Box

I have a number of boxes. Boxes containing Christmas decor. Boxes for collecting donated items. Boxes with keepsakes. I have a box to hold camping gear. I have one in my car to hold multiple shopping bags for transport. And then there’s the box I used to clean out my desk. But that wasn’t because I lost my job. We were told to work remotely on a temporary basis four years ago this month. Eventually it would become permanent. I repurposed that box.

We use boxes of all materials, usually cardboard, but often they are plastic or some other synthetic material. We store memories in them, maybe old photographs or greeting cards. I don’t know if the greeting card industry is doing well. I still buy birthday cards, but I imagine that’s going out of fashion. We use boxes to move house. And boxes are used symbolically to represent confines of our imagination, such as thinking outside the box is a term to describe using one’s imagination to solve a problem, rather than drawing on conventional thinking.

Wooden boxes are used to stand on or to transport something that might otherwise be damaged using another container, like fruit in a crate. A pine box is the traditional container for burying human remains. Apple boxes are used in photography and cinematography. They usually come in various sizes to prop up a subject or for a model to stand on. Wood is a good material for a reusable box because of its durability compared to the cost to produce. A metal box would be more durable, but steel is not as cheap, and it requires more expertise to manufacture it. But I would rather store my valuables in a metal safe than in a cardboard box.

Boxes seem to be the ideal container for loose, solid objects, but I pack clothes for weekend trips in a canvas-like duffel bag. A box just seems clumsy for this purpose. But when I receive shipments of new items, they come in a box. I have a collection of shoe boxes now. I don’t have an inordinate number of shoes, but I wear them out from playing disc golf and walking a lot.

It’s kind of curious that we store and transport things in these cuboid containers. Why is a sack or an envelope not appropriate in some cases? I have even switched to shipping exposed film canisters in boxes. What is it about this shape that is pleasing to humans? The whole “brown paper packages tied up with strings” of it all. Aesthetics play into many of our decisions, regardless of culture. I suppose materials for building boxes drives whether a society will have ever gone that direction. Ancient cultures did not bury their dead in boxes. That seems to be more modern.

People moving house is a relatively new phenomenon. Before the invention of the railroad people rarely ventured more than a day’s travel from the place where they were born. Stagecoaches brought people out to the frontier, but they probably traveled with suitcases, a kind of box, I suppose. And there’s the portmanteau – a trunk for carrying coats and large items, also a word that means combining two or more words to form a new word. That’s quite a box, physically and metaphorically. The portmanteau is a good representation of our tendency to categorize things, to organize them in boxes. That box, a set of clothing items or a combining of words, like any box, is a way for us to form new sets. I have a set of vinyl albums in a box. My mom has a collection of crates of LPs. And each of those albums is a set of recordings. Boxes are all around us.

Do not feel bad if you feel like you’re “boxed in”. We can’t help but think that way. It’s in our DNA. By the way, genetic analysis is sometimes represented with little boxes. Anyway, there is a lot more that I can say about this, but I’m tired, and I’m going to hit the sack!