There are a lot of words that could be used to describe me, but neat is not one of them! Since a young age, I have been what you might call a very cluttered individual. I am famous for my piles -- both my computer room and bedroom have several piles of papers, books and whatnot scattered around each room. (My penchant for clutter rarely causes any marital discord because my wife is just as cluttered, if not more, than I am!)
As a youngster, my mother and I went round and round about the lack of neatness in my bedroom. My mom referred to it as a constant mess; I more thought of it as semi-organized clutter! While mother could rarely find anything she was looking for in my room, it didn't take me long at all...once I ascertained the appropriate pile to look in. :-D
By the time I reached my teens, my mom waved the white flag. She no longer hassled me about the disarray in my room, but she put her foot down in two other areas: 1) I had to try to be quasi-neat in the shared space in the rest of our house and 2) While I could choose to live in semi-organized clutter in my own space, I had to be neat as a pin when I visited in other people's homes. I generally acceded to both requests as I understood intuitively that what was okay by me was not necessarily okay by others.
It would be nice if our civilization could abide by these rules as well. Throughout our history we have turned much of our planet into a giant landfill and cesspool as we nonchalantly toss aside all the various vestiges of society that we no longer have use for.
Unfortunately, not only have we made an utter mess of the commons here on Mother Earth, but, when we go visiting outside of our immediate atmosphere, we just as carelessly toss things to and fro. As of July, the US Space Surveillance Network reports that there are 16,094 man-made objects floating around in space.
Space junk isn't quite the same thing as earth junk. The latter often is tossed here and there and that's where it stays. The former, however, can travel around "the planet at speeds of 28,164km/h." Traveling at that high rate of speed, it's not the kind of thing a person would like to have fall on them or a spacecraft would want to collide with.
While a parent can demand that their progeny must go clean up their room, who is going to tell humanity to pick up our debris lodged in space? More importantly, even if we had a mind to rectify our sloven behavior, how would we clean it up?
As a youngster, my mother and I went round and round about the lack of neatness in my bedroom. My mom referred to it as a constant mess; I more thought of it as semi-organized clutter! While mother could rarely find anything she was looking for in my room, it didn't take me long at all...once I ascertained the appropriate pile to look in. :-D
By the time I reached my teens, my mom waved the white flag. She no longer hassled me about the disarray in my room, but she put her foot down in two other areas: 1) I had to try to be quasi-neat in the shared space in the rest of our house and 2) While I could choose to live in semi-organized clutter in my own space, I had to be neat as a pin when I visited in other people's homes. I generally acceded to both requests as I understood intuitively that what was okay by me was not necessarily okay by others.
It would be nice if our civilization could abide by these rules as well. Throughout our history we have turned much of our planet into a giant landfill and cesspool as we nonchalantly toss aside all the various vestiges of society that we no longer have use for.
Unfortunately, not only have we made an utter mess of the commons here on Mother Earth, but, when we go visiting outside of our immediate atmosphere, we just as carelessly toss things to and fro. As of July, the US Space Surveillance Network reports that there are 16,094 man-made objects floating around in space.
Space junk isn't quite the same thing as earth junk. The latter often is tossed here and there and that's where it stays. The former, however, can travel around "the planet at speeds of 28,164km/h." Traveling at that high rate of speed, it's not the kind of thing a person would like to have fall on them or a spacecraft would want to collide with.
While a parent can demand that their progeny must go clean up their room, who is going to tell humanity to pick up our debris lodged in space? More importantly, even if we had a mind to rectify our sloven behavior, how would we clean it up?
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