Box It Out

A Story by Omily

This is an essay I wrote for a class last semester.

As Americans, living in arguably the world’s most powerful and influential nation, we hold an ultimate responsibility. We must act as a role model and a source of hope for the less fortunate nations around us. Developing countries littered with warfare, rape, and oppression look up to America to learn how to live an idealized lifestyle. However, we cannot help these nations to advance if we do not help ourselves to advance first. If we continue to obsess over depressing news and causes, there is no way we can shine as the proud and happy American beacon we strive to be.

In this country, purity and simplicity of mind leads to a high state of satisfaction. In simpler terms, we live by the motto “ignorance is bliss.” As derogatory as it may sound, this view is far from negative. We live within our own spheres of simple worries. Problems faced in an American lifestyle include paying taxes, beating traffic, and figuring out how to spend more time with the family. In a war torn country, the equivalent of these problems may be finding a building to squat in each night, fleeing safely to a refugee camp, and finding family members who were abducted by a corrupt military. These worries are more complicated, and the complications alone are what bring these nations to their own self destruction. It is a correlative effect. The more complications, the more adversity. The more simplicity, the more stability. As people mostly uninvolved with war trauma, we focus on issues much lighter on the human psyche. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor for the Internation Criminal Court, remarked, “Everybody always says that in the US, they don’t care about what happens outside”. This is not at all the case. We must maintain our stability so other nations can look up to our simple-mindedness and work towards mirroring us.

Unfortunately, guilt sometimes plays a role in plaguing our American conscience. We see the news and commercials urging us to donate to starving children and instantly feel obligated to go out of our way for people who may or may not need help yet. Caught up in our fast-paced lifestyles, we have little time to donate or sign petitions. Not only is it inconvenient, but to feel forced to give of our own earnings to another seems to bother our comfortable psyches, so it must be unethical. People work hard for their income. There are a million and one causes out there asking for donations and charity. If we were to help one cause, we would feel it was our responsibility to help them all. It is traumatizing for us to hear the shocking stories told to us by these human rights organizations. Yet the media still engages in their troubling reporting techniques. Laura Blue and Jonathon Woodward reporting for Time Magazine’s website write the following about Uganda’s child soldier dilemma:

He marched for days through the bush without food or water, armed with an AK-47 to loot and to kill, Bosco Ojok dared not dream of going home. Just 14 when he was abducted near his northern Ugandan house by the Lord's Resistance Army, he never said a word to anyone about escaping from the rebels' world-renowned campaign of terror, which included cutting off the lips, ears and noses of civilians as they fought the government. If anyone heard, the frightened teen knew, it would mean his swift execution.

When we read this, our blissfully unaware American nature has been impeded upon. The reader would feel either forced to help or miserable that this happens in the world. Being driven into action may seem like a good thing, right? Yet when it impairs the stability of our emotions for a period of time, it hurts the cause more than it helps it. If hammered again and again with upsetting media, we may require clinical therapists to get over our own feelings of guilt and depression. In the bigger picture, an unhappier nation leads to inner conflicts, causing a domino effect of rebellion and civil wars. Then, America would be lowering itself to the same level as the nations it tries to raise up.

Even if we are offered a less disturbing way to make a change, we should not feel obligated to act. People often receive emails from a friend that may describe some major issue and how they can help by putting their name on a petition. Frankly, these emails can get irritating. American citizens may read blogs, web news sites, newspapers, or be sent letters asking them to sign this and that until their heads are swimming with the information uptake. Reading a few paragraphs about what the Invisible Children or Amnesty International stands for isn’t going to turn a person into a fanatic for the cause so there shouldn’t be a demand to become one. The reader will probably forget all about what was signed by the next morning. Reading those few paragraphs doesn’t have the power to convert people into activists, and the organizations attempting this should not be trying to force activism in the first place. Irritation in this form is a violation of a person’s right to privacy, and thus should be deemed unconstitutional. The massive amount of petitions and letters building up in email inboxes is better ignored than acknowledged.

In order to reject these destructive forces around us, I propose we boycott current affairs. This solution benefits both America and the developing countries facing adversity. By cutting these malicious and upsetting forces out of our lives, we will become a happier nation. As a ripple effect, the leaders of struggling countries will begin to follow America’s simplistic and idyllic example, thus accomplishing worldwide happiness. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and achieve world peace. Clearing the path may be hard, but the goal makes the journey worth it.

One can participate in this boycott in several different ways. The first and simplest is obvious: turn off the news and close the newspaper when you start hearing or reading about global affairs. America has enough problems. The magnified problems facing war torn countries are too intense for the average American to handle. In fact, we’ve already started working on this boycott without even realizing it. A recent study of political knowledge over time showed that, “Americans didn't do as well in 2007 compared with how similarly-educated Americans performed in 1989.” This means that for nearly 20 years the American public has been rejecting the news slowly, fighting for our cause.

In order to go a step farther, this boycott must have an official name. I have taken the liberty to title it the “Boycotting Internationality Organization,” which has the acronym BIO. A catchier, shorter title for the BIO acronym could be “Box It Out.” Once our organization becomes official, we can begin more active forms of protest. Soon, we may even have a website up and running so uneducated media followers can easily access us and change their ways. On the website, we plan to create a form anyone can sign and send to Congress, demanding news be cleaned of its depressing global content. After the petition receives 250,000 signatures, Washington D.C. will have to listen to Box It Out’s plea.

We aim to assemble a Public Relations team immediately after Box It Out becomes official. With a decent enough treasury, we hope to get our message out into each American household. Through generous donations to Box It Out, commercials on the large news networks themselves might be possible. A shocking, eye catching commercial, maybe one displaying a clinically depressed American destroyed by their overwhelming involvement in current affairs, could definitely spread the word efficiently. The depressed person would be crying unstoppably, wailing about frustration and guilt, maybe even about to commit suicide from the inner pain. Although this may seem extreme, it serves our purpose. The point is to disturb the audience enough to fire them up, making them willing and ready to help in the fight.

Our last advertising technique is more of an underground, unique idea. As Box It Out, our mission is to teach others to box current affairs out of their lives. To teach this lesson, we will give a very literal depiction of our message. We will wear boxes on our heads. This demonstrates our mission clearly; by wearing a box on your head, you cannot see the news. You can’t read about it and will probably have a harder time hearing it. People will ideally be attracted to this bold political statement and start carrying out the message. Boxes of course can come in any size or form. One could wear anything from a milk crate to a tissue box. Boxes are also versatile and easy to take on and off. They can be found in most any situation. Recently, I sold some of my books to a nearby used bookstore, and as I walked home, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to put the cardboard box I carried the books in on my head. Of course, I couldn’t see anything, but I bore through my walk, cheerfully knowing I was fighting for a good cause.

Eventually, we may work closely with a box manufacturing company so Box It Out can have a recognizable set of boxes made for comfortable wearing. Although I anticipate people to criticize the lack of holes for eyesight, allowing vision would defy our entire mission. Instead, we may have a memorable slogan written across where the eyes would be, such as “Let the word be spread and put a box on your head!” If we gain enough of a box wearing following, we may, in the future, be able to plan marches. For safety, everyone would probably have to hold hands and walk very slowly. However, the power of the march will not come from how well we march, but from the image of hundreds of people wearing boxes on their heads.

If we get enough funding, we could create the ideal box. On the inside of this box, right in front of the eyes, a pleasant picture would be plastered. The image would be simplistic and all-American, maybe of a charming landscape in the Midwest or a quaint New England cottage. The box wearer can choose whatever picture delights them the most and feels easiest on the eyes. This way, we can maintain our care-free attitudes and focus only on ourselves, keeping the disturbing outside world off of our minds. With advanced technology in the future, we may be able to install video screens in our boxes. The screen can play any program the box wearer desires"through a rose colored lens, of course. Instead of showing horrifying war clips from Afghanistan, the box will show Afghani people thanking Americans for all their hard work. Instead of malnourished and dying children in Ethiopia, it will show a happily playing Ethiopian child, telling American children he wants to be just like them some day. In the depressing news broadcasts that prove too difficult for us to spin our own versions, we will play a default clip of a stray puppy that was rescued and found a good home. The intention of these images is to inspire us so we can pass that feeling of inspiration on to people in deprived countries that need it most.

The goal of Box It Out is crucial in allowing Americans to prosper as the role models we aspire to be. By ignoring the less fortunate, we ignite their development. We can become the shining example of American stability only by rejecting the petitions, calls for donations, and the advertising created by so-called human rights activists. The venomous activists we fight against want to make our lives and the nations of the world more upsetting and less functional. Everyone needs to play their part and sign our petition to Congress, give money freely to our organization, and help us advertise. So, please: if you want to save our planet and end all the atrocities committed against groups and individuals, ignore them. You must wear a box on your head and ignore them.