Tidying
Recently, I've been doing something that I periodically have to do, if I ever want to find anything, ever again. I've been sorting files on my computer. That's a very odd thing to do, I expect, particularly if you take into account my attitude towards tidiness in physical objects.
For instance, one of the desks in my room, an old computer desk that I got simply because my main desk was completely out of surface space, is currently littered with a Catbert doll, some foam discs from a toy gun, an Amstrad CPC 464 (the first “C” stands for colour), a stapler, a laptop battery, a small piece of Blu-Tack, a Dilbert desk calendar showing the date to be early February, a partially disassembled cordless phone, a copy of Private Eye, a Thunderbirds mug, a cardboard tube and various plugs and chargers for devices that I may or may not have.
Strangely, I know where everything is. More than once, when asked where something is in my room, I have been able to pinpoint it with descriptions such as “on top of the old TV, to the left of Catbert and underneath that old Palm PDA”. Of course, these directions are often suffixed with “I think”.
The point of all this is too show that I am not someone who sticks by the generally accepted standards of “tidiness”. I may have my own standards and systems which I stick by, most of which relate to Chaos Theory in one way or another. And, just for reference, that doesn't mean they're simply chaotic. No. I'll toss something in a cupboard quickly because I don't know where it goes. Then, the next time I have a handful of things, they get tossed in the cupboard because I can't be bothered putting them elsewhere and this is justified by my earlier act of using it as a dumping ground. And so the cycle continues, until either my cupboards or my mother explode.
Despite my aversion to real life tidying, I actually quite enjoy sorting out computer files. Unlike my bedroom, which is full of stuff I'm always using or have used recently, sorting stuff into directories every once in a while helps me come across stuff I haven't seen in months, even years.
Combine this with my habit of bookmarking almost every interesting page or article I ever come across, and organising bookmarks can be just as interesting and rewarding. I'll discover things that I can't understand my motives for ever bookmarking, I'll remember things that I dragged into the toolbar just so I'd never forget them. I've spent several hours doing this kind of thing over the last few days and I think I've barely scratched the surface. I've arranged various things into distinct, clearly labeled folders without any idea of what's actually contained in the web pages.
But I do it anyway, because I enjoy dredging up bits of the recent past and questioning my state of mind several months ago. Give it another few months, maybe a year, and my “downloads go to the Desktop” and “hey, that's neat *bookmark*” habits will again get the better of me and I'll open files, examine them, order them, structure them and ignore them. Because I can.
I'm a profoundly strange individual.
For instance, one of the desks in my room, an old computer desk that I got simply because my main desk was completely out of surface space, is currently littered with a Catbert doll, some foam discs from a toy gun, an Amstrad CPC 464 (the first “C” stands for colour), a stapler, a laptop battery, a small piece of Blu-Tack, a Dilbert desk calendar showing the date to be early February, a partially disassembled cordless phone, a copy of Private Eye, a Thunderbirds mug, a cardboard tube and various plugs and chargers for devices that I may or may not have.
Strangely, I know where everything is. More than once, when asked where something is in my room, I have been able to pinpoint it with descriptions such as “on top of the old TV, to the left of Catbert and underneath that old Palm PDA”. Of course, these directions are often suffixed with “I think”.
The point of all this is too show that I am not someone who sticks by the generally accepted standards of “tidiness”. I may have my own standards and systems which I stick by, most of which relate to Chaos Theory in one way or another. And, just for reference, that doesn't mean they're simply chaotic. No. I'll toss something in a cupboard quickly because I don't know where it goes. Then, the next time I have a handful of things, they get tossed in the cupboard because I can't be bothered putting them elsewhere and this is justified by my earlier act of using it as a dumping ground. And so the cycle continues, until either my cupboards or my mother explode.
Despite my aversion to real life tidying, I actually quite enjoy sorting out computer files. Unlike my bedroom, which is full of stuff I'm always using or have used recently, sorting stuff into directories every once in a while helps me come across stuff I haven't seen in months, even years.
Combine this with my habit of bookmarking almost every interesting page or article I ever come across, and organising bookmarks can be just as interesting and rewarding. I'll discover things that I can't understand my motives for ever bookmarking, I'll remember things that I dragged into the toolbar just so I'd never forget them. I've spent several hours doing this kind of thing over the last few days and I think I've barely scratched the surface. I've arranged various things into distinct, clearly labeled folders without any idea of what's actually contained in the web pages.
But I do it anyway, because I enjoy dredging up bits of the recent past and questioning my state of mind several months ago. Give it another few months, maybe a year, and my “downloads go to the Desktop” and “hey, that's neat *bookmark*” habits will again get the better of me and I'll open files, examine them, order them, structure them and ignore them. Because I can.
I'm a profoundly strange individual.
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:22 PM
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