Boxbreakers

Once you step 'outside the box', you can never go back. By using the metaphor of 'box', I am referring to the metaphorical constraints we build up around our hearts and souls during the course of a lifetime. The 'Verse can be an overwhelming place, and the 'box' allows us to limit its view to the point where we can live under the illusion of safety in this world. Many live their entire lives within this shortsighted box, unaware (or perhaps uncaring) of what lies beyond the walls. Some of us widen the box as we get older to allow more of the 'Verse inside, while others even dare so much as to take a peek over the walls to see what lies beyond their view.

Then there are the scant few of us who step out of the box completely. Once that happens, everything changes. Everything. To live outside the box is to open your soul completely to the 'Verse, and that can be an overwhelming thing for most. So overwhelming that it prevents most of us from ever taking a single step forward to command their ship, perfectly content with the autopilot.

I'd never thought I'd be a boxbreaker in this life, but I am. Took me damn near forty years to do it, but I did. When I stepped outside and the view changed so dramatically, I realized that I could never go back. Never again could I slip back into that comfortable existence of ignorant bliss. I am out here now, and I can only move forward with my continued growth. To backslide now would be to thoroughly crush my soul. I tried to imagine my old life of not living, not caring. I couldn't do it.

Once you've seen the view from the outside, the view inside no longer matters.

I have fundamentally changed for a more positive and balanced life. There's no box in which to return. There are those that live even farther outside the box than I, and I wonder what the view is like for them. As it is, I sometimes have a hard time looking at some of my crew with these new eyes. Those kind souls still contained within their walls, their own self repeating patterns. You want desperately to reach in and yank them out, but you know you can't.

Their box is of their own making, and only they can break down the walls. All we can do is watch, wait, and hope. Sure, we offer support, suggestions, even a fresh perspective. But in the end, the onus of responsibility sits squarely on their shoulders. I have to remind myself that no one yanked me out of my very small box. I did the work. I earned the view.

When one finds the silence, one finds the truth. The more the walls come down, the more our souls grow.

We become limitless. We create the passion. We are unbound.