thinking outside the box

Those who exhort you to think outside the box invariably want you to do the very opposite. They do not want you to escape its confines, limitations, demands. They want you to go outside only so that you can support it from out there. They want you to hold it up, increase the likelihood of its repetition with greater strength and size, send it into the future in better condition than it would otherwise be in. They want you to serve it.

And since the exhortation always emanates from those whose well-being is bound up with that of the box, "think outside the box" means nothing more or less than "serve me." So after you say "go to hell," or something perhaps more severe, I'd suggest rejecting the premises of the box and exposing it for the self-serving monstrosity it is, with the aim of making it disappear.

Instead of boxes, we should be blowing bubbles, appreciating their graceful, aimless dance, headed absolutely nowhere as they finally, predictably, happily fail to withstand the tension of their own absurdity.