this is not a box

Anyone who has watched Spongebob or was the age of five at some point (so everyone... no excuses) knows that a box is not just a box.  In fact, most of the time, it is not even a box at all.

First we establish a base camp at 15,000 feet...

In the popular mind, a box is defined by what it contains.  A refrigerator box.  A shoe box.  A Christmas present.  The moment it is opened, the box is throw aside and discarded in favor of what it contains.  The cardboard is crushed, scrunched, and folded into individual squares, only to be placed into the green plastic recycling bins and NEVER SEEN AGAIN!

Dramatic chipmunk is dramatic!

The fact is, as many five-year-olds and yellow sponges will attest, the best part of a box is not something that can be contained by folded cardboard.  Or green plastic.  Or even the human mind.  The best part of a box is potential.  Empty space.  It's like a blank Word document.  It is nothing and at the same time it is everything, simply because it can be anything.

I don't think I've ever wanted to imagine myself inside a volcano.  Maybe it's just me...

Sometimes, a blog is like a box: judged by what words it contains.  The stories, the ideas, the jokes, the staggering genius of it all.  I worry about, when writing a blog, that my thoughts, my anecdotes, and my humor will fall just short of interesting for anyone to read, outside of my mother.  But then, of course, when I think like that, I am completely missing the point.  A blog is like a box.  It's an empty space, a blank page, and a clean slate.  It means everything and says everything, simply because it can say anything.  Any idea ever thought, any story ever told, any joke ever mumbled into a microphone.  It doesn't really matter what I say or what I write in this blog.  That is not what makes this or any blog worth reading.  What makes this blog worth writing is the fact that I can say or write anything that I want here.

This blog is my cardboard box.  And this box is not a box at all.