Wednesday Wanderings

My life is a complex balance of order and chaos.  Some areas are casual, spontaneous, driven by inspiration or impulse; other areas are measured, organized, sometimes overly indexed.  To use a term that has become heavily cliche, but was a huge part of my childhood:  my world is equally right-brained and left-brained.  I have always joked that with everything going on in my head at all times, if I didn't have some structure, I would go crazy.  Maybe it's not a joke ...

I'm a writer, harp performer, pastry chef / chef - do I even need to explain how creative chaos dances through my life?  (Though I, personally, cannot dance.  I am a giant clutz.)  I am always puttering around with something; last night, before I fell asleep, I was plotting ingredient combinations for dinner meals.

Much of the structure and routine I impose is a matter of pragmatism.  I use to-do lists on my computer because with the six different directions I'm going in at any one time, I could easily forget something if it isn't written down.  Conversely, lists also combat my workaholic tendencies.  When I was in school, I used my to-do lists to tell me when to stop:  just these chapters, just this quiz today; others assigned for tomorrow.  Otherwise, I would keep reading and doing assignments until late at night, leaving myself no time to relax.

It creates efficiency, too:  when I'm not devoting braincells to, for instance, how to file my documents, those braincells can go off and do other things.  And believe me, they have plenty to do.  On the other hand, I can't deny that in some cases, I just feel more comfortable with structure.

Still, there are times to throw the self-imposed rulebook out the window, and ultimately, as rigid as my plans look, I change them when I feel something else would serve me better.  But I always have calculated reasons for doing so ... though they may be based on nebulous feelings ...

Oh, whatever.