CHAOS AND ORDER

"Without order nothing can exist – without chaos nothing can evolve."

David and I are in the process of cleaning, de-cluttering and reorganizing our home, with all this frenetic activity, I’m totally depleted of all creativity (hence the reduction of new entries). In all this chaos, I believe I may even have inadvertently pitched out my creativity somewhere among the seven large garbage bags filled with unwanted items.

How did we come to obtain so much rubbish? Four years worth, to be exact. Well, when David and I initially moved in together, we did not possess any items of value. Having both emigrated from our parents’ homes; we furnished our house with my bedroom set from youth and a hand-me-down sofa.

To make our house more “homey” we began to accept donated items. Initially we welcomed other people’s cast-offs, then we began allowing in second-hand goods based on sentimentality and eventually we consented to the unwanted items so as to not offend.

Now we are forced to draw the line. We have adopted a use-it-or-lose-it attitude. No more JUNK! It’s all going curbside!

It has been somewhat cathartic throwing away the useless things we have accumulated over the years. However, I must admit, I still have a hard time getting rid of the sentimental objects that clutter our lives, as every object has a story, they may not necessarily be my story, but someone’s story, and it’s sad to see them being discarded. What can I say? I’m a poetic person, I experience a complex array of powerful emotions toward my possessions. I can find a story in almost anything, thus making this purging process very painful.

While, I am aware of the of the benefits of de-cluttering and have knowledge of the motivational Feng Shui discourse declaring: “Letting go of the accumulated debris liberates mind and body, allowing creativity flow,” I still believe that one needs a certain amount of chaos to be creative.

I need to find that equilibrium between chaos and order. After all isn't balance the key to a joyful life?