Quick: Neat Freak vs. "Creative Disorder"?

I know I've loaded the "decision" of this post by using the labels above, but I mean no prejudice. I simply cannot remember the characterization for the "neat" side of the scale from my college rooming form. Frankly, I think "creative disorder" was employed to refrain from such pejorative terms as "slob" or, worse, "pig." But whether you seek "spick-and-span" in your environment, or you cannot be happy unless surrounded by (apparent) clutter, we all know whereof I speak: people tend to be either neat or messy - with the caveat that most people are somewhat neat and somewhat messy, often for different things, or under different circumstances.

Is this a matter of temperament or one of choice? If it's a matter of temperament, does that mean we have no choice?

Are you a naturally messy person, who thrives, as the expression goes, in the disorder? Emerging with comfort and creativity?

Are you a naturally neat person, whose uncluttered environment yields an uncluttered mind? For whom clean surfaces is an indication of well-being?

My guess is that most people would like to climb out from under the clutter, but find themselves chasing a moving train (this will happen if you naturally leave your possessions out - where you use them - instead of returning them to their proper abodes...or if you don't have a designated home for your possessions, if only because you don't have the proper receptacles or room for your things (there's a reason The Container Store makes a killing (and the "organizer" sections of Target, Wal-Mart, etc. as well)). And most other people would like to loosen up a little, and rest easy despite the presence of dishes in the sink overnight (for example) or unmade beds all day.

It's the need for those efforts, both successful and unsatisfied, that suggest that nature may play the stronger role in our propensities towards neatness/disorder. But we can also conquer ourselves - with enough will (or so we may choose to believe).

Personally, I thrive best in a pristine environment, though I'm able to close my eyes to some degree of jumbled possessions in the public arena.

PS: For the sake of this post, my assumption is that both kinds of people are hygienic in a healthy way. As in: no grossness, but tidy people who are not compulsive, and sterile surfaces under the messy mess.

Go Ye and Repent! (or maybe just watch movies)

When givens are choices....and choices givens.

I'm remembering that one person's deepest obligations are another's "optional."

For example: I once knew a young woman whose approach to potential imagined financial crisis was to rely on the charity of the charitable. To me, the notion was an anathema. As far as I was concerned, the way to handle potential imagined financial crisis was to work hard now, when no crisis loomed, and save carefully, not only for the "rainy day," but to safeguard against hurricanes.

Doesn't it happen to you, now and again? You meet someone and discover their norms are utterly the opposite of your own and neither of you can reconcile to even the possibility of the other's approach?

In the case that spurs this post, however, there are no real surprises. On this eve of Yom Kippur, I can acknowledge that I never thought all Jews treat the day as one of fasting and repentance and prayer. I have always known Jews for whom Yom Kippur was a day like any other. For most of American Jewry, I believe that is the case.

אבינו מלכנו...

שתהא השעה הזאת שעת רחמאים ועת רצון מלפניך

For the State of Israel, however, Yom Kippur is a national holiday, albeit not the most festive one on the calendar. The entire country shuts down:

• Buses and stores and recreational sites (and businesses) that are open throughout the country (though not in Jerusalem, and select other places) on any given Sabbath of the year are closed on Yom Kippur (it would seem that it is not for nothing that the Bible dubs the day "shabbat shabbaton" - the Sabbath of Sabbaths (the Sabbath to beat all Sabbaths?) - though I'm fairly certain (ahem) that the biblical epithet pre-dates the Israeli practice). 
• The television channels have no programming (can you imagine, no T.V.? - though cable from outside of the country is available to subscribers). 
• The radio stations do not broadcast - they close off the year by wishing everyone a good year, with the traditional greeting of "G'mar chatimah tovah" - A good sealing in the famous Book of Life - and the playing of Hatikvah, the national anthem (they begin broadcasting again with the hourly news report which permeates every other Israeli day: "Shalom Yisrael...henei ha-chadashot mi-Kol Yisrael..." (Hello Israel...Here is the news from the Voice of Israel...)
• The streets are free of cars - really! See here: 24 hours of a busy Tel Aviv intersection (with thanks N, who directed me to it). In fact, the Israeli news reports on the number of bicycle accidents on Yom Kippur. The rest of the year, the concern is the crazy high number of car accidents. But on Yom Kippur, kids on bikes rule the roads - and they take wild advantage (The other important statistic reported every year in the aftermath of Yom Kippur is how many babies were born over the course of the day - another statistic not reported any other day of the year, as far as I know. I'm fairly certain that more women go into labor on Yom Kippur because fasting induces labor (and for someone whose due-date is near, the fast is (usually) not considered dangerous, so the pregnancy does not offer a medical exemption. But I believe the news report is a reminder of the quintessential nature of the Jewish state. That is: we're all in this together, we Jews, in our tiny country, and we rejoice in the birth of our children).

So, Yom Kippur is pretty much impossible to avoid in Israel. But that does not mean that everyone "keeps" Yom Kippur. 

A few months ago, I startled an Israeli with the notion that I indeed fast, and not only on Yom Kippur, but the other minor fasts that are sprinkled throughout the Jewish calendar. In turn, he startled me with the fact that he had grown up eating on Yom Kippur - he was not rejecting the religion of his forefathers; rather, he'd been raised with a strong tradition of Judaism that did not include barely a whit of observance.

More recently (as in, this week), I've been taking note of the way people who are ostensibly not religious deal with Yom Kippur. One guy said - yes, he fasts. He and his family have a big meal beforehand, rendering the fast "not that hard." Someone else explained that she used to fast, but she felt that it was wrong to do so, since she basically spends the day hanging out watching movies, and just not eating. So she stopped not eating, rather than feel hypocritical in her lack of practice (she acknowledges, however, that she would NEVER get in a car on Yom Kippur - "people would look at you! It's just not done"). Someone else has been unintentionally incorporating Yom Kippur into her entire year, excusing any exception to general level of observance (mostly kosher, for example) as peccadilloes to make sure she has something to repent for (she does fast).

On the opposite side of the spectrum, some folks have been rising early to recite Selihot (poetic penitential passages written in the Middle Ages) for the past couple of weeks (Sephardic Jews for the past month +). In yeshivot, there has been in-depth study of the laws of the day, and the manner in which it was observed in days of yore, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, and animal sacrifice was a focus of the day. And many people have been giving serious consideration to their conduct of the past year...resolving to reform their lapses of practice, and affirming their desire to improve themselves. The confessional recited in the Yom Kippur service makes self-reflection an integral part of the day - for those who participate in the Yom Kippur service.

And that's the point: for some, the fast of Yom Kippur with all of the trappings is a given, and not fasting is unheard of. For others, fasting on Yom Kippur is a bizarre, antiquated, quaint notion. And for many, it is optional, whether a preferred ideal or attempted at whim. Personally, I found it moving when I rode a post-Yom Kippur bus one year, and overheard a weathered gent proclaim with pride that he indeed had made it through the whole fast, and had never done so before.

תשובה ותפילה וצדקה

מעבירין את רוע הגזרה

וכן יהי רצון.

Of course, what is key here is the sense of obligation - whether to fast or to eat. In truth, we are fortunate that every approach is a matter of choice. As compared to past eras when the non-Jewish governing authority forbade the celebration of the Jewish holidays. Or the concentration camps, in which any morsel of food sustained life, which trumped the obligation to fast, though it dampened Jewish pride (worse, the Nazis offered more, better food on Yom Kippur, though not everyone ate). Or the 1973 Yom Kippur War that pulled Israel's reserve army from the synagogues. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that keeping Yom Kippur in a serious way is easy in any age, and I'm not sure everyone who does so is thrilled by the experience. Still, for all that religious sensibilities or lack thereof may dictate a person's practice, in this day and age, at least in Israel, people do whatever they want....or rather whatever they choose - even when they treat their practice as a given. 

As with so much, the day will largely be what we make it.

Here's a shabby approximation of the sun as I expect to see it setting, when Yom Kippur is coming to a close (at least, if previous years are any predictor):

(http://almostaliyah.blogspot.com/2007/11/sunset-from-neve-daniel.html)
Post-fast PS: Turns out it was a cloudy day, with the glorious sun ducking/hidden by purpley grey.

G'mar chatimah tovah.

Continuing Along with Aplomb

And then there are the things that are beyond our control... Not hurricanes or earthquakes or blizzards, that insurance companies call "acts of God." Not terminal illness, which is a terrible enough removal of choice to merit its own post. Not even the limitations with which each of us are born (I might bemoan my inability to be an NBA ball player, but at 4'10", it was never going to happen).

Rather, the things that are beyond our control that have significant impact on our lives...the things we don't expect, and don't plan for, but suffer or rejoice in the changes they effect, and they may well make "all the difference."

A nice example is winning the lottery (with a whopping payoff, I mean). I'm reasonably certain that people don't really expect to win the lottery when they buy their tickets. Yet a windfall can change a person's life (I know, I know, all kinds of lottery winners mismanage their money, but let's go with the dream of winning big and living better). An unpleasant example is discovering that your significant other is cheating on you...with your best friend, sibling, or a stranger. No matter whom, the discovery wreaks havoc, and the circumstances themselves are out of your control.

More complicated are the examples that pepper most people's lives. Not finding the "right one" to marry (assuming you want to marry)...not having children on your desired schedule...having children with disabilities...losing a job at which you excel because of "the economy, stupid!" Any one of these turns of events has an element of the tragic to it, because it twists the path of your life in directions that you had not intended or expected or desired.

And any one of these turns of events is reason to mope - at least, on occasion, and for some, to be morose. But others handle the unexpected changes with such poise that their life's challenges appear ideal (or at least wonderful) to the beholder. And that is the point - that each of these unexpected changes to the course of one's life influence the details of the day-to-day. For though one can get stuck in the morass of upset from the unexpected, one can instead continue along, with aplomb, living the life we are given. For example:

• The single person who makes the most of his or her time....in career or creative endeavor or academic endeavor or social action or travel or self-development (it's all self-development, really!).
• The childless couple who does similarly...living among those who have children (even many children) and relish their opportunities that the demands of children would not have permitted.
• The family with a disabled child that demonstrates a capacity for loving and giving and good humor (any child allows for the same, of course, but some "special children" take the cake...literally, if you let them!).
• The unemployed person who uses the loss of job as an opportunity to pursue his or her true interests, and develops himself or herself beyond his or her previous expectations.

I know several who are described by each of the above circumstances...and I would love to tell their stories in greater detail - primarily because not one of the people I am thinking of may be considered a "Pollyanna." They are not "making the best of a bad situation" (though perhaps they truly are). Rather, they live each day...putting one foot in front of the other, handling whatever has come their way. But I don't want to trespass on their privacy either. Suffice it to say that one unmarried woman went to college, and then graduate school, at the age of 25, instead of continue to twiddle her thumbs (she learned to roller blade too, and in the years afterwards, did marry and have children). Another woman used her time "between jobs" to delve into the art of baking bread. One father of a disabled child recounts his son's startling artistic talent with pride (instead of bemoaning the boy's handicaps), and a mother of another disabled child told me that the family is lucky he is so lovable. He IS lovable; they are lucky. But what impresses me is that her comment acknowledges the hardship she faces in the very same breath that she compliments her son.

I'm not sure that one achieves poise with effort (isn't the wonder of poise that it is effortless?), but if I could manage the challenges in my own life not by confronting them, but by simply living them, day-to-day, with grace and aplomb, I might deem them conquered.