Or, The Packrat Problem

I oscillate between clutter and anti-clutter. I am particularly inclined to do this with cameras, scanners, and computers, but I seem to do it in most aspects of my life. It works like this…

I dig around in a box of something. In this example, it’s a box of chargers for camera batteries. I discover that I have lots of extras, and figure that since I have them, I should use them. So I get them out and organize them, then find a place for them. Time passes, maybe a month or three. One day I look up and see a clutter of battery chargers. So I police them all up and throw them back in their box. Ah. Much better. Time passes, maybe a month or three…

You get the idea. At the moment, I am in the anti-clutter point in the cycle. But by the end of summer, I’ll pull out a box of whatever, figure that since I have them, I should use them. And so on.

Sometimes I think the whole cycle is brought about by a certain personal boredom.