Categories and Containers
Which stands out to you?
Puppies or kittens?
The book or the movie?
Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?
Swimming in a pool or in the ocean?
Texting or calling?
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Coffee or tea?
Solitude or a party?
Many of us have strong opinions about some of these choices, even though they are pretty innocuous. Some people might feel stronger than others, depending on past experiences. Did your opinion come quickly, or did you have to pause and think? If your opinion came quickly, why do you think that is? If you had no opinion about some of those things, why not?
One of a baby’s earliest milestones is when they learn to develop categories. Babies need to learn EVERYTHING–dog, cat, apple, cup, to all the parts of the body. The ability to create categories is a huge developmental milestone!
As we grow, we continue to need categories and containers so we can filter information and stimulus that comes our way. Imagine if we didn’t – we would have to relearn what a mug or a couch is every single day. What if we had to look up directions every time we went to work or the grocery store? It would be exhausting. Not to mention the fear and constant uncertainty we would be gripped with each day as we encountered strange new things that didn’t make sense! When we do not equip ourselves to manage and cope with uncertainty, it causes stress, and activates our sympathetic nervous system. The creation of categories and containers increases certainty and can help to calm our nervous system.
Categories and containers are necessary. We NEED them to make sense of the world. However, these categories can become a huge problem when we don’t manage them mindfully and instead allow them to become rigid and mindless.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
Organizing Data
Data comes at us every second of the day. As discussed above, the only way to make sense of all this information is to create containers and categories. If we didn’t do this, we’d feel absolutely overwhelmed.
The creation of categories helps us construct meanings from what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste. Most of these meanings are automatic. When we walk into a room and see a chair, we know how to sit down. With little to no conscious assessment of the structure, we sit down, trusting that it will support us.
When we take a trip to a new city, we realize how much our lives revolve around all the existing, unexamined categories and containers we have. Travel challenges our sense of what’s “normal” and forces us to rethink our routines and schedules.
Have you ever stayed at a friend’s house, a hotel, or an Airbnb and felt a disruption in this routine? Then you hop in the shower and stare at the facet for a long time trying to figure out how to get it to work, only to give up and have a bath.
If every minute of our lives we had to relearn things we already knew, we might fall over from sheer and utter exhaustion.
Bigger than Coffee Makers and Showers
However, this issue i