July 11, 2006
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Purification
I once heard that a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind.
Bullshit.
Ha! But I think it’s true for me. On my desk downstairs, besides this
PC, are coffee mugs with the dregs of weeks of the black mud I call
coffee. In those mugs are several cigarette butts standing in the
stagnant water like tombstones in a swamp. Crusts of stale peanut
butter sandwiches, half-eaten donuts, candy wrappers, unopened cable
bills, rechargeable batteries coated with the sticky residue of waffle
syrup, several cat treat bags, and enough empty cigarette boxes to fill
an oven. Random splotches of bird shit lead up to Luna’s cage door.Would it be more appropriate to say that a cluttered desk leads to a cluttered mind?
So I’ve given myself one year to clean up. Not just the desk, but my
life in general. And as silly, as ridiculous as it may seem to people
who didn’t grow up in California, I shall try to apply the tenets of
Feng Shui to my environment. (That’s pronounce Fung Shway in case you
didn’t know.)I mean, at their hearts, the basic principles of Feng Shui, Ergonomics,
all those catch phrases stupid people pay thousands for – at their
hearts, those philosophies of simplicity and purity can foster a
healthy mind. It is….. a focusing of energy into a few loci instead
of a chaotic jumble of an earthquake aftermath. It is…. a
conservation of power, a learned discipline of Knowing. It is an
understanding of the flow of movement, the harmonies of sight, the
balance between what is necessary and what is not.I will apply this foreign discipline to my arrested development – to my
mind that cries out for chaos and selfish wants, my body that pretends
to be tired and weak, my soul that is ancient enough to be apathetic
towards most worldly things.For a start, this week I will purge myself of objects which have no
meaning in my present and future life except to remind me of memories.
In short, those objects that I have carried in my heart as well as my
hands because of that great excuse Sentimentality.
Purification Challenge for the day:Clear out your email mailbox of all Spam, Bulk, Trash, Unecessary things. Organize your email address book..
Comments (4)
subtract the cigarette buts and add beer bottles (that need to go in the recycle bin) and your desk could be my desk. I have about nine months before I need to distill my possessions down to what will fit in one Backpack and I’m walking the earth for 6 months (hopefully my money lasts longer that that)
good luck
Now you’re speaking my language.
By the way, if you’re serious about Feng Shui–that is to say literally not figuratively–then do some research, and do it right. Always be cautious when you start tampering with the energy of things.
I always felt that life had it’s own rhythm and I was always off by half a beat, like I was that kid that would always get tangled up in the jump rope.
clutter is a state of mind after all…