Disorganization
I attended a meeting recently that was almost like a free for all. There was little in the way of adherence to Roberts Rules of Order and I had a hard time figuring out exactly where we were on the agenda. Yes there was an agenda. Now I am not generally an orderly person. People look at my desk shake their heads and wonder, how I or anyone could get anything done with a mess like that. I sometimes wonder myself, though things have gotten a bit better ever since I stop working. It might be less multiple things to do all at once, or maybe a slower pace, but regardless I am more ordered than when I had a desk at work. At work sometimes things were out of control, at home (this is a big shocker) I have file drawers. Glory me, it is wonderful thing to occasionally put things where one can find them. Though it does reduce the adventure of life and well I do like adventure.
Anyway, this meeting was crazy, two and three people talking at once, ideas being approved without a vote. I do not know how many times I heard the consensus. As if anyone could ever have determined a consensus about anything. If that was consensus then I need to revisit the word and ask Webster’s for an update.
I would not call it consensus per say. Nor was it really agreement, rather closer to exhaustion. Because of the various points being made, I believe everyone who had an opinion, thought the group would carry out their instructions. In other words consensus delayed until another day.
Now I am not suggesting that consensus will not be met. I think in the end pretty much whatever happens will not be bad, or even good, it will just be something. So the group decided to move on and since the direction is undetermined, I suspect the real direction will be decided whenever someone decides to do something.. If that sounds like a crazy way to do business, well it is.
I never thought I would desire order very much. At 18 I was here there and everywhere poking my nose in every place I could find even many it did not belong. At 35 I was a father of two sons and frankly I thought I had all the order I could stand. And at 56, now I seem to crave order, if nowhere else at least in meetings. My 18 year old self studied the book “Rules for Radicals” Sal Alinsky a primer on how to disrupt meetings in order to get the social and political elite of a community to feel discomfort in formal meetings. I still have my 1976 copy of the book and it is a treasure to me first because I wanted to know how to disrupt meetings and then just a few years later, how to stop them from being disrupted. It is amazing when you go from being the disrupter to being the disrupted and you use the same book for instructions. Mr. Alinsky would likely chafe at the thought that his writings were used to learn how to maintain order.
I wonder if part of my bristling about chaos isn’t diabetes? No not diabetes per say, rather the stuff that comes along with diabetes. The syringes, sensors, reservoirs, pills, sets, tubes, alcohol pads, test strips, and meters that in some part fill all of our lives. This morning while contemplating this dribble, I looked in my cabinet where I keep my Diacrap and what I saw was a somewhat organized, well ok kind of an organized group of shelves and nonsense that spreads into one base cabinet and ¾ of one wall cabinet.
I have so much stuff it is difficult to keep it straight and almost every month more arrives. There is a song in the film version of Tommy with the lyric there is more at the door. Sometimes when I look at those boxes and bottles I get this sense that I didn’t so much get diabetes, as much as I got a UPS depot. Sure Diabetes may be the reason, but Diacrap is the outcome of the disease.
So maybe my real need for order isn’t because I changed. Maybe I don’t need to blame Mr. Alinsky, or getting order. Maybe my real desire for order is born from the UPS man, the pharmacist, the test strip supplier, and the meter makers. Maybe the real change is the Diacrap. Now Diacrap that is an affliction if I have ever heard of one.
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