What makes the junta leader think he is qualified to tell people how to think?
Since seizing state power almost five years ago, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has set himself up as the nation's guru. Every Friday evening, he hogs prime time TV to impart his wisdom on everything from agriculture to zoology.
Still remember the "12 Core Values" the general laid down as a guide for Thai people to live by shortly after the coup he led? It started people talking for a while but I doubt anyone still remembers what they are.
His weekly show has not been doing so well lately, failing to garner large audiences as hoped. Despite complaining bitterly about the lack of public interest, he soldiers on, spending upward of 45 minutes in front of the camera each Friday.
This past Wednesday he came up with another gem.
In a Teachers' Day speech, Gen Prayut exhorted teachers to instil discipline in their students, teach them to be productive citizens and guide them to tell right from wrong when surfing social media.
It all sounded good. But then came the baffling part.
"We have to teach children to be brave, but not to step outside the box because we don't have any box for them. Don't tell them to think outside the box because when they do it's hard to bring them back in," he said.
"To think outside the box, we need to have norms [as] immunity. To stay within the box, we need rules to frame a new box. It's not to do anything you want and call that freedom [or] democracy … freedom that causes chaos."
I'm not sure I completely understand his meaning of "outside the box". It is often difficult to interpret Thai passages accurately but especially so for grammatically unstructured utterances such as these.
What he seems to be saying is "Be brave but don't venture outside where danger lurks", or "Don't let yourself be free unless you are tethered", both of which seem to be self-contradictory.
Indeed, if we look back to another of his speeches in May 2017, he offered a different interpretation of the concept.
In a speech on sustainable development, Gen Prayut said: "In my view, thinking outside the box is creative thinking. It's very important in the 21st-century world. It will upgrade our education and give people opportunities access to useful information and news…."
So which speech represents the real Prayut Chan-o-cha?
By now, we are pretty much used to his flip-flopping. He has no qualms flip-flopping with world leaders including Donald Trump, Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe when giving them an election date. So flip-flopping to Thai citizens should come as no surprise.
I'm convinced he doesn't want people to take to the idea of thinking outside the box seriously because he himself is strictly an inside-the-box guy.
He not only wants Thai people to stay within the box but tries to redraw the box to be as small as possible. To see people thinking outside the box must be a scary thought because those people will think by themselves and even question his orders and authority.
To tell you the truth, I for one no longer take the general's words seriously. What he says today can be anything else tomorrow. What concerns me more, though, is a lot of people still prefer to be contained within the box.
I couldn't believe the recent brouhaha after a private school allowed their students to wear non-uniform clothes for a day a week. From the howls and cries that greeted the announcement, you would think the school asked their students to come to school naked.
They think uniforms alone make students behave and excel while giving them the liberty to wear anything else will turn them into delinquents or a threat to national security.
Unbeknownst to them, there are schools -- in Thailand -- where children do not wear uniforms and they turn out to be responsible adults, doing fine in college and their careers.
The point is that thinking outside the box allows the mind to roam unhindered by norms or traditions or any restraints at all. It by no means implies that such an exercise would lead to criminality.
It is an exercise that enhances the possibility of new discoveries, new ways of doing things, new wisdom.
Unfortunately, the Thai military is used to confining themselves inside a small box. They keep coming back to the old module of forcing their ways of thinking on others and applying force to achieve their plans. Taking the country back decades must have seemed like progress to Gen Prayut and his friends.
Wasant Techawongtham is a former news editor, Bangkok Post.