Living in Boxes

Summary

Clarence, a modern-day writer living a life of comfort and limitations, contemplates his connection to a past life as a desert warrior, reflecting on the contrasts between their lifestyles and his own sense of confinement.

Abstract

Clarence, a writer in the present day, lives a life that is physically comfortable due to modern conveniences like air conditioning, starkly different from the life of a desert warrior he believes he was in a past life. This warrior lived in the open, unconstrained by the modern constructs of walls and societal norms. Clarence, on the other hand, feels trapped by the numerous physical and mental boundaries of his current existence. He likens his books, with their fixed stories, to his own life, bound by an artificial reality. He toys with the idea of freeing the stories from their bindings, much like he yearns to liberate himself from his own self-imposed limitations. Despite their shared practice of greeting the sunrise, Clarence's life is markedly different from that of the desert warrior, leading him to wonder if he, too, could escape his metaphorical prison.

Opinions

Clarence perceives modern life as confining and artificial, contrasting it with the freedom and authenticity of the desert warrior's existence.
He questions whether the comforts of contemporary life, such as air conditioning, have weakened him, suggesting a longing for a more robust and resilient past.
Clarence views his written stories as being imprisoned within their physical books, reflecting a desire for dynamism and change in his own life.
The narrative suggests that Clarence feels a sense of kinship with the desert warrior, despite their vastly different lives, through their shared experience of watching sunrises.
There is an underlying theme of self-reflection and the search for personal freedom, as Clarence contemplates the possibility of breaking free from his own limitations.

The desert warrior and the writer

With the sunrise over, Clarence walked back to the house. It would be hot out very soon. He would work inside today and be comfortable doing so thanks to the air conditioner.

In a past life a few hundred years ago he was essentially always outside and air conditioning was unheard of and inconceivable. How did that face of his put up with the heat that was now unbearable to him in his current life? Had air conditioning weakened him? Was his current body spoiled?

Clarence thought often about that desert warrior from a few hundred years ago that he was connected to. It was such a different life, different time. That desert warrior slept under the stars while touching the earth. He ate and hunted under the blue sky and clouds. He made love out in the open. For him there were no walls, no square boxes to live in. There were no limitations.

Clarence on the other hand had been living his life within the parameters of countless limitations. His life was disconnected from the world around him. He lived in boxes within boxes; both physical and mental. He lived in an artificial reality, festering in the growing limitations he imposed upon himself.

Sitting at his desk in the air conditioning of his office he began to doze off. But then he abruptly awoke as a chill raced through his body. Stretching himself a little he looked at the bookshelf that housed his books; his many fictions. Those fictions were encased within the bindings of those books. They were unchanging, static, imprisoned.

He smiled as he had a thought. Perhaps he should take all the books down and open them, laying them on the table to free the stories to float up out of their prisons. He pictured himself opening a window and watching all the stories that were floating up out of the books to flow out the window.

What a silly thought, he thought.

Soon he was thinking about the desert warrior again. Clarence realized that the only thing he had in common with the desert warrior was that they both watched the sunrise each morning to greet the new day. But after that their days went in opposite directions.

He wondered if he would open a window could he also flow out of his prison?

Speaking of sunrises…

Living in Boxes

The desert warrior and the writer

The Story of the Sun People

And their monuments