LOGICal eMOTIONs

J.J. Abrams: The mystery box

// January 12th, 2008 // Brain Dump, Logical Emotions

J.J. Abrams traces his love of the unseen mystery — the heart of Alias, Lost, and the upcoming Cloverfield — back to its own magical beginnings, which may or may not include an early obsession with magic, the love of a supportive grandfather, or his own unopened Mystery Box.

Don’t know about you, but I am a HUGE fan of Lost (starts again Jan, 31!) so when I saw this interview pop up on TED.com I had to watch it.

Ok, so the guy is a bit quirky (love the Apple bit), but his mystery box got me thinking a bit. See, I don’t have a mystery box that I paid $15 for back when $15 was a lot of money, no, I have a piece of soapstone which I’ve carted around for a few years now.

It’s not a huge monolith or anything, no, it’s only 4″x4″x6″, a hefty 10lbs (thank you bathroom scale), and it’s got a slight nick in one of its corners likely due to a rough travel from wherever soapstone actually comes from… I had originally purchased it for some sort of carving project I thought would be a good idea, yet I have never actually laid a tool to it.

I could never justify just tossing out a big piece of stone like this, but at the same time I really have no clue as to what I would do with it, or what I might even turn it into. When Mr. Abrams talked about the possibilities that the box provided, the soapstone suddenly made sense! Sure, I could hack into it and turn it into anything from a smaller version of Michelangelo’s “David”, to a nice dancing walrus, but as it is, it has infinite possibilities. When Michelangelo looked at his piece of marble, he could see David and “carved until I set him free”. When you or I, or anyone else looks at my soapstone, it has the potential to be absolutely anything, and each person will have a different view of what it could be.

The possibilities are only limited to our imaginations, yet the moment it is carved into something, our perceptions change and it is more difficult to view it as anything else.

We are much the same way, are we not? Over the years we have been carved into one form or another, bit by bit, by many different tools, yet we forget that we started out as an infinite possibility and it was only us that allowed that to change.

I think I’ll hang onto my piece of stone a little bit longer if only to serve as a reminder of the possibilities which are infinite, with the only limitation being me.

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