Short Form: Compartments

Recently I've become interested in compartments.

​There are many types.

Some are imagined.

One fits a brain. One fits a heart.

​One is larger than it seems. One seems tightly shut but is difficult to close again, like a ziplock bag filled with sand.

.

Compartments are easily generalized.

The general instance of a compartment, however, is different than, say, the general instance of a drawer.

When drawers are mentioned, we understand that there is usually something going on to do with ordering: placing something with respect to top or bottom, or occasionally left to right. Compartments care less about "right order" and more about separation. It doesn't matter so much where a compartment is with respect to other compartments, but only that their respective contents have nothing to do with one another.

Compartments are also different from bins, to take one other example.

Bins are entirely unconcerned with content separation. Moreover, they seem to possess a remarkable indifference as to what is put inside of them. Compartments have at least a basic respect toward their contents. Bins accept luggage and rubbish equivocally and with abandon. Bins feel sturdy and resilient, while compartments are almost delicate by comparison.

.

Compartments can be specific:

Train compartments.

Glove compartments.

Secret compartments.

Secret compartments are perhaps the juiciest of all. The term "secret compartment"  feels specific and general all at once.

If only we knew what was inside of them.

Usually what's inside, though, is less interesting than the secret compartment itself. Once discovered, both the compartment and its contents lose some of their appeal. We might as well not even look.

.

I'm still trying to feel comfortable with compartments. They seem to be all around me. I suspect I might be full of them, though, as with most things, I usually have no idea until it's too late.