When I look around my shop, I generally see "aftermath". Chaos is the wake of my creative process. I'm far too in-the-moment to place a piece of sandpaper back into the drawer where it is normally kept. It goes on the table. So do the tools I use. There is dust and dirt everywhere.
After a while, though, this sense of overwhelm creeps in and it casts a long shadow over my creativity. I usually have to stop, assess, and rebuild from the destruction before I can continue to create again. I must have a certain amount of order, even if I do thrive in agile environments.
The pressure of maintaining order, I have always personally felt, detracts from the ability to be in the moment. If the only way to truly relax is to have everything in order, I doubt there would be much time for relaxation. Then again, the abundance of disorder can also trigger tension. I feel it when I look in the back yard and I see patches of tall grass, cardboard that hasn't been put in the recycling, the trailer loaded with junk that I haven't taken to the dump yet, countless "almost" finished projects. Thoughts like these can sit in the back of my mind as a constant pressure.
I don't know how normal people maintain order and have time for anything else. Folks with clean yards and basements, especially folks that have kids and still manage to pull this feat off. Does the order give them peace or is it a haunting expectation they press upon themselves?
"Order", to me, seems to define most accurately a state of control, of predictability. You can argue that "cleanliness is next to godliness" but I think it goes deeper than that. Then again, godliness is ultimate control. Isn't that what makes a god godly?
Control is an important instinct. It's the ultimate tool in the survivalist tool chest. When we can control our surroundings - take dominion over them - we gain a certain clarity. We can see just a little bit farther out in time. We can more readily construct a plan. What I'm saying is there would appear to be an evolutionary reason why we don't feel comfortable in a state of disarray.
The deeper you go down this path, you begin to gradiate into the spectrum of OCD. There's rational order for the sake of optimal performance, and then there's order as an unattainable objective that stands between you and any peace at all. It is a compulsion, not reason, that drives us to push the boulder up the hill. It feels like we're doing something to combat this nagging underlying sense of smallness - the whispering existential dread that we will never control the depth and breadth of being, of decay, of finality.
But if we are clean, we benefit by being less sick. If our grass is regularly cut, we are at less risk of snake bites. If our houses are organized, we give off the image to others of reliability and safety. The evolutionary benefit of controlling our environment doesn't work to the extent that it filters out the inner anxiety that abuses us into a state of perceived perfection.
So, for now, I'll say "no" to those tasks that aren't directly impacting my safety or well-being. I'd rather have the time to expand out into the world around me now than wait until I've calculated and addressed every risk. To accept my smallness, my decay, my finality... This is the balance between chaos and order where I will strive to exist.
