Day #69

Tidiness

I’ve been organising my books. Again. Anyone who owns a lot of books will understand that organisation is not a job that is ever done, but rather one that feels right up until the point that it feels wrong.

I love Patti Smith, and own all her books: memoir, music, and art. But where to put them.

I started with the New York section, but the lyrics book felt adrift. So i moved it to ‘music’, but it felt lost without it’s brethren. Then i wondered if she should have a shelf to herself?

Most of my organisational activities sought to put her in relation to something stable: a category, a space, a time. This desire for tidiness does not simply apply to books but to ideas too.

When we learn something new we seek to categorise it against the old: does it reinforce or threaten the truths that we hold dear?

Use your sixty seconds today to ask yourself about tidiness? How do you feel you react to new ideas? How willing are you to hold uncertainty? What is the cost of so doing?