Making a Mess

I’m making a mess. It’s how you get from here to there.

Most of the meaningful effort in life is messy. Things have to be undone, broken, critiqued to death, and generally drawn and quartered until everyone is sore, angry, broken and raw. But the whole point of it is to come to a conclusion, to get to the meat of the thing and achieve something.

I think I have always been frustrated by the accusation of being closed minded or being told to be more open minded, not because I’m not open to new ideas or other perspectives. It’s frustrating for a few reasons, but in this particular context, I mean that it’s frustrating because… it’s often considered the end in and of itself. Being open-minded is considered the great virtue.

But it mistakes a tool for a purpose. A means for an ends. Being critical or analytical and hearing everything out is a state of consideration. But to always remain perpetually unresolved on everything leaves one, at least this one, with a feeling of incompleteness and a lack of the kind of surety that comes from knowing. Because if the only thing you can ever know is that you don’t know, you can never finish, you can never build off of your knowledge and achieve. You can never arrive and gain from your effort.

At some point you need to finish the job, achieve the ends, and enjoy the fruit of the mess you made.

At least I do.