Messing up Messiness

I found this blog (Between Two Worlds - Justin Taylor) talking about organization in the new year. It seems I am to be encouraged in my messiness. I am truly not encouraged! I have nothing to show for my messy closets and chaotic cupboards! I should at least be intelligent, creative or somehow change the world! Ahhhhh! I can't even do chaos right!

Here is my description of Buff's brain. He has the ability to attend one or two conferences in the same week. He will also read a book to and from these conferences. When he returns home, he can recall any conversation he had, sermon he heard, paragraph he read, etc. and remember who said it - in which context- recall it word for word - understand it and explain it to me giving credit to whomever is due. His brain is like a filing cabinet. He files the thought away safely and can return to it and retrieve it exactly as he left it.

Here is a description of my brain: (see photo below) I know I read it somewhere, heard it somewhere, etc. I think and think and think - and by the time I have dug through all of my piles of thoughts - I find the paper (3 days after I needed the comeback) and its blank.

Here is Justin Taylor's blog:

Ah, sweet encouragement from the New York Times:

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.

And lest the DavidAllen-ites amongst you mock:

It was the overall scumminess of Alexander Fleming’s laboratory that led to his discovery of penicillin, from a moldy bloom in a petri dish he had forgotten on his desk.

(HT: Susan Wise Bauer: link fixed)

By the way, here's one of my favorite pictures on the web. Athesitic philospher Quentin Smith looking for something in his faculty office:


See also: Kings of Chaos (the six messiest desks at the University of Chicago) and What Does Your Desk Say About You? (people with messier desks tend to have more education and make more money).