Disorder

For some reason the algorithm that governs what shows up in my feed on one of the few social media sites I routinely visit insists on displaying examples of two opposing views of human behavior. One features a lawn maintenance company that promotes itself by offering to clean up overgrown yards, often belonging to elderly or disabled people. In sped up videos veritable jungles and forests of weeds are returned to suburban order and to be fair there is something very satisfying about it. It suggests we humans find the act of creating order where chaos reigned a kindness in and of itself.

That same site also features pictures of the interior of cars that are far beyond filthy, exceeding by many degrees the definition of gross. This thread typically shows the before and after of detailed cars, a marketing promotion akin to the yard cleanup but this subset is strictly about vehicles no one wants to touch, and certainly not without wearing a mask and gloves. It begs the question how it is possible that anyone could acquire, much less live in such vehicular squalor and remain comfortable.

While thinking about this disparity in behaviors I was reminded of the Collyer brothers. If you are unfamiliar, the Collyers were two wealthy New Yorkers who acquired 140 tons of stuff which they piled high throughout their home. Among other things, the brothers had a phobic fear of intruders. Ultimately that cost them their lives. One brother, Langley, was crushed to death when a booby trap of piled up debris he had set against burglars fell on him. The remaining brother, Homer, who was both blind and paralyzed, starved to death shortly after when no one was there to care for him. A gruesome end to bizarre behavior to be sure.

Now I want to say that I described the Collyer's habits as bizarre but they are not as rare as one might think. When my father and mother retired they opened an auction gallery, a byproduct of an antique collecting hobby. Not everything they auctioned was actually antique, however, as they also were deputized to auction off estates of those who died intestate, a process handled by the probate court. Their stories about hoarding were relatively common and also legendary. I experienced one myself while on Spring break from college.

Imagine the scene. Piles of newspapers decades old created a maze one had to thread through to get from one room to the next in a dilapidated wreck of a house. Plastic bags of sundry items were piled high in one room, parts of random mechanical devices in another and so on throughout the house. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to this collection which spilled out the doors to the yard, no catalog or story that explained what had been curated much less why. It took us days to sort through the chaos and we filled an enormous dumpster with debris to be hauled away. I could not help but wonder what had led to this state of affairs. Surely to some degree it reflects mental health issues, depression or obsession. But not for everyone.

There is an old saying that one man's junk is another's treasure and perhaps that has something to do with the compulsion to hoard. It reminds me of a gossipy saying an aunt once said about a neighbor, that she had a box in her closet labelled 'string too short to save'. It isn't a hobby, it isn't about collecting, it is a compulsion. After all what possible value could there be in piles of old newspapers, except as kindling. Notable headlines I can imagine, but not every paper for year upon year. Nevertheless, people save all sorts of things placing a value on them that has no rational basis.

While cleaning out the attic of my late father in law's home I found hundreds of old National Geographic magazines. Darn near killed myself carrying them down a pull down ladder to the dumpster. Along with dozens of boxes filled with 35mm slides and canisters of 8mm film documenting family outings and events which no one in the family still living had any interest in preserving was a trunk filled with seashells. As I said, there is no rational explanation for preserving such things, the reason is entirely emotional. These items were memories, and it does not take much imagination to understand the reason for their collection.

But here's the thing. While it is understandable that one might want to hold on to reminders of the past, filling an attic with them never to be seen or visited again seems very odd. Yet, generations ago people did that. Possessions of any kind, and especially those that carried memories were valued. The act of keeping them had an almost talismanic quality, as if their preservation kept the memories alive, while discarding them was akin to death. Folks simply could not bear the thought of parting with these treasures and generations later they were left to us, their remaining relatives, to discard or preserve.

Now I do not equate people who accumulate empty soda cans, remnants of moldy bologna sandwiches, cigarette butts and paper sacks among other detritus filling their cars with the preservation of memories. Nor do i suggest that every hoarder is storing reminders of their past but there is a common thread I think that explains the fuzzy line between order and disorder. It is, I believe a reflection of the psychic state in which people live. Some, unfortunately like me, are uncomfortable with disorder. We delight in organizing, in cleaning, in making right what is out of kilter. Others are better adapted to the world in which we live, a world that is always moving toward entropy. They are not bothered by a bit of chaos or disorganization that reflects nature at work.

You see the universe is not exactly orderly, but always in a state bordering on chaos, or at least a specific kind of chaos that can transform our carefully manicured lawns into Amazonian jungles, or render a parched desert into a brilliant wildflower filled meadow after a Spring rain. At the extreme edges dwell those who need to create a predictable sense of organization and those who simply do not care to expend any effort in what is inevitably a losing battle. Most live somewhere in the middle, neither expecting imminent disunion nor desiring complacent harmony. Carl Jung put it this way: "In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order."