Think Outside the Box, But Never Outside the Room
I've been thinking about the specific forms of imagination we are encouraged and permitted to have.
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!
It's giving alpha masculine, it's giving business guru, it's giving maverick. We all recognise this kind of rhetoric, right? It sits with
DON'T ACCEPT SECOND BEST! KEEP STRIVING! See also The Compound Effect and this hilarious episode of If Books Could Kill about Atomic Habits, a book that champions the 1% improvements method.
This encouragement, this demand to THINK BIGGER, BETTER AND BOLDER is reserved in our society for endeavours that perpetuate the status quo.
"Innovation" is cheered on in the pursuit of wealth, status, power, greatness, for individuals and select groups.
But when we dare to consider possibilities like...
A liveable planet
Dignified lives for all
Equality
The cheering is replaced by jeering.
We may think outside the box, but not outside the room.
We are certainly not permitted to leave the room.
“It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of Capitalism”
“Capitalist realism as I understand it cannot be confined to art or to the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions. It is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action ”
Thinking outside the room is a group project. Perhaps I can tell you about a tiny sliver of what I can see, and it might reveal something to you in your own mind that would otherwise remain invisible. Perhaps you can tell me a story that reminds me of an experience, a thought or a feeling I once had- almost as if I could briefly catch the aroma of the world beyond.
I wonder if you might also enjoy these book recommendations to get you going…
Experiments in Imagining Otherwise by Lola Olufemi
From What Is To What If by Rob Hopkins
Everyday Utopia by Kristen Ghodsee
