order in the house! did your parents tell you to clean up your room when you were little? and if so, did you ask why? if you slept in the living room, it would have made sense. but suppose you had a personal room. your one and only room, with a "keep out" sign on one side of the door and a random alternative band poster on the other. did they still come in and tell you to clean your room? mine did. mine let me paint, stick posters, drill, repaint my walls...and still told me to clean my room. well, i asked why. and they said the dust was unhealthy. and i said i'll dust. and then they said i should also put my things in order. and i asked why again. and so they said it will look nicer. and i said i think it looks nice this way, with clothes over books over toys over videos over mounds and mounds of unidentified stuff. so they gave up.
it's really such a teenager cliche. the whole clean-your-room business. and as teenagers grow into parents, they repeat the cliche, forgetting how silly it all was. forgetting there are more important things like sorting out clothes. a child should have order in his life. should have order in his thoughts, maybe in his dreams, sometimes in his goals. in my chaos i always find my stuff. and it's not a lie. i really have a system. all us chaos-lovers have. because people through their nature like order. unfortunately, parents and, well, adults in general, like 'nice' much more. because as you grow into a parent you hope your living will be nice and quiet and everything will be in its place. starting with your offspring's room.