We live in a crazy, chaotic world, where unforeseen things happen for no discernible reason. Our natural response is to try to force our little bit of the chaotic world into some kind of order. Our thinking goes, “I might not be able to keep my airplane from falling out of the sky, but at least I can keep my closet organized into well-marked cubbies.”
That’s where Martha Stewart and her friends come in. The home-organizing industry rakes in billions of dollars each year, and now they’ve proclaimed January to be national Get Organized Month. Here in the islands, huge self-storage warehouses are cropping up on every corner as more and more people try to clear out the clutter. But according to this article, not everyone’s buying it:
An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.
I’m not really sure what a “prig” is, but I guess I might be one, because I’m mildly allergic to mess. Just looking at the wrapping-paper and toy-packaging carnage in my living room after three kids opened mountains of Christmas presents from all their grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins gave me a few heart palpitations.
On the other hand, I also see a biblical imperative to survive and even thrive in the midst of life’s messiness. “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (Ecclesiastes 7)