Open that box with care
…For it might hold your best idea yet.
We’ve used boxes for a long, long time to contain precious things — jewellery, love letters, keepsakes, feathers, beads, diamond rings…
There’s something irresistible about boxes.
Think of curious Pandora. Her mythical box had a “Do not open!” label. She did it anyway in a rush of impatience, and out came all the world’s troubles. Just as well there was one last small detail that fluttered out after all the clacking, buzzing, baleful things… a tiny notion called hope.
Another old story I love comes from the Haida people on the northwest coast of Canada. It tells of the curious raven that entered the home of a secretive old man and his daughter back when the whole world was pitch black.
Disguised as a charming child, he pestered the man to let him have a box he’d been hiding, for the clever bird knew that inside that box was a smaller one, and then a smaller one, and so on down through many layers.
Crammed inside the tiniest box was all the light in the world and the raven craved light.
When he finally got his way he grabbed the luminous ball and flew up into the sky — and then, attacked by an eagle, it dropped a chunk of the light. After crashing down it bounced back up as one big piece and untold millions of tiny ones — thus, the moon and stars.
Meanwhile, the raven escaped and flew on across the world, carrying the gleaming sun.
All these ages later, we still long to get into boxes. But now the big noise is being made by tech-crazy guys who love to unbox things on YouTube. Their videos show them tenderly extracting new gizmos while raving about their latest toy.
Hardly up there with the sun, moon and stars, but hey, they’re happy.
There’s something in the allure of boxes for all us.
Boxes contain hidden treasures. What we do with them is the tricky part.
If you’re storing up a great story or idea inside your head (which is just a different kind of box) please handle with care.
You can of course just keep your box on the shelf, but not for too long. Sure, it’s nice to look at it and dream, but a shame to let it gather dust.
Avoid ripping it open and scattering stuff around. You can lose important details that way.
Don’t let anyone stomp on it. Your idea is too special to get squashed.
Instead, when the time is right, open your box with care. Lift off the wrapping, layer by layer. Lift out what lies inside. Give it air. Polish it, wind it up, use it, play with it, love it.
Boxes are made to hold things, keeping them safe. But then their time is done. If you have a good story stashed inside, it’s your job to do the unwrapping and let it out to shine.
- More about your and your story ideas at truestorycentral.com
