The Conceit Of Filing

Its not that I'm completely against order and organization. Its not even that I'm particularly lazy, unwilling to put in the effort to achieve a degree of order. But for some reason I can't stand filing, an act most synonymous with order and organization. It's like an itch. A hard bit of popcorn shell in my gums. But that isn't a proper analog to my feeling on the matter.  That bit of shell actually is bothersome and uncomfortable. Stacks of paper and drawers of folders can hardly make one physically uncomfortable. Unless of course one were underneath a stack or stuffed in a drawer. And while that may be a metaphorical approach to my discomfort with the thing, its only representative of a small piece. A metaphorical hard bit of popcorn, stuffed between the gums. The problem is that, in this metaphor, I may be the hard bit, and the gums. The stack and the drawer.

The paper doesn't affront me. That stack of re-purposed plant fibers. That simian organization of a natural order. Imprinted with inks of similar origin. It's presence is not offending in the slightest...okay...maybe a bit. But the intention. That is the scrape. A massive, relatively massive, collection of...what? I guess thoughts, surely numbers, but for me, nothing?

Today, outside my office, I searched among the fallen leaves of a small oak tree. I found huge acorns beneath them. I had been watching one acorn grow for months. But I hadn't looked recently. When I did search, I found that the single massive acorn I had been looking at for weeks had fallen. As had many that I hadn't seen, or even conceived. These acorns not only grew without my involvement, they fell at a precise time. The tree somehow chose to live without my regard. I wasn't there for that decisive moment. But the tree, the acorns, the world functioned without me. I picked out the largest, cracked the shell and ate half.

Why the fuck can't these collections of wood fiber, bleached white, function without me? Why can't these words of thought percolate and diffuse into the world without my hand? Instead of wondering about my originality? About my meaning? These are questions I beat myself against.

But why should I be so bothered? There isn't an obvious depth of meaning to how things choose to be ordered. Nothing chooses to be ordered. Nothing stacks on purpose. Not by itself. As fall comes upon the deciduous trees their leaves stiffen, changer color, and fall. They fall according to a specific order, an organization, that wasn't created with intent. First leaf fallen beneath every leaf after, eldest first. All the trees, regardless of species agree to this order. The silts of a mighty sea slowly settle, great upheavals of volcanism explode, forming stones, that lay as they settle formed by sequence, but never intent. And so our soil is built. Without a damn word from me or anyone else. And that makes acorns. And all this functions just fine without any intervention.

But isn't that our way? To observe. To watch, hands weaving like a dirty fly's, in expectation. In expectation of an understanding of the order we are a part of, in order to subvert it? I'm sure it is my way. The cold calculation of it. That way which we would love to attribute to all of creation. That it is completely calculating. Cold and passionless. But creation, the universe, all of it doesn't fucking care, and could never know passion. Energy, in it's myriad forms is just as good as all encompassing entropy. It already has it figured out. It doesn't calculate. It does not plan. These things. These shortsighted things don't even matter to the whole. All of it is here, and there. All of it is then, now, and soon. And somehow the leaves that fall, and the silts that gather, have completely encompassed anything mankind has ever created. Without even trying they have included all of our shortsighted victories. Our fist raised heights. And our blood drenched depths. And the uncomfortable quiet in between.

But yet I stack and file these collections of papers. These historically meaningless words. These hopeless collections of wood fiber. Cut from lifeforms that had a greater potential than nearly anything that could be written upon them. And I realize that my problem with filing is the conceit. The absolute collective hubris. We watch, we see, we mimic. But we fall so short.

And that hubris turns upon us. We use this mimicry of natural order to slowly compartmentalize everything we know. To put everything in its intended place. Plants, animals, earth and, most especially, people. And we are finite in our organization. Finite in actuality. And that is the greatest failing. People base their experience off the small vignette of their conscious years. Combined with an ever changing future and nearly incomprehensible past, we decide where everything belongs right now. What is valuable. What is neutral. And what must be destroyed.

And we classify all things this way. All things and all people. This one good. That one bad.  That one doesn't even matter. She is expected to live this way, to expect this, and we will teach her so. He is expected to live this way, to expect this, and we will teach him so. This person doesn't conform, this person doesn't fit. That means they aren't a person. That means they will be ignored. Or destroyed. They don't fit in the drawer. They cannot be filed. They do not belong. They are not needed. Shred them. To fall and stack. In the order that they fell. Like leaves. Or pieces of paper. Lost words on their face. A hard bit, between the gums.

I fucking hate filing.

The Little Engine That Could and Vegan Vampirism: A Court Ordered Rambling

I remember the cover most. The blue locomotive with a bright smiling face on the stack. The boy in overalls next to a girl in a dress and bonnet, the little dog running to get ahead of the train. And the toy clown with the pointy hat waving at them from the coal box, the car behind him filled with a menagerie of toy animals. The image, as was intended, was quite appealing to a child of four. It has stuck with me the many years since, and become emblematic in a way, as it is always the first thing to come to mind when I think of trains.

Even more appealing were the contents of this train. Talking toys, candy and fruit, the cabins were brimming with such wonderful stuff. Upon re-reading the story I found there was also spinach for some reason. I wonder why I forgot about that? Re-reading it also left a farcical impression of this train. Why are there no people on this train? Who is the conductor? Why do the good little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain need candy, fruit, and spinach so much? Are they vegans?

The meat of the story involves the three engines that happen upon the troubled train. The first, a fancy passenger engine, refuses to help out of arrogance. The second, a large freight engine, believes the job is beneath him. And the third, rusty and old, is too tired. All of these engines are trapped in their roles, trapped by their perceptions of themselves, and indeed trapped by the reader's perceptions. They are rigidly defined constructs, their existence focused under a narrow lens. All three exist for a single purpose, and anything outside that is beyond their comprehension. They don't even wonder about it, and neither should the reader.

The hero, or rather heroine, of the story is the fourth and final engine that shows up. Luckily for the toys and their haul of candy and spinach, this engine is used to switch trains in the yard. That's right, this is an engine that specializes in pulling other engines; a tow train. Fortunately this task doesn't fall too far outside the blue engine's realm of experience. She hasn't been over the mountain before, but she has pulled an engine or two in her day. So she agrees to help. Then comes the titular “I think I can,” up the hill refrain, ending in the “I thought I could” down the hill segment. End story. Presumably the good vegan boys and girls on the other side of the mountain get their talking toys, fruit, candy, and delicious spinach.

The odd part of the story is that the toys mention the need to deliver the train's fantastic cargo before the children on the other side of the mountain awaken. I guess this would imply that it was nighttime. The illustrations are quite bright and sunny though. I'm not really sure what's going on here. Is it a simple mistake? Are we peering into some dream world? Do the vegan children have an aversion to sunlight? Are they vampires? Vegan vampires? There doesn't seem to be enough information even to infer. The original 1930 publication of the story doesn't include any mention of a deadline. It just takes for granted that there are talking toys and trains in the world of the story. I kinda like that better. Logic be damned just tell me a good story. You're apt to get me talking about vegan vampire children and possessed toys if you don't allow me suspend my disbelief naturally.

So what's the takeaway for a 29-year-old me after reading this story again? For one thing, I think there should have been bacon in addition to everything else on that train. Also, as I try to apply logic to hypothetical situations the undead start popping up. That's a bit strange really. But most of all, I'm left thinking about roles in society, and how they are used to define an individual or even groups of individuals. How so very much is lost when you choose your definition or when one is chosen for you.

One thing that bothered me about the story is how rigidly defined the characters are. We know everything about them within a few sentences. I realize this is a children's book, but where are all the real people? Where are vibrant and delightfully flawed creatures that share existence with me? Those represented in the story are robotic by comparison. They don't have dreams or aspirations. They don't have real emotions. They can never know failure, so they can't know triumph. Even the little blue engine, our heroine, doesn't truthfully excel. She is just finishing a job that someone else started. She's working overtime, and her only payment is a sense of accomplishment. And though there isn't anything wrong with that, it hardly inspires greatness. At the end of the story she is still who she was at the beginning, her journey a distraction and anything but transforming. It is admirable that she helped the needy. But when she gets back to the yard there are still trains that need to be switched. And in the end that is who she is.

An industrial society values individuals that conform to the roles imposed by industry and it's organization. A machine does enjoy it's cogs, gears, and levers. But our society is post-industrial. We don't strive for conformity as individuals any longer. We value the unique, the innovative, and the progressive now. People are not expected to fill one role, they are expected to fill many. A bartender is also an assistant football coach and a musician. An artist is also a writer and a waitress. An actor is also a director and a producer. A teacher is also a veterinarian and a gardener. Information flows much more freely in this era. Entire libraries of knowledge are at our fingertips. I found both editions of, “The Little Engine That Could,” in less than five minutes on Google, while simultaneously reading about the election and looking at funny pictures of cats. You can't just be a little engine anymore. You have to be the little engine, the freight engine, and the toy clown.

Try it. Ask someone young what they do. They'll answer in several sentences. Press them further and they'll tell you even more. But you will never hear them say that they are one thing. You'll never hear one answer.