Choices and Art TheStar.com - News - Thinking inside the box - Interesting story about an Art teacher in Toronto spending 3 days painting in a 2-metre box.

This reminds me of a funny little 'game' that I used to play with friends, and I suppose it still comes up from time to time.

The original basis of the game, which we'd call 'Choices', was a book called "The Book of Questions" by Gregory Stock. I first read this book at the Lorne Park Library when I was in high school, just picked it off the shelf in the Psychology section. This isn't a trivia book, it's a book which challenges you to ask yourself questions that relate to morality and ethics, that help you to understand yourself and whoever else you're sharing the book with.

A classic example of a question from the book would be:

You're on a hiking trip with your best friend and your father. A
poisonous snake bites both your father and your friend and you only have one
dose of antidote. You're too deep in the jungle to hike back to safety,
and if you divide the antidote between them they'll both die. You have to
decide who you'll give the antidote to.

In our game, we would typically make up 2 really BAD options and ask people to decide which they'd rather do, a common starting point would be:

Would you rather hit an innocent person in the back of the head with a hammer, or
spend a month in a 1 metre x 1 metre box.

Depending on the answer, we might then extend or decrease the period of time in the box, Ok, how about 2 months in the box? Etc, trying to find the point at which someone would 'snap'.

Anyhow, the article reminded me of that, and I thought I'd share it... The Book of Questions is a fantastic book, I strongly recommend it, it's also a fun game to play, around the campfire, or to kick start some interesting conversations among friends.  ¶ 10:08 AM