Friday, April 12, 2024

Spring Cleaning?—Start Here Finish Where?


 Spring Cleaning and Other Possible Mistakes


So earlier today it seemed somehow the right thing to do to continue a project in scrolling through the wasteland of once current computer files to determine one of three things: 1) What in the world is in a file named blank 1377, 2) is it anything that has even marginal value now? And 3)what can it teach me about things I think are so important at one moment  and then at some other moment make me shake my head?


After sorting through about 30 files it became evident that each one seemed pretty important at the time they were created and it seemed okay to “save.” Some of the files deserved a “real” name so that it would be possible to find them in the digital junkyard on this computer and a few were prompts for crappy memories that important or not needed to be sent to the place where half your socks go when you do laundry.  Face it we don’t know where those socks go and you don’t know where those files really go—-perhaps in Area 51 there’s a huge warehouse where the government trades socks to some ancient race of aliens for insights on how to become more inefficient in finding reasonable people to run for elected office?  


Nonetheless, a few files were sorted through and. Became a “history” of sorts.  There were some files/events that highlighted great moments—some documents about children getting accepted to college for example, there were some job/work related documents  mostly drafts of things that  were concerns about events that never happened or didn’t happen as predicted, and there were a couple of documents that inspired  thoughts about how to spend some time in the future (and served as a reminder that there is no future—there is only now).  

There was a song lyrics file part of which will be shared below.  In short it seems all this pile of electronic data forms some sort of history of everyday events real and imagined.  Looking back upon these “events”provides some food for current learning (again see the song lyrics below). It also prompted some wondering about the value of “spring cleaning”. 


Do we get rid of some things because, although they have value they remind us that we haven’t made the changes  we were thinking of and therefore there’s no real place for this or that object?  Does Spring Cleaning remind us that we often use energy in ways that unintentionally leave tiny piles of stuff that we move around about a thousand times because  we never quite. Had time to change in the first place?  Which leads to the question—do we just clean it now or do we get angry with ourselves  and get overwhelmed and say “well we cleaned up 30 files, we took a shot at one of those cupboards etc..?  Or perhaps  did we conclude ‘what kind of experimental change in actions will it take so that these. Little piles aren’t here next Spring?”  It seems the third  response won’t leave us thinking about the “mistakes and flaws that might have left us cleaning today and feeling sort of awful about the day when that little mess started.  For in the end every single day has events that seem horrible, seem triumphant, and seem to leave a lot to be decided at some point in the future.  April 12th for example is the day the U.S. Civil War started and that happened because of a mess and left a. Mess we are probably still cleaning up.  The pharmaceutical cure for Polio was deemed safe and became a method for diminishing the impact of that disease.  So looking at those two things—one caused a lot of grief and one prevented a lot.  Also the Russians/soviets sent a man into space on this date and this event spawned all kinds of scientific efforts like makingTang grabbing some rocks from the moon, and providing speculation for conspiracy theories galore.  

The point here I that things happen—some good, some not, and in the case of space…we’re just getting started.  Almost everything that we remember will go through some “Spring Cleaning “ Spiritually anyway and as long as we focus on the current status of the “cleanness or the lesson of the mess and the ability to use decisions to change—well we can avoid feeling the mistakes last forever and that is a valuable part  in seeking peace and joy.  Life changes.. it’s Spring.. Clean a Little..  and Remember. (Song Lyrics)


The wiser I get the more that I’ve found

My body just carries my spirit around

And there’s a new circus around every turn

The best thing to do is pay attention and learn

And pass all these lesson to the next travelers by

Try to enjoy life and understand why

But if why eludes you  don’t wallow in frets

Don’t let your butterfly wings get weighed down with regrets  and 


Breathe and stretch and dance your own dance

And laugh and smile when life gives you a chance 


There’s more to this song, however , it seems appropriate to offer some additional lyrics from a song that I modified (thank you Mac and Reha) way back in 2013 this is  the very long chorus


Life is a set of changes

From time to time they will rearrange us

Sweep us between safe and dangerous 

As the wheel of fortune spins to name us

Cracks our lenses then reframes us

We can walk with saints but no one’s blameless


We can take the raindrop and make the golden ray

Take the magic from the moonlight bring it to the light of day

Find each and every promise lying out there in the fray—


But when we can’t we must make peace with the fact my friend 

That life is just that way.

Hey… what’s this under the couch?  Part of a candy cane?

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