I recently bought a LEGO capsule vending machine.

Honestly, it’s nothing special.  Once it was assembled, my routine became simple:  drop in a coin, turn the knob,  open a capsule, build a tiny LEGO figure.

And yet, I love it.

Not because of LEGO itself,  but because of that brief moment before the capsule opens.  That second when you don’t know what you’ll get.

I can swap the contents inside the capsules, anything I like.  Some days I turn it just for myself.  On holidays, I let friends and family take a turn.

It’s not about the reward.  It’s about the question:  What will it be this time?

It’s a lot like fortune slips or keychain divination.  The outcomes are limited:  great luck, decent luck, small luck, or… not today.

You know it won’t change your life.  And yet, your hand reaches for it anyway.

We have an almost mysterious affection for vending machines.  They quietly satisfy several human needs at once: curiosity, privacy, minimal effort,  and no need to interact with anyone.

That’s why you can buy almost anything from a machine:  live crabs, oysters, freshly baked pizza,  fish soup in cans, second-hand clothes,  even “worn” clothes,  toys, bottled air, strange gases,  fighting beetles, poems, short stories.  In some places, you can even vend gold, cars, caviar,  or gambler’s favorites—  the infamous “mystery cans.”

Our obsession with blind boxes isn’t trivial. Maybe the instinct to gamble  really is written into human DNA. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes, we’re not trying to win.  We just want to leave a small pocket of uncertainty inside an otherwise predictable life.

One gentle turn a day to remind ourselves  that the world hasn’t been fully calculated yet.



—— XC Scribbles · 壹佰零貳 CII 🧸