Stuck In This Box
Written November 11, 2002

As I sit here blankly staring at an empty WordPerfect document, I can’t help but find the great expanse of glowing white monitor somewhat mocking. After all, a few days ago I typed out a column which was quite possibly the strangest thing I have ever written, and coincidentally also my favourite. The only thing that prevents this overly-hyped, self-proclaimed masterpiece from being in this space right now is its massive bulk, by which I mean word count.

Although the column was undoubtably too large and had no right to expect to be squeezed into my tiny corner of this expansive newspaper, I still find it a pity that creativity has to be measured in the pages of paper it fills or number of words that it includes. This is most often exemplified within university life by the restrictions placed upon reports, essays and take-home midterms. 1000 words MAXIMUM. 6-8 pages with penalty imposed if over or under limit.

If you ask me, such harsh restrictions aren’t beneficial to the learning process at all. While suggestions as to what the typical essay length is are certainly appreciated, it hardly seems fair for an interesting point to be forcibly and unnaturally cut short because its author fears the repercussions of handing in a lengthier paper. Some of the greatest ideas in the world took a fair deal of time to adequately explain. Check out the Kama Sutra, it’s extensive.

On the flip side, sometimes an entire argument or concept can be summed up in a few short paragraphs and length restrictions mean churning out a good deal of mindless padding to fill most of the space. The complete waste of time in this endeavour is enough to make me inclined to sympathize with some of those who plagiarize. Poor kids just couldn’t think of enough new ways to type out “Making money means business is good.”

The need for conformity in the amount of space that ideas are formulated in is an essential part of realistic society, true enough. Newspaper editors need to make room for a myriad of different content and professors need some standard by which to judge each student’s work equally. However, it seems to me that a rapidly increasing amount of our lives is enclosed by very similar prison-like limitations.

Applications and forms of all kinds have enclosed boxes for you to enter pertinent information within, squares which are carefully sized to encourage you to inscribe the desired amount of knowledge, no less and certainly no more. Resumes, supposedly a representation of one’s ability to work, are expected to be in a rigid, tightly defined format rendering them all coldly impersonal and virtually indistinguishable from each other. Wouldn’t an employer benefit from learning more about a potential hire through their creativity and style of presenting their skills rather than having to schedule tedious interviews to learn about them as people?

The general, overarching law of acceptable convention today is that we must embrace the mundane and unpredictable as we strive to make everything more streamlined and easy to run and comprehend. Yes, our society is modern and efficient as hell, but sometimes it sucks. Stupid corporate jangles on TV enthusiastically urge us to push the boundaries and think outside the box, but only if we do it from within their designated controlled-access safety areas. Creativity and originality are encouraged, but only if they remain within acceptable societal standards.

This column ends here, not because I want it to but because I’m out of room. It didn’t really say anything new and it certainly won’t change the way anything works in this world but it’s my own personal scream for more space to think and explore, a desire for an opportunity to live without being carefully regimented and corralled at every turn. I want to break out of this goddamned box.

I think I wrote this because I got pissed that a longer column of mine was rejected because it was, in fact, fucking huge. Looking back now, I shouldn't have been so whiny. This wasn't a very funny column at all but sometimes they don't have to be.