We all have one. It is usually a shoebox, or a specific drawer in a desk, or a plastic bag stuffed into the back of a closet. It is The Place Where Cables Go To Die.

I opened mine yesterday in search of a simple phone charger. What I found instead was a tangled black nest of wires that looked less like technology and more like a sleeping mythological beast. I pulled one strand, and the entire clump lifted as a single solid unit. I found a cable that connects a printer I haven't owned since 2015 to a Windows Vista computer. I found headphones with a jack that no longer fit into any device invented in this decade. I found a thick, grey cable with pins that look like shark teeth (I have no idea what it is).

I stared at this collection. Logic dictates that I should throw them away. They are trash. They are useless. And yet, I carefully rolled them back up and put them back. Because of the terrifying, paralysing thought: "But what if I need it?"

If the cable drawer is a museum of obsolete technology, my kitchen cupboard is a monument to aspirational recycling. It begins innocently enough. You buy a large bucket of Greek yoghurt, the expensive kind, with the sturdy handle and the plastic that feels reassuringly thick. You eat the yoghurt. You wash the bucket. And then, you stand over the recycling bin and think: “This is a really good bucket. It would be a shame to throw it away. I can put soup in this.”

This is the fatal error. Because once you save one, you save them all. Ice cream tubs. Margarine containers. The flimsy rectangular boxes from the takeaway place take on the colour of whatever you put into them and don’t go away, no matter how many times you scrub them with lemon and prayer.

I am no longer running a kitchen; I am managing a waste management facility with delusions of grandeur.

The Fridge as a Casino

The real problem with repurposing these containers is the refrigerator. When I open my refrigerator, I am greeted by a visual lie. I see a tub that clearly says “Vanilla Ice Cream.” My brain prepares for the joy of frozen dairy. I open the lid, and I am confronted with a half-chopped onion.

My fridge has become a game of Russian Roulette. Will this hummus container actually contain hummus? Or will it contain the sad remains of a pasta sauce from last Tuesday?

I never know. I have to audit every container physically. I have created an environment where I cannot trust my own eyes. I am gaslighting myself with dairy packaging.

The Mystery of the Orphaned Lids

Then there is the geometry problem. The laws of the universe dictate that for every container, there is a matching lid. However, in the Cabinet of Reused Plastic, this law breaks down. I currently possess a stack of fifteen “Cream Cheese” containers. I have exactly three lids that fit them. Where did the other lids go?

And conversely, why do I have a giant collection of massive, round lids that fit absolutely nothing? I have tried. I have spent Friday nights standing in my kitchen, trying to force a margarine lid onto a sour cream tub. It doesn't work. The diameter is off by two millimetres.

Hoarding the "Just In Case"

But I keep the lid. Why? I have kept this lid for three years. To throw it away now would be to admit that the last three years of storage were a waste of time. So I put it back. It slides behind the stack, waiting for a container that does not exist.

These are all about anxiety. It is a shrine to Potentiality. I don't keep the cables and tubs because I need them. I keep them because I am afraid of a hypothetical future in which, for some catastrophic reason, the fate of the world hinges on my ability to connect a 2004 digital camera to a projector.

Philosophers call this “Option Value” We assign value to things not because they are useful now, but because they might be useful later. To throw away the cable is to close a door. It is to admit that part of my life, the part that used an MP3 player the size of a matchbox, is gone forever.

So, I became a curator of obsolescence. I am preserving the fossil record of my own consumerism.

The Link Between the Wire and the Tub

It hit me yesterday, while I was standing between the cables and tubs, that these aren't two separate messes. They are the exact same problem, just wearing different outfits.

One is made of copper and rubber; the other is made of polypropylene. But they are both doing the same thing to my brain. I looked at the cable in my left hand and the empty yoghurt bucket in my right hand, and I just had to ask: Why is this so hard? Why does the idea of throwing away a wire that I haven't used in ten years make my chest feel tight? Why does putting a perfectly good plastic tub in the recycling bin feel like a personal failure?

I am not hoarding "stuff." If I were hoarding stuff, I’d keep gold, or wine, or something that actually holds value. No, I am hoarding possibilities. And that is much heavier.

Partner Spotlight

Creators and founders like you are being told to “build a personal brand” to generate revenue but…

1/ You can be shadowbanned overnight
2/ Only 10% of your followers see your posts

Meanwhile, you can write 1 email that books dozens of sales calls and sells high-ticket ($1,000+ digital products).

After working with 50+ entrepreneurs doing $1M/yr+ with newsletters, we made a 5-day email course on building a profitable newsletter that sells ads, products, and services.

Normally $97, it’s 100% free for 24H.

Get the course 100% free

Collecting Ghosts

I started looking at the objects not as things, but as timelines. The cable drawer? That’s not technology. That is a museum of Who I Used To Be. That printer cable belongs to me, who was at university, printing out essays at 2 a.m. That headphone jack belongs to me, who walked everywhere listening to an MP3 player that held exactly 12 songs. To throw them away feels like admitting that version of me is gone. It feels like erasing a memory. I keep the cable because, in some strange, quiet way, I miss her.

And the kitchen cupboard? That’s the museum of Who I Want To Be. I don't keep fifty plastic containers because I love leftovers. (I love them) I keep them because the “Ideal me” in my head is a domestic goddess. She doesn't order takeout. She makes big batches of healthy soup on Sundays. She needs those containers for her organised, sustainable life.

Every time I save a tub, I am buying a ticket to that fantasy. Every time I throw one away, I am admitting that, actually, I’m probably just going to eat toast for dinner again.

So here I am, the me of the Present, trapped in the middle. I am squeezed between the ghost of the past (who needed cables) and the ghost of the future (who needs tubs). And frankly, there isn't much room left for the person who actually lives here right now.

The Cat Does Not Have Ghosts

I looked down at the cat. She was currently sitting inside the very box I was trying to clear out. She looked back at me with total clarity. She does not have a drawer of cables from her kittenhood. She does not keep old toys “just in case” she wants to play with them in 2029. She does not save half-eaten food for a future version of herself who might be more responsible.

She lives entirely in the Now. If she needs to sleep, she sleeps. If she wants to play, she finds a string now. She doesn't burden herself with who she used to be or who she might become. She just is.

She knocked a pen off the table. It rolled under the sofa. Did she mourn it? Did she try to retrieve it “just in case”? Of course, no. She forgot about it instantly and went in search of a sunbeam. She travels light. I envy that.

The Walk to the Bin

I decided to be like the cat. I decided to be ruthless. I marched into the kitchen. I grabbed the shark-toothed cable in my left hand and the empty yoghurt bucket in my right. I walked to the bin. My heart was actually pounding. I held the cable over the trash. "Do it," I told myself. "You haven't owned a device that uses this cable since the Kadesh Peace Treaty. Let it go."

My hand trembled. The bin's lid was open. I took a deep breath. I prepared to drop it. I was ready to be free.

But then, a thought struck me. The cable is messy. The tub is empty. The tub... is a container.

I didn't drop the cable. Instead, my hands began to move on their own, guided by a force stronger than logic. I carefully coiled the thick grey wire. I wound it into a perfect, tight circle. I looked at the yoghurt bucket. It was the ideal size. I placed the coiled cable inside the bucket. It fit. It fit perfectly. I snapped the lid shut. Click.

A wave of satisfaction washed over me. I hadn't thrown anything away. I had combined the Ghost of the Past with the Ghost of the Future to create a weird, useless present. I put the bucket, now heavy with obsolete copper, back into the cupboard. "There," I whispered to the cat. "Now it's safe."

The cat just stared at me, then slowly walked away. She knew exactly what I had done. I didn't solve the problem. I just gave it a lid.

See you next time. Keep stacking,

Asena