Patterns

Well, everyone, it's Thursday. And that means it's time for another post.

"But why, A.A.?" you ask. "Why Thursday? Does that day carry any special meaning for you?"

In a word - no. But if you look at the publication dates of the two previous posts, perhaps you'll notice something. A pattern, even.

You see, they're seven days apart. Seven days. One week. I don't recall having done that on purpose, but since the pattern has been established, it only makes sense to continue it.

I love patterns. From alliteration to palindromes to symmetry, I find beauty in them. They comfort me. They make sense to me.

Consider the following arrangement:

Let's ignore the box sitting off to the side, and just focus on the eight "XS" boxes. Why are they set up in this manner? How does a 2-3-3 arrangement make any sense at all?

Now consider this alternate arrangement of these boxes:

A 3-2-3 arrangement is symmetrical and palindromic. But look - there are two boxes showing the blue face on the left, but three on the right.

What about now?

Now the boxes on each side are arranged with two blue sides facing out.

But even this isn't ideal. The boxes aren't perfectly aligned, and the text on the three boxes closest to the bottom-right corner is different from that on the other five. Let's see how we can rectify this.

There we go! Now the colors match, the boxes with the differing text are all together on the bottom, and the defaced box is in the middle of the bottom row, minimizing the effect on the symmetricity. 

Here's another example, using liquid containers instead of boxes of gloves.

Seriously? Who would do something like this? (Full disclosure: it was me. I did it to make my point. You'll see.)

Much better.

Pattern. Arrangement. Order.

Whatever you call it, it brings calm and peace to this atypical mind of mine.

Until next time,

A.A. 😊