Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Measuring Chaos

I vividly remember the first day I saw my supervisors. When I came to Australia, I came with an extra baggage of an "attitude". I was a bit of a snob back then.
When I entered my co-supervisors office, I found that there were little heaps of files and folders all along the floor. He was really warm in welcoming me and suggested a few things that I should read. He happily sat down on the floor and began opening one folder after the other to get what he wanted me to read. I was horrified.
Anything that you want him to read, goes on the floor. His room has a very high entropy!
I took great pride during the first few months here in keeping my desk clean and tidy and decorating it with various things. Somehow as time went by, I turned into one of them too!

Little things make great differences. Like if you are a normal person, after eating an apple you would want to walk to the nearest bin and drop the leftover. However, I found it really hard to get up and go to the nearest bin. So I have a box that is full of crap right under my desk.
All the articles that I read somehow turn into little heaps on their own and arrange themselves in random patterns on my desk. All the shoes I own have somehow made it to the lower rack and still I think I don't have the right shoes every time I am going out.
Australia gives you a lot of coins in change and sometimes my pockets are full of twenties and tens which I dump in a plastic bag that lies on the top shelf of my desk. So my neighbors borrow coins ( without even telling me) when they need a coke from the vending machine.
My flatmate sneaks into the postgrad room sometimes and leaves post-its for me with messages like " Call me when you are free" and I never bother to remove the notes ( or even call her when I am free).
There is a big jar of Vaseline lotion which is also one of the common utilities. So I help people with chapped cheeks and dry hands from the lab.
When things get really unpleasant to look at, I transfer some of the heaps on the desk to the drawers and make it look pretty.
All my Calvin and Hobbes have been borrowed and left their own "hollows" between the other books and I have never bothered to fill those hollows. I am just waiting for the books to come back and fill them on their own.
Inside a merry mess of shopping bags, hair clips, mint, chapstick, mobile charger, paper clips and water bottles stands my tea mug that says "I am confused...no wait ..maybe I am not!".
So I think it kind of goes with the whole picture.
The universe is expanding too!! ( Or is it contracting?? I am not too sure)
As long as everything makes sense inside your head ( and heart) it is completely fine to be a little sloppy! :)
Sometimes, chaos is inside you and sometimes it is outside. All the sloppy people I have known since my college days were really organized when it came to where they were going! I had friends who solved problems on the back of bus tickets. In the end it is just how you express chaos and making a mess is really cathartic in nature sometimes. :)
I guess I have a theory there or maybe I am just defending myself!!

7 comments:

Asmita said...

its hard to believe tell ya! you are so obsessed with cleanliness(thanks to shruti for this gyaan HeeHee) then how come you are so much disordered?

Saee said...

I have clean mess. :)
Well, lately I am not so much obsessed with cleaning..as long as the surroundings look decent. :)

शिरीष said...

Thank God lately you are not obsessed with cleaning!I also wondered how you are defending this entropy

Any way I have never seen anything as bad as the houseof Sattegiries where the entropy had been accumulated for years and the house was something like what can be seen in horror films.I think even houses in horror films were better than this house.
Any way get all those Callvin and Hobbes back from the borroweres and let them occupy their own slots.

Saee said...

@ baba..
Nice picture :P
Yeah I will get all my books back.
Cheers!

Unknown said...

Can i borrow a calvin d hobbes edition too? =)
njoy d mess..sometimes its gd for ur health! no seriously, it is! here is how..cleanin means u'l be dustin, dustin means allergies, d allergies are not gd for ur health! so if ur not cleaning ur doin gd to ur body! uh oh wait a minute...allergy season is on ma side....stop defendin ur self! :D

RJ said...

haha...you know....dump all the notes..papers....whatever...in a box...and go through them a week later...may be you will "discover" something !!!
I like how your writing gives us an insight to the way you think...random vichar indeed !!

Saee said...

@ Ranjeet
Hehe..yeah you are right. I have often found inspiration in crumpled pieces of scrapbooks. :)
Thanks a lot for the compliment..but these days I am just talking to myself here. :)