Memoirs from Hanei's Lover

Boxes


At the very beginning, they put everyone in boxes. Not literal boxes, but they separated everyone into groups that were similar. People were separated by obvious physical traits like being a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes, 5 and a half feet tall and so on down to the smallest detail.

They didn't care that it made people unhappy. A lot felt that they didn't fit into a box, or identified with another. And even those that were happy with who they saw looking back at them in the mirror -- just because two people are similar in appearance doesn't make the same. Some were liberal and others were conservative. There were religious fanatics and atheists ...

But generations passed, and slowly they realized that -- well, I'd like to say that they realized there was no need for boxes, but that's not really true. They were all the same, you know. They strived for conformity. But that was not the case with us.

They grew more open minded than their parents' parents. And they realized that it was not the outside of the cookie that was important. Shifting was done, and though it wasn't perfect, we were content.

It made me hopeful for the future of mankind. Maybe in three or four generations we would realize the same thing ... it's not the outside of the cookie that's important.