I want to test something on you.
Close your eyes and picture a box around your head. I’m sure we agree that every thought you have happens in that box. Our brain is not outside our head, so how does someone “think outside the box.”
I know that answer.
They talk.
Because you can’t have a conversation with yourself, you can only reflect on what’s already in you. It’s two straw men, and one of them is pretending not to be made of straw.
So, you talk to another human.
You say what you think; then, they can reveal new information about what they think. They can say it or make a facial expression, despite their will to keep a poker face.
After that, you can process if what they (or you) have said could be true or could change. Now you’re thinking things that you couldn’t possibly think before because you didn’t inhabit their life. You haven’t inhabited anyone’s life but your own. There’s no way you could know the millions of moments that led up to their thought, but you could glean something of value from them if you talk, AND you listen.
Non-singers claim they can’t sing. Singers claim, “everyone can sing; the more you sing, the more you’re able to sing.”
Non-fit people don’t understand that fit people are just non-fit people who do things that make them fit.
The more you do, the more you’re able to do.
And so you think new thoughts because you’ve voiced your own. You do new things because of the new thoughts, and that box where you fit all you think and do expands because you’re thinking and doing more new things.
It can start with singing or moving more, but if not those, then surely it can begin with talking.
