In 2006, I failed Drawing 1.

For anyone who knows me, that probably sounds absurd. I am an artist. But I failed the most basic, entry-level drawing course for one reason: I hate drawing boxes.

The class was taught by Mr. Maples. On the first day, he stacked ten or so cardboard boxes of different sizes in the middle of the room. And there they sat… the whole semester.

Unchanged. Unmoving. Ten lifeless boxes, sitting there mocking me. Mr. Maples would try to push us with little phrases like, “Draw what you see, not what you see.”

I’ll be honest: nineteen years later, I still don’t fully understand what the hell that meant.

But here’s what that class revealed about me: I don’t like boxes. Not drawing them. Not living inside them. And certainly not forcing people into them.

We create boxes, categories, labels, and structures, because they make the world feel neat. Organized. Easy to alphabetize and tuck onto a shelf. But life isn’t neat, and people don’t belong in containers.

I don’t believe anyone should be forced to fit into a rigid category that says this is the only way you’re allowed to exist. I wouldn’t call myself a rebellious kid. My parents might, but I wouldn’t. I’ve never thrived in any environment when I was under someone else’s complete and total control. I don’t like cages.

And yet, if you look at me on paper, I’m nothing but boxes: Caucasian. Male. Late 30s. Disabled Veteran. Husband. Pet owner. It’s tidy. It’s quantifiable.

It’s the kind of thing you could slot into a demographics sheet and feel like you “know” me. But you don’t. Because none of those things alone or together capture who I really am. They reduce me. They sterilize. They strip away the chaos, the contradictions, the creativity and the neurosis. They take away the bigger picture.

You lose the person.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t call a duck a duck. That’s just common sense. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably not a zebra. Labels serve a purpose. They can help us describe, understand, and navigate the world around us.

But here’s my problem: I believe society leans too heavily on boxes. It has a tendency to use them not as tools for clarity but as weapons of division. We claim categories are supposed to bring us together, to give us shared language and identity.

But most of the time? They do the opposite.

Take one look at a Facebook comment section. Or spend ten minutes at a comic convention. It doesn’t matter if it’s Star Wars vs. Star Trek or Republicans vs. Democrats. Labels have a way of turning communities into camps. Instead of bridging differences, they reinforce them.

Instead of drawing us closer, they push us apart.

I hate boxes. I hate feeling like I can only exist in one space. I hate being told I can’t exist somewhere else.

I hate that it has taken me nineteen years to find some meaning in that old phrase: “Draw what you see, not what you see.” I’m sorry, Mr. Maples. I guess that lesson wasn’t useless after all.

Because what I see all around me are people in boxes. Divided. Organized. Collected. Sorted into neat little categories that make us feel manageable. Predictable. Contained.

But when I look closer, when I actually try to see, I see something else. I see people who are tired of being divided. I see people longing to step out of their boxes. I see people aching for connection, for belonging, for something greater than the label taped to the side of their cardboard shell.

Maybe that’s the real lesson I failed to learn back then: not how to draw boxes, but how to see beyond them.