Monday, April 6, 2009

Clutter: My Two Cents

What is clutter?


According to the Oxford English Dictionary...

noun: a collected mass, a collection; a crowded and confused assemblage;

- the crowded confusion of movement and business; turmoil, bustle, stir

verb: to run together or collect in knots or heaps; to crowd together

- to heap or crowd together in a disorderly way

- to throw into mental confusion and disorder

- to utter words confusedly and hurriedly: often, as a habitual defect of utterance


According to Wikipedia

Clutter (advertising): “a term used to describe the phenomenon of a marketplace being full or even overcrowded with products. It also refers to the extreme amount of advertising the average American sees in their daily lives.”


Everyone’s lives have become overrun by clutter. So many things vie for our attention each day. The definitions above emphasize confusion and disorder, but clutter is not always bad. The problem is in wading through the clutter we’re given.


Paradoxically, even though I’m talking about clutter here, this blog is a contribution to the clutter. Is this yet another thing on the web trying to get a piece of your attention? That is not my intent.


I suppose the best way to describe why I’m writing this blog is through a quote I remember from elementary school. “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros features character is celebrating her eleventh birthday and says, “Only today I wish I didn’t have eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box.” Somehow that image, the visual and audible clatter of pennies in a tin band-aid box, stuck with me. For me the pennies aren’t years, but thoughts and ideas. I have so many small copper coins that run through my head, a strange confluence of all the things I’ve seen or studied or dreamed about. I need to have someway to share those pennies before they threaten to overflow my tin. I suppose the fact that it’s a band-aid tin is symbolic too, but you draw your own conclusions on that one.

For what it’s worth, I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts and musings that center around my own personal perspective and perceptions of the world.

Read “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros.

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