Project Vision 21

Francisco Miraval

Last week, one of my students, a young man who is always active and participative in class, provided unusually short answers to a midterm exam he had to complete in his computer.

I was so intrigued by the situation that I asked my students why his answers were so short when I knew, because of previous conversations, that he had a good understanding of the topic. He told me his answers were short because the “box” where he had to type the answers was small and, therefore, there was no room there for long answers.

It seems my student never thought that only the initial size of the “box” was small, but, if you keep typing, the box will expand to the proper size to accommodate answers of any length, even lengthy answers.

My student saw the limits of the “box” and he was either unable or unwilling to challenge or surpass those limits. He decided to limit his own answers so they could fit inside the “reality” of the “box.” He did not know that the “reality” of the “box” was prepared to accommodate to him. (Part of the paradox, if any, it is that this situation happened during an exam about Franz Kafka’s writings.)

I think my student learned his lesson and I know he will soon have opportunities to expand the limits of his own “reality box.” But I wonder how many other “boxes” are out there trapping us inside imaginary limits we will never dare to overcome, even if those limits only exist inside our own minds and even if we have the resources to go beyond those “limits.”

I believed we are all trapped inside the “box” of the mass media. At the best, mass media will present us a segment of reality, or an alternative view. However, in most cases, we are presented with a complete fabrication.

At the same time, we are all trapped inside the “box” of our prejudices and stereotypes, such as the case of this college administrator I recently met and who was unable or unwilling to make any distinction between legal and undocumented immigrants and who insisted in ending each sentences with “This is America!”

In other cases, we are existentially trapped inside a misunderstood tradition, or perhaps our parents, with no evil intention at all, put us inside their on “reality box,” they only “box” they knew, but unfit for us. The Greeks of ancient times called that mythical situation “the bed of Procrustes,”

There are many other “boxes” trapping us inside unreal limits, such as education and religion that, following Procrustes example, stretch us here or cut us there so we can be “boxed” inside pre-established limits.

And sometimes, and this is the worst case, we had internalized so much those imaginary limits that even if the lines are no longer there we cannot go beyond those “limits” and, therefore, we suppress our own creative goodness. That is usually described as “becoming a productive member of society.”