🌀Random Reflections: The Box We Build.

Eric’s Corner
Thursday-August-7-2025

🌀Random Reflections: The Box We Build: A Reflection on Imagination, Resistance, and Release.

There is a strange architecture to suffering.

Not the kind imposed from the outside, but the kind we craft with our own hands, walls made not of stone, but of thought. Invisible, yet immovable. We call it stress. We call it circumstance. We call it life. But often, it is imagination turned inward, a blueprint of confinement drawn in the ink of fear and habit.

We build boxes.

Not because we love limitation, but because we mistake it for safety. We decorate them with stories: “I can’t,” “I shouldn’t,” “They won’t.” We pad the walls with expectations, line the corners with shame. And then we sit inside, wondering why the air feels thin.

But the box was never real.

It was a metaphor mistaken for reality. A thought hardened into belief. A cage made of mirrors, reflecting only what we already assume.

And yet, we stay.

We complain about the walls. We curse the ceiling. We forget that the door was never locked. That the walls were never solid. That the box was never built to last.

We forget that we built it.

And if we built it, we can unbuild it.

We can walk through the walls. We can dissolve them with awareness. We can choose to stop constructing stress from the raw material of imagination.

But first, we must see it.

We must look, not away, but directly at the shape of our own resistance. We must name the box. We must notice the way we grip it, the way we feed it, the way we believe it.

And then, we must ask: What happens if I stop?

What happens if I stop building the box?

What happens if I stop believing the walls?

What happens if I just… breathe?

Here is a poem born from that moment of clarity, from the edge of the box, from the breath before the breakthrough:

The Box
A poem by Eric Pollok

You built the box with trembling hands,
Each thought a nail, each fear a plank.
You painted it with borrowed shame,
Then sat inside and cursed the frame.

But walls imagined have no weight,
No lock, no key, no iron gate.
Step out, no need to break or bend,
The box was yours. So is the boxes end.

There is a kind of rebellion in awareness.

Not the loud kind. Not the kind that demands applause. But the quiet kind, the kind that simply refuses to participate in the illusion. The kind that says: “I see what I’m doing. I choose something else.”

This is not denial. It is not avoidance. It is not pretending the world is easy.

It is remembering that not all difficulty is imposed. Some of it is chosen. Some of it is imagined. Some of it is built from the inside out.

And if we can build it, we can unbuild it.

We can stop feeding the stress box with our attention. We can stop reinforcing the walls with our assumptions. We can stop mistaking discomfort for danger.

We can choose presence.

We can choose breath.

We can choose to meet life as it is, not as the box tells us it must be.

This is not easy. But it is simple.

It begins with noticing.

Noticing the moment we start to build. Noticing the thoughts that hammer the nails. Noticing the stories that paint the walls.

And then, choosing to pause.

Choosing to breathe.

Choosing to remember: the box is not real.

You are not trapped.

You are not stuck.

You are not broken.

You are building something, and you can build something else.

You can build spaciousness.

You can build freedom.

You can build a life that moves with the rhythm of truth, not the rigidity of fear.

But only if you stop building the box.

Only if you stop believing it.

Only if you remember that imagination is not the enemy, it is the architect.

And you are the builder.

So build something beautiful.

Build something open.

Build something that breathes.

And when the box calls you back, as it will, as it always does, smile gently. Thank it for the lesson. And walk through the wall.

Because the wall was never real.

And you were never stuck.

You were just imagining.

And now, you are free.

Thank you for turning,

Eric.

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