Читать книгу Glad to Be Human - Irene O'Garden - Страница 21

Cleared for Take-Off

Like dust. Worse. Like rust on my desk: two or three months’ worth of unprocessed paperlife. Not bills, you understand—all the really urgent stuff got done. But filing and questions and forms. Matted, as ever, with perfect excuses: travel, performance, submissions, and family and friends.

(Not only that, but here in the Age of Distraction, we have hyper-super-ultra-extra other ways to duck and cover.)

Pussyfooting around my desk, I thought I was postponing discomfort. Truth is, I felt it every time I entered my office.

Once I faced that heap of indecision, I found two funny pockets of irrationality. First: Stern verdicts are called for: imprison things in the file cabinet or slay them in the wastebasket. Seated at last, sorting and tossing, I smiled. Silly fear, as if letting paper go is letting go of people or events. As if memory were made of paper.

But clearing the desk feels like a waste of creative time. I could be making something new! Rust eats whatever is beneath it. A desk is space for new creation.

Making space is never a waste of time, just as making time is never a waste of space.

The shadow side of our wildly entertaining Age of Distraction corrodes our Age of Satisfaction. But with a bit of inner elbow grease, we are cleared for take-off.