I can hardly contain myself

I love containers. Boxes, jars, drawers, cases, you name it; if it has a lid, I'm in love. As a child I loved to play in boxes, like any kid. I also had a fascination with tins, the kind that they sell popcorn in around Christmas time, as well as cups. When I was 10, I first discovered there was such a place as The Container Store; I have yet to work up the courage to go into that shop, as I'm certain I'll waste a good portion of my life inside it.

I love their immense variety, how they can be decorative or plain, large or small. They're smooth to the touch. I enjoy the way they hide things away making you guess their contents. It's so satisfying to tear off a lid or unzip a zipper and reveal what's inside. Yet, I also find translucent containers attractive as well; the fact that they have no mystery at all is part of their allure. They seem to point out that the box itself serves no purpose except as a vessel to other objects. Their decoration is the contents itself. I'm sure there's some philosophical principle at work there. For every item in your life there exists a container for it, unless that item is itself a container. Even then, there exist containers for containers, or ones which are sub-divided into smaller containers for optimal storage and organization. Most of these are actually quite pointless. It's just, there's something wonderful about being able to package things away or easily hold them in your hands.

Some of their appeal may have to do with the culturally emphasized desire to compartmentalize, to group things together. Containers give things bounds and constraints. They're easy to stack and store. It's possible they embody many of the things that are wonderful and terrible about the modern age; diversity and organization as well as restriction and over complication.