Take a look from outside of the box by Sander

Take a look from outside of the box by Sander - October 2018 Scholarship Essay

When I get asked, “What does the phrase ‘thinking outside of the box’ mean to you?” I think of coming up with solutions that are completely out of the array, almost even far fetched but can still be just enough to turn a problem around and make sense or to garner enough interest in a paper. But how do you think outside of the box affectively and how useful is thinking outside of the box to me and to other people in different careers?

Thinking of how to think outside of the box can bring up many strategies but the most common one that comes to me is to look at the problem from a completely different perspective. I like to do video game analysis and one of the ones that intrigue me the most is the game series, “Phoenix Wright”. This game heavily influences outside of the box thinking, in the game you play as a defense attorney that defends these people that have almost solid witnesses with an excellent testimony. Many times in the game you may be prompted with something like, “Why isn’t there a wound on this person?” but instead you need to think at it with a completely different point of view which is, “How would this person hide the wound?” Which encourages completely different thinking which in hand, can solve the original question you had. All this being said, perspective plays a major part in deciding the meaning of “thinking outside of the box” to me.

Tying back to video games, one of the best ways for video game companies to continue garnering interest and keeping a solid fanbase is through reiterating their games. The best example of this is Nintendo, Nintendo always changes things up and tries crazy things, not all of them work out mind you but it keeps a large amount of interest going. Like with the Wii, they were way ahead of the time by testing the waters and having the courage to do so as a giant company opposed to others like Sony which implemented the motion controllers years afterwards. Not only does the hardware change but so does their games. Constant reiteration and being good at it requires very good outside of the box thinking because it has to be something so wild that it works. A good example of this is Nintendo’s game, Mario, Mario’s games have been through serious reiteration, while containing the same platformer-like vibe, they add an extra notch of style by adding in power-ups. These power ups bring a new breath of fresh air into the game and also allow way more creativity in level designing, these power ups are simple things like, turn the player into a flying squirrel, a turtle, a propeller, a giant, a cat that can climb walls, etc. Effectively, reiteration is a very important role in thinking outside of the box and is one of the many meanings that the phrase, “thinking outside of the box” has to me.

In other careers this can be brilliant as well, thinking outside of the box also means that you are thinking unconventionally, meaning that you are thinking in strange ways that other people don’t think. This can prove incredibly useful for writers because it allows them to create unique and original novels as well as helping with any career that has to do with writing and creating some sort of narrative or presenting an idea. For example, another relationship with game design tells me that making new mechanics in a game and making original plot along with dialogues goes very hand in hand with outside of the box thinking. It truly enables people to go to their full extent once they start to think unconventionally or in easier words, when they start “thinking outside of the box”.

All in all, thinking outside of the box means an incredible lot to me specifically because of the career that I’m tackling right now, game design. Thinking outside of the box allows reiteration which is one of the most successful traits in a good game as well as using that outside of the box thinking to think unconventionally and create new features and stories the player has never seen or experienced before. Perspective when writing as well can heavily impact the narrative of the story because depending on how a player sees the game, it has to still tell the same story unless the game is not intending to tell one story. Together, all these different aspects, reiteration, perspective, unconventional thinking all make up what “thinking outside of the box” means to me.