Monday, August 1, 2016

The Cube Test

I remember doing this in high school and having it blow my mind. Now, as previously mentioned, I have a penchant for being superstitious, so watch the video with a grain of salt, but do watch it so you can read my navel-gazing response to it below with some clarity of mind. Come, friends. Take a journey of self-discovery with me.

Video's from Buzzfeed

It's a game! I love games! I have a little bit of cultural discomfort seeing it described as a "Japanese psychology game" because of the Magical Asian stereotype but let's just go for it. 

(1) Desert. Got it.

(2) Imagine a cube. How big, what material, and how close to the ground? I mean, like, small? It's a tiny little solid black cube, half-way buried in the sand. Why? How big's your cube? 

(3) Somewhere near the cube, imagine a ladder. How close is it to the cube and what's it made of? So I have a tiny cube and in that case, there's a wooden ladder laying next to it, but see, now that I know there's a ladder involved, my cube just grew so that the ladder could lean up against it. Can I do that? Is that cheating? 

(4) Imagine a horse near the cube and the ladder. Woah, a horse? Just out here in the desert? That doesn't seem safe. I was fine with these inanimate objects just hanging out but I'm concerned for this horse now. Is it wearing anything? What's it doing? Hanging out, I guess. I'm thinking like the horse from the cover of Black Beauty, since that's the most experience I've had with horses in my life. So running free, I guess. It's kinda frozen in my mental picture when I think about it, but if I'm focusing on other stuff, like this whole desert/cube/ladder debacle we started with, it goes to sniffing around in the grass I just thought up for it right beside the cube. Which is helpful because...

(5) Imagine flowers somewhere. How many and how close are they to the cube? Oh y'all. I remember this one from being in high school. Back then, there was one sad little lonely yellow flower on top of the dune next to the cube. My brain always zooms in on it for dramatic emphasis, with storm clouds back up behind it. I don't imagine any flowers in the picture now, but luckily I thought about those clouds already because...

(6) Imagine there's a storm starting. How close is it and are you afraid of it? I mean, it's covering the whole sky, but I'm not bothered by it. Adds to the drama of the scene. The horse seems okay with it. 

So yeah. With some editing, a probably single-story house size shiny black cube with a wooden ladder leaning up against it and an unbridled horse hanging out near it, with angry storm clouds up above. That's what I've got. Let's see what it means! 

(2) The cube: the size is the size of your ego, the transparency is how open you are to other people, and the closer it is to the ground, the more grounded you are. Right when I start imagining this, I imagine a mid-sized floating cube, but then I remember it's in a desert and it shrinks and drops, until the aforementioned ladder debacle. So clearly I don't know what I think about my ego but hey, at least I know I am not transparent! 

(3) The ladder: how close it is to the cube is how close you are to your friends, if it's leaning up against the cube, your friends can lean on you, and the sturdier the material, the stronger the bond. I mean, it's a really durable wood? 

(4) Whether the horse is tied up/saddled or not shows how much control you want in a relationship. See, I just cannot see this being accurate. I generally enjoy being in charge. Maybe I'm just bad at imagining saddles?

(5) And the flowers are kids. The more flowers, the more kids you want and the closer they are to the cube, the more you're thinking about kids. 

I remember laughing a bunch about this in high school, me and my one sad little flower. Well, that laughing-so-you-don't-cry kind of laugh. This is one of the first times I can remember feeling that feeling. But it's just a dumb little mental test. I mean, who's to say this is any kind of accurate at all? 

(6) And the storm represents stress. But we can deal with that. 

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