. Because another way to say Reality Box is Comfort Zone. USA's Detective Monk, for example, has a smaller comfort zone than many of us do, and we find his reactions to things that fall outside of it quite amusing, especially since we don't have all those ridiculous fears and hangups that he does. Oh, don't we? Don't you? To the person whose Comfort Zone encompasses at least the possibility that aliens (ETs, not stray Mexicans), Bigfoots (Bigfeet??), lake monsters, and ghosts exist, a skeptical reaction may be just as amusing as you find Mr. Monk's reaction to having to touch something that hasn't been sterilized.

Have you ever stopped to think about it? Who created your box? You? Well, partially, but your culture, parents, society, school, etc. all had a hand in it. If, for example, you were raised in China, the benefits of acupuncture are probably well within its parameters. If you were raised in the U.S., you might think "that's crazy. How could sticking pins in me make me hurt less?" Everyone and everything that has been part of your life had probably at least a small part in defining your Box, but you control it. You can make it bigger, smaller, change its shape .. whatever you want. Why don't you? When confronted with something that's not in their box, why do some people reject it while others accept it (thereby enlarging or changing their box)?

A few weeks ago I bought 15 pullets (baby female chickens) from my local feed store. When they were fully feathered, I moved them from the large tub I'd been keeping them in to a much larger outdoor pen. Instead of enjoying their new freedom, they huddled miserably in the 'house' I'd provided, and only the need for food and water finally brought them out of it. When talking about chickens, you and I can surely agree - they were afraid. Afraid of the unknown, afraid of everything - the sky, the trees, the other animals, the sounds - that was outside their Box. Hunger and thirst - the basic survivial instincts - drove them out of their box in spite of their fear and forced them to begin accepting the big scary world.

But when I propose to you that most people reject things that are outside of their Box because they are afraid, you will likely object, especially if you are a skeptic who thinks that you are too smart, or too educated, or too [insert positive attribute of your choice here] to believe in that nonsense. Fear doesn't have anything to do with it!

How about a little exercise? No, don't get up, I mean for your brain. First, think of something that you wouldn't be able to believe if I told you I experienced it. Now imagine .. just for a few minutes .. that that something is real. How would it change your world? What difference would it make? Does the thought of it being real and "out there" make you uneasy? Or does it, perhaps, tug at the very foundation of your concept of reality, forcing you to reconsider the entire structure of your existence?

For example, let's take the family man, the good father, who believes that his family is safe and secure in their home, behind the security gate, the locked doors, and the monitored alarm system. If his neighbor, who has seemed troubled of late, finally confides to him that she has been being abducted by aliens at night, how will our father react? He can't believe her, because if he does, his family is no longer safe and secure. Not only that, there isn't anything he can do to make them safe from that threat - he would feel, not only afraid for his family, but also powerless and helpless (i. e. not in control!) if he believed her.

And after all that, I don't have any answers, or solutions, or even bits of profound wisdom for you. I'm just asking you to think about it .. the next time someone says or does something you think is crazy, crackpot, unbelievable, ridiculous, bizarre, etc. .. instead of taking it for granted, stop and ask yourself: Why? Why is this outside my Box? Do I want it to be outside of my Box, and if so, why?

You may not change your Reality Box, but at least own it! Recognize it for what it is and take control of it! And by the way, do you have a better understanding now of what you are being asked to do if someone asks you to "think outside the box?"