How to be Neat
Most activities, I wait around, counting the minutes until I can go home to be alone to then write about how lonely I am. Supplement time, which I’ve been calling “Supplement City,” is the exception. I love supplement time. There’s a sense of getting somewhere. I have far too many powders, pills, extracts, and gummies in the house but, while peeking around friends’ cabinets, it’s become clear that most of us are roughly in the same nutritional enhancement boat, placebic (I’m not sure that’s a word) though it may be.
The lady I’ve invited into my house recently has brought some kind of Icelandic collagen to contribute to this afternoon ritual. It used to be a morning ritual until I discovered that all of the coffee I’m drinking is resulting, probably, in pissing all of the supplements right out. The menu, at least at the moment, consists of liver pills with cartilage (more collagen) and bone marrow; a mushroom powder with a dozen kinds of fungi such as cordyceps which live off of mountainous caterpillars in China; and a green powder with “antioxidants.” Whatever those are.
After Supplement City, it’s time for primping. I hate having a mole hair but I love plucking a mole hair. That is neither a pleasant image nor sentence. In the beginning of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J. D. Salinger, the introductory character, Muriel Glass, sits by the window where she…”tweeze[s] out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole.” I remember that scene more than any other, despite the suicide (apologies for ruining the story). I think it might be because I’m neat.
These days, we too often refer to neat, I believe, as obsessive-compulsive disorder since one of the symptoms is “needing things orderly and symmetrical.” Who doesn’t want things orderly and symmetrical? Is there a mental affliction with symptoms associated with disorderly and asymmetrical? I think we may just call that a mental health disorder—a mind and therefore surrounding environment that is both chaotic and unbalanced. Well, then, let me tell you how to be neat (which isn’t the same as being comfortable with yourself, in fact, being neat is probably the opposite since its main objective is really to control your surrounding environment for the purposes of avoiding self).
Part 1 - Mind
Write a schedule and stick to it. Now you’ll accomplish all of things you said you were going to accomplish (eventually). My schedule attempts to maximize productivity along with the balance of mindfulness, creativity, fitness, and social connection. You may choose what you wish, however, I suggest you bookend your schedule. Bookending things, in life generally, happens to work very well for the tidy and if you’re not tidy, you’ll do well to start. The article “Bookend Your Day: The Power of Morning and Evening Routines” by Brett & Kate McKay, describes the importance of bookending in the following way…
“Imagine a string with a series of beads on it. The beads represent your goals, relationships, and priorities. Tip the string this way or that way, and the beads easily slide off and onto the floor. But tie a knot on each end of the string, and the beads stay put. Those knots are your morning and evening routines. They keep the priorities of your life from falling apart…”
Here is my schedule. Feel free to lift it freely…
6am - 6:30am - breathe, meditate, cold shower, headstand
6:30 - 7:30am - writing + coffee
7:30 - 9am - breakfast + fresh air
9 - 6pm - work
6 - 7pm - exercise
7 - 8pm - dinner
8 - 9pm - reading
9 - 9:30pm - breathing, meditation, tea
It’s fairly easy conceptually and somewhat difficult to put into practice, unless you write a schedule and stick to the damn thing. This year, I’ve been running a series of customizable 30-day challenges with a number of friends. Some of the daily tasks to complete might be journaling, cold therapy, less frequent social media, calling your parents once a week, or whatever you may want. All are meant, in some ways, to quiet the mind’s incessant planning. So if it’s all planned out, you’ve got the potential for focusing the mind on what it does best: problem solving and creativity.
Part 2 - Body
There are any number of things you could do with your body. I suggest one thing to do with the body, or rather, one thing not to do, is to stare too long at your phone or screen (which we’re both doing right now). The thing to do is to somewhat constantly move. There must be rest of course but if fitness isn’t a part of your routine, you’re bound for chaos in one form or another. My brother, former personal trainer and current physical therapist, came up with four areas of fitness: cardio, core, strength, and mobility.
Cardio seems to be the toughest for most, however, there are also some who rely mostly on cardio and run for miles, forever even, from themselves or to a finish line for the purposes of finishing something (in which I’m fully in support of the latter, not the former) although, I might suggest including some of the other categories here without failing to include cardio at all. I’m a jump rope fellow and start every day of exercise with 10 minutes of jump rope. It’s highly frustrating at first when you suck and eventually, thoroughly meditative.
Core is an obvious one but often times, beer, bread, and other baked goods are easily in reach and are far faster in order to escape life situations that have become unbearable. But do a sit-up, crunch, or what have you for the sake of the midriff.
Any kind of resistance training—whether you choose more compound exercises (multiple muscle groups) like squats, deadlift, pull-ups, or dips, versus isolation exercises like bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, or crunches—I think are acceptable. A personal trainer will have some opinions on that but I say start anywhere. The more diversity and creativity you put into your routines, the greater chance you have at sustaining exercise. Oh, and get a partner to workout with if not a group.
And lastly there is mobility. Just stretch damn it. I prefer a warm up in the beginning (jump rope), then resistance training, followed by a stretch and some rolling out with a foam roller.
Part 3 - Soul
I tend to think of the soul as the interconnectedness of all things, something larger than self. Here are two definitions of the soul…
1. the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.
2. emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance.
I prefer the latter, or perhaps, somewhere in between. How about…the emotional or intellectual part of a human being revealed in a work of art, regarded as an immortal performance? Or something.
Meditation and creativity seem to me the best options for nourishment of the soul. Done first thing in the morning, or whenever you’re most creative, is the time for both, if not continuously throughout the day if you’re that lucky (which I am).
This gets into balance, or Wa, the Japanese concept of harmony. Kaki Okumura, who wrote and illustrated “Wa – The Art of Balance,” describes four areas of Wa as…
1 - Rest
Body: Better sleep, preventing overexertion
Mind: Calmness, managing overwhelm, feeling peace
2 - Nourish
Body: Balanced and filling meals for energy
Mind: Nutrients to support your mental health
3 - Move
Body: Greater strength, endurance, flexibility
Mind: Passion, productivity, creativity, fun
4 - Socialize
Body: Shared experiences and adventures
Mind: Love, sense of belonging, preventing loneliness
She adds the benefits for the body and mind. I might add a third for the soul or whatever you might want to call it. Too much mind and body and you’ve got an imbalance again since you’ll have missed out on something beyond your own selfish routines for the purposes of a greater contribution. (Not that I’m contributing to anything, in fact, most of my days are spent taking specific routes in my building to get to the pool or gym to avoid seeing anyone.)
I suppose this post went off the rails a bit since, in some ways (no, most rather), the entireness of it is about balance as opposed to actual tidiness or neatness. But, fuck it, if you were looking for advice on how to clean your ceiling fan, apparently at Lamps Plus, they get asked “a lot…how should I clean my ceiling fan.” They advise to make sure the fans have come to a complete stop. That is thinking. But holy moly, look at that step two: the pillow case method.
