In simpler terms, everything not imposed upon by a force of sufficient magnitude to protect/ sustain or improve it tends to degenerate to its most elemental parts or “natural” state within the universe. From dust we are made [but not without enormous investments of externally-derived energy] and to dust we return. Iron rusts.
In a progressive world, we “mine” valuable building materials and other resources from very heterogeneous substrata and “purify” them – i.e., separate them from the surrounding or impinging detritus – for useful application: Iron (oxide) ore is heated with coke to melt the iron, remove the oxygen and separate it from the slag to create metallic iron and steel. Fortunately, iron is one of the more prevalent elements in the earth. Rarer elements require more extensive mining and processing.
I have often marveled at how “degenerate” it is of human-kind to go to all the trouble of mining and purifying elements – an energy-extensive and capital-intensive process – only to toss them away into landfills following their “useful life” … a dead-ending process requiring repeated mining and processing of diminishing sources of raw materials which, again, simply end up in landfills. [An only slightly extended consideration gives one the notion that someday landfills will become the new mining sites for half-raw materials! It is notable that during World War II recycling of aluminum and copper was carried out with patriotic fervor. Today, increasing numbers of communities and corporations have begun aggressive recycling programs which help keep highly processed resources in re-purposeful circulation.]
The point of this communication is that my desk frequently looks like a landfill – a combined victim of derelict engineering and the Second Law. All sorts of “stuff”, once purified and variably élanogenic*, ends up loosely amalgamated in an increasingly ore-like pile of “unélanogenic slag”. From this ungainly amalgamation, I have to “mine” the slowly disintegrating “ore” to resurrect useful fragments for – hopefully – purposeful application.
NOTE: The rationale for compilation of the amalgamation is, of course, “need-to-know” and “just-in-time” processing: There’s no need to “process” any of it until I “need-to-know” whatever is buried there, and, knowing it’s all in one place, I can go to a single source for “just-in-time” processing. How cool is that?!
Unfortunately, the slag gets deeper and the mining becomes more difficult with time.
An alternative to the amalgamation strategy is to spread everything a single-layer deep across as many horizontal surfaces as one can find or create. In this fashion, everything is perennially visible and immediately available. I’ve also taken this strategy far beyond reasonability. Unfortunately, everything singularly horizontalized is constantly “in the way” of everything else simply by sheer force of omnipresence on the radar. And a limited surface area is a significant navigational constraint. Even the “cutting room floor” needs a clear table upon which one may make a clean cut!
So how do we become more strategically “stuff savvy” and keep it all straight?
I think we can use the “Mining-Enrichment-Recycling” paradigm to help keep things at least categorically “friable” – i.e., not only keeping mineral, animal and vegetable separate but sub-classifying to at least a semi-functional level (e.g., short of extreme unction OCD).
Keep your élanogenic assets refinably mineable and you will have taken the first step toward organizational sanity. Quartermaster
*elanogenic: provides energizing fodder for the vitality of life … as in élan vital
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