Nils Olav the Penguin inspects the Kings Guard of Norway after being bestowed with a knighthood at Edinburgh Zoo (Photo credit: Defence Images)
This title is a phrase deeply embedded in our cultural language lexicon that supposedly is a tip of the hat to people and organizations that ‘think differently’ and come up with new exciting ideas or ways of looking at life.
I’m not always in agreement because it seems that ‘outside the box’ may times means newer, faster, multitasking at warp speed and so on. However since this concept is not going to go away I thought I could introduce a few words from people who I view as ‘different thinkers’ who also have something to say yet don’t make the major talk shows, cable news outlets, or the N.Y.T.
I think it’s time to look at some unknown folks who I would bestow the title, ‘Thinkers Outside The Box’ Knighthood”
Consider:
Walter Benjamin: The German Jewish Philosopher who wrote in his Theses On The Philosophy of History that, ” This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from paradise, it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward”
Aaron Schwartz: “Everything you learn is provisional”
Brother Lawrence: “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
Master Dogen: “ Make your best effort and see how it comes out”
Who would you recommend for Knighthood?
Senior Samurai 