I get this a lot. People ask me, "damn, how did you think of that?". You know how I respond? "Forget what they told you about thinking,... outside the box, forget that." Do this, think outside the cube!
You might be wondering, 'what's the difference between a box and a cube?' well I will tell you, think about it. What did you think a box was? What could it be? And you might say if I'm thinking outside this figure isn't that the same?'
I will say, no. I actually see this sometimes. When people think that they are thinking outside some object, they are actually thinking on the same plane as everyone else and when they do that, there is only a short distance to 'regular' thinking.
You have to go outside the cube! A cube IS a three dimensional object. No questions asked. What the hell is a box? It is some abstract figure inside someone mind. That same abstract figure with them since birth. Now I ask, how can someone think outside something when it has been with them for their existence? That box has been so normal to them isn't that the same?
Box and cube. Is a box a cube? In some sense it is. Is a cube a box. Again that may or may not be true. But what is certain? Have you imagined some 'box' of thought that you are suppose to think away from.
The irony is that by just thinking there is some object where normal thought is located, puts you closer to, "thinking inside the 'box'".
Thought is a fickle fruit, as Emily Dickinson would say. Imagine this as fruit on a conveyer belt, moving slowly yet in such a direction it is always out of your reach. You have a knowledge of it's existence, it's always there. But no matter how hard you try to reach for it you come up empty.
The problem is you are reaching only in one sense, the physical. No matter what you are reaching for, you must do more than stand up, reach your arm out, stretch your fingers, that is the easy part. Reaching for that goal in the other sense, that is what we all must work on.
One part of the reach, is to know that the thought of reaching involves thought of a different sort. It isn't of anything you have ever thought of. So how do you think of it? Know that it isn't a cube, it isn't a box, it isn't even some infinitesimal spot located somewhere in the universe. Thought has no sense of distance or physical measurement. Thought is not physical, thought is just thought.
You may have thought (pun not intended for the sake of this post) that thoughts come from one's mind. But to give a counterexample, say you are feeling playful, and you see a person picking blackberries in an alley behind a supermarket. By yourself, surrounded by strangers, you take in the situation you are in, and start laughing. You have found something humorous about the setting you are in.
Where did this thought happen? In your mind? If isolated with only your mind do you think you could have started laughing? Well, where did it start? Did it start when you saw the person picking berries? Or maybe it started when you realized you were by yourself? My take on this situation, is that it started from none of these situations. That moment of enlightenment could have only happened from years of unconscious thinking. The reason why you laughed was not from anything you directly saw, picking berries is as normal as traveling with strangers in today's world. You laughed because there may or may not have been something you thought/remembered/compared/experienced in your past that triggered you to spontaneously come to a point were all things collide, and an emotional response to the environment happens.
I am going to wait three days before posting this. After three day if this still makes sense, you will see this.
Fuck it, it's too important to wait, or to proof read.