Thinking Inside the Box

Do we really have to think it out?

If you’re like me, you’ve heard the catchphrase “think outside the box” far too often, in all sorts of contexts.

Yes, it is good to celebrate creativity when it breaks free from rigid frameworks.

Often, the solution to a problem that’s making your life miserable requires “stepping outside the box” and gaining a better perspective on the situation. Which is exactly what we do, when a problem pounds inside our cranium: going for a walk outside, reading a book, cooking, gardening, or... running! The different landscapes that unfolds helps spark a liberating idea!

Our in-house writer eventually grew tired of this expression, which threatens to become a cage in its own right. So Michèle decided to turn it on its head in a fun SF short-story, Thinking Inside the Box, a witty first contact situation, published in Compelling Science Fiction, no 7 (2018). 

In this story, the aliens really can't go out of their cubic ship. And the problem is eventually solved by cooperating inside their box. Hence the title of this article.

Why we must learn to solve problems inside the box   

We are currently traveling in a spherical "box", a planet-sized ship that is, for now, the sole welcoming environment for humans. Even if space exploration progresses, no Earth -2 are in our sight. Which does not prevent me as a SF writer to imagine the challenges of living in inhospitable worlds. 

We live inside a vast and complex ecosystem, the Earth. It is from inside that "planet-ship" that we must work, to find a solution to the destruction of habitats and species, the pollution and climate change threaten our planet… which few of us can leave!

For the curious, the new reprint by Echofictions is titled How to think inside the Box, for esthetic reasons: I needed a phrase that could fit inside a square! And, yes, that short book is dedicated to Ernö Rubik.