What a mess! I open my window for a bit of fresh air and the wind blows papers all over my desk and onto the floor. It will take a while to straighten everything out…so now I feel frustrated and annoyed as well as disorganized. That is what mental disorganization feels like to me. One little moment of inattention and I pay dearly
There are two antidotes for this: an extra moment spent “setting the table” before embarking on a task, and a gentle spirit of vigilant guidance throughout.
“Breathe” is the message on a small piece of wood I photographed a few years ago in an outdoor Buddhist shrine. When the writing life gets hectic and chaotic, I drop that photo on my desktop. Then I drag my working documents around, lining them up in a tower on the right side of the screen. That’s what I mean by setting the table. It’s an essentially meaningless activity that calms my mind just enough to tackle the mess of mental disorganization. Maybe I even spend a little more time aligning the tower of documents just so. I know there’s a tool to do this, but it’s more fun to do it by hand. It takes me back to the days of T-squares and triangles.
Setting the table becomes unhelpful if it gets too complicated. Think about the TV series Downton Abbey, where the opening sequence shows a servant positioning multiple table multiple utensils and measuring the proper distance between them. That reminds me of the perils of over-thinking and over-preparation. “O, that way madness lies,” said King Lear.
The same principle applies to what I call “fly fishing syndrome.” This is not a sport that ever appealed to me, but I did learn a lot about it by watching my fly fisherman father. When things weren’t going well, his preparation time far exceeded any resulting satisfaction. It seemed to me that about 90% of the prep consisted of figuring out which gadget had been carefully placed into which one of about 50 specially designed zipper pockets on his fishing vest.
Therefore…at some point, one must get on with things. Otherwise, the disorganized mind is a threat to any substantive thoughts or ideas before they even get a chance to germinate.
I chose the words “thoughts” and “ideas” because keeping organized is not too difficult once the writer has established a clear path for a finished piece. In the “thoughts or ideas” stage, however, things can wander off.
This applies to documents of any length. For example, I am in the process of writing a manuscript for my second book. This one has a definite chapter structure, varied by content but containing the same set of elements. My task is to populate those elements for each chapter, with love and discernment.
My first book, by contrast, had chapters which followed a narrative thread and covered specific timelines and events, but had varying amounts and types of content. When writing Courage Says “Keep On,” too often I was plagued by the sense of the overall narrative slithering away from me while I pondered some point or nuance. I had an overall plan to “let the story tell itself” but in all stages of the writing process, what I now call mental disorganization had me asking myself the same questions: What is the story arc? Is this the best way to tell it? Who am I telling it to?
My thought process is like a big river. It’s full of channels, shallow places, snags, hidden rocks, and rapids. It changes rapidly with rainfall and seasons. When navigating on the water, it pays to have a little knowledge of the river’s personality and potential hazards before embarking. Then, the pilot needs to keep a sharp eye ahead, on the main channel. The side events and unexpected detours can’t be ignored entirely—in fact, they often add to the overall experience. But by following them too closely, the boat might flip, run aground or spin endlessly in an eddy. The strong, deep, smooth current gently gathers in and smooths out the distractions that are endlessly spun out in the mind.