Unboxing Society
Unboxing Society
Anyone who has read my books (and if not, why not?) may havenoticed I’m not a fan of stereotyping. I am in fact strongly in favour peoplebreaking free of the expectations society places on them on the basis of theirbirth and upbringing and (within reasonable legal bounds obviously!) beingexactly who they are. Some people might even describe my characters as “livingtheir best life” or “being their true selves.”
However – I wouldn’t.
Because, dear reader, I despise those two phrases asthey are used in this day and age. To me, they are merely an emphatically statedgateway for stepping straight from one stereotype box and into another. To methey represent not freedom but a whole new set of rules. They represent thatsociety is boxed up.
Allow me to explain.
Society has always come in boxes. Historically, there wasthe male box and the female box, the rich box and the poor box, differentethnic boxes and cultural boxes and each one came with its own set of rules ofdress, behaviour, profession and attitude that had to be obeyed – just like lifein the Realm. Everybody had a box and everybody was expected to stay put in it.Those who stepped outside these boxes were considered strange or wicked ordangerous and inevitably set upon, punished or excluded.
And while times have changed, the boxes have not. For whilethe number of boxes has expanded with previously othered options now available forvarious sexualities, genders (or non-genders), ways of being and lifestylechoices, the boxed nature of society is unchanged. The major difference is thatmovement from one box to another is now possible, albeit not always easy. Andinevitably, when someone says they are “living their best life” or “being their true self,” what they mean is – I’m moving out of that box and into thisbox now. And no matter how freeing being out of the old box may feel, the newbox still has its own rules of dress and behaviour and a societal expectationaround it that one is expected to live up to. At the end of the day, it’s stilla box.
I feel very strongly about doing away with boxes. Living upto the expectations of a societal box – any box – can be crushing. People acrossall types of boxes both traditional and recent find themselves not wanting towear certain clothes and behave a certain way in case people get the wrong ideaabout who they are and where they fit in. Others overcompensate by pushing tothe extremes of their box to prove their place in it as much to themself asanyone else. None of these people are being their “true selves” as far I cansee. They are being the selves that lives in that box and wants to fit in witheveryone else there. Belonging means more to them than being themselves.
Rather than making more and more boxes worth of stereotypesfor people to fit into and move between, I wish we could just do away with the boxes altogetherand just let everyone, genuinely, be themselves. In order to truly find out whoyou are, one needs to think very much outside the box. Examine honestly whatabout your current way of being makes you happy and what doesn’t. Find a placewhere you are comfortably just you and live in it. As long as you being youdoesn’t harm anyone else’s way of being them, then that’s the way to be. Findyour fit and not society’s expectation of it. Stop worrying about fitting inwith what everyone else expects and just be you. Find whoever you is when thatbox worth of expectation is stripped away.
And then, just maybe, saying you are being your true self and living your best life will mean exactly that.
