Category Archives: success

On cleaning

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Though I am not the neatest person that ever lived–I file by the top-down pile method–I certainly appreciate a clean kitchen, a clean bathroom, clean floors, empty waste baskets, and an empty garbage can. Having a dirty, smelly, full garbage can is not only nasty, it attracts bugs, which is something I just cannot abide. Paradoxically, I am dead lazy when it comes to mopping or dusting, but I am good at doing the dishes, emptying waste baskets, and throwing away unwanted papers and junk mail. I can throw things away, but I have to focus to do it. I can’t stand to see some unidentified black speck on the bathroom floor, but I don’t get up in the morning vowing to mop every last floor in the house. And I hate to vacuum, which makes lots of noise and makes me sneeze, both of which are activities I can do without. I profoundly admire those who have the cleaning bug because immaculate floors are one of life’s great pleasures. I tend to leave piles of stuff all over the place, but with a little bit of a nudge (okay, by hitting me with a two-by-four) I can be convinced to go through a pile and throw most of it away. Books are problematic. First, old books smell a bit and they attract dirt, which are two big negatives for clean freaks who see books as one of their big enemies. New books are not as bad as old books. My oldest book was published in 1798. Dirt is both smart and ubiquitous. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it out, it creeps in everywhere–the garage, the entryway, the bathroom, the living-room. You track things in with your shoes, which are always very dirty, and you bring things in from the outside–food, papers, whatever–which will bring dirt with them. Cleaning is one of the monumental non-stop propositions that must be forever on-going or you will lose, miserably. Clothing is a great example of the perpetual nature of cleaning. In just one day a family of four will generate a load of wash, but it’s not just a load a day–the trajectory of dirty clothing is geometric over time, not arithmetic, so dirty clothing multiplies faster than just a load a day, especially in a hot climate like Texas or Florida where sweating is a national pastime. Soap, cleansers, and detergents are our only hope of ever turning the tide on uncleanliness, and in the end, we must look the other way anyway because real cleanliness is a mirage, is unattainable. Yes, we can make things look clean and picked up, but this is a veneer. Don’t look too close because you may find dust on the staircase or a cobweb in a distant corner, not to mention the stray dust-bunny that may roll up at the most inopportune time to spoil your immaculate “better homes and hovels” effect that you have set out for visiting relatives who think you are great housekeeper and a neat freak. All you can do resist the rising tide of dirt, but you will never defeat it. The mere passage of time is enough to bring tons of dust and dirt to your front door even if you aren’t there to dirty things up. Dirt is malicious. By practicing the age-old art of cleaning on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly, we can hold back, just for awhile, the inevitable influx of dirt and grime.

On cleaning

Posted on by

Though I am not the neatest person that ever lived–I file by the top-down pile method–I certainly appreciate a clean kitchen, a clean bathroom, clean floors, empty waste baskets, and an empty garbage can. Having a dirty, smelly, full garbage can is not only nasty, it attracts bugs, which is something I just cannot abide. Paradoxically, I am dead lazy when it comes to mopping or dusting, but I am good at doing the dishes, emptying waste baskets, and throwing away unwanted papers and junk mail. I can throw things away, but I have to focus to do it. I can’t stand to see some unidentified black speck on the bathroom floor, but I don’t get up in the morning vowing to mop every last floor in the house. And I hate to vacuum, which makes lots of noise and makes me sneeze, both of which are activities I can do without. I profoundly admire those who have the cleaning bug because immaculate floors are one of life’s great pleasures. I tend to leave piles of stuff all over the place, but with a little bit of a nudge (okay, by hitting me with a two-by-four) I can be convinced to go through a pile and throw most of it away. Books are problematic. First, old books smell a bit and they attract dirt, which are two big negatives for clean freaks who see books as one of their big enemies. New books are not as bad as old books. My oldest book was published in 1798. Dirt is both smart and ubiquitous. Regardless of how hard you try to keep it out, it creeps in everywhere–the garage, the entryway, the bathroom, the living-room. You track things in with your shoes, which are always very dirty, and you bring things in from the outside–food, papers, whatever–which will bring dirt with them. Cleaning is one of the monumental non-stop propositions that must be forever on-going or you will lose, miserably. Clothing is a great example of the perpetual nature of cleaning. In just one day a family of four will generate a load of wash, but it’s not just a load a day–the trajectory of dirty clothing is geometric over time, not arithmetic, so dirty clothing multiplies faster than just a load a day, especially in a hot climate like Texas or Florida where sweating is a national pastime. Soap, cleansers, and detergents are our only hope of ever turning the tide on uncleanliness, and in the end, we must look the other way anyway because real cleanliness is a mirage, is unattainable. Yes, we can make things look clean and picked up, but this is a veneer. Don’t look too close because you may find dust on the staircase or a cobweb in a distant corner, not to mention the stray dust-bunny that may roll up at the most inopportune time to spoil your immaculate “better homes and hovels” effect that you have set out for visiting relatives who think you are great housekeeper and a neat freak. All you can do resist the rising tide of dirt, but you will never defeat it. The mere passage of time is enough to bring tons of dust and dirt to your front door even if you aren’t there to dirty things up. Dirt is malicious. By practicing the age-old art of cleaning on a daily basis, perhaps even hourly, we can hold back, just for awhile, the inevitable influx of dirt and grime.

On success (or failure?)

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Success is a strange animal. A little bit like bourbon, a little is very tasty and makes your head swim a little, but too much will make you sick and might even kill you. We live in a society obsessed with material success—intellectual success, not so much. We tell our children that only winning will do, and success is gauged by how many wins you have. We sign our children up for every team there is: football, dance, tennis, baseball, debate, color guard, wrestling, track, equestrian, gymnastics, science fair, tiddly-winks, twister, but other than making them take all AP classes, do we worry about their intellectual growth as people? The only possible outcome is victory. As someone who wasn’t very good at sports, or competitions in general, I could never measure success in terms of victories. I measured my success in terms of participation. Participation is great, of course, but the accolades go the victors, not the losers, not the also-rans. In many senses, I am one of an enormous anonymous multitude plodding along doing my thing. People who live in the public eye as movie stars or rock stars or politicians let popular success go to their heads. I’m thinking about people like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson. The pressure of living in public 24/7 is just too great for any one person to tolerate for any expended period. Eventually, they needed drugs to sleep and drugs to wake up. Privacy was impossible, and living like a normal person was a fantasy. Eventually, all three imploded under the stress and died due to drug overdoses. Students who are very successful in high school and college always run a similar risk of risk of believing their own press clippings. I much prefer to students who have garnered fewer accolades, and have substituted hard work for genius. Hard work in education is always more valuable than genius. The genius might have a great insight and be horrible glib and charismatic, but the hard worker will finish their thesis or dissertation, and the genius will struggle and may never finish. The Einsteins of the world prove the rule: they are so rare that they stand out as oddballs and iconoclasts. Real success, the kind of success that endures, the kind that matters, is based on hard work and dedication. Having a big ego will only ever get in your way, and if you actually think you are star in your field, you are probably only a legend in your own mind. There is always someone else who writes better, has more insight, and has a better job than you do. All success is fleeting and cruel, demanding a high price of those who would pray at that altar. Real success is not about getting trophies or medals, gold records or money. Real success is not about receiving any material goods at all. Success is about the journey, doing the work, demonstrating loyalty and humility, working in the shadows, finishing a job, turning in a paper, getting a degree. Success, any success, is fleeting and cruel and devours the successful from the inside out. Real success is never measured; it is lived on a day-to-day basis, based on humility and respect for those around you, and the daily assurance that you owe all of your success to the kindness of others.