Clearing out the closet

But first a note,

    When I first started to write my Ramblings the idea was just to jot down my thoughts, feelings and viewpoints of whatever was foremost in my mind at the time, which is in essence still what I am doing.

However my Ramblings have seemed to have naturally divided themselves into two distinct, or should that be indistinct, areas.

Firstly those Ramblings which focus on writing; where I hope to offer encouragement, insight and tips of this black art to other writers and would be penmen, (if I can say that without being politically incorrect?), and tell of my struggles, fears and incidents along the way. (Writing can be isolating and lonely at times). In hindsight I should have known that many of my Ramblings would take this path, after all I am a writer. It is what I do.

The second avenue of my Ramblings are more in tune with my original intention to waffle-on about a varied assortment of unconnected and random topics, like this one!

So I have, in a rather arbitrary manner, separated the two prime themes; from now on my writing centred Ramblings will published on this Blog ramblingsfromawritersmind.wordpress.com.

Leaving me free to post my arbitrary scribbling about everything and nothing on a separate blog which is simply entitled furtherramblings.wordpress.com

For those of you who enjoy reading fiction, then please take a peek at alittlemorefiction.wordpress.com where you will find a collection of my Flash Fiction, enjoy.

I am glad to have cleared that up! ………………..and cleaning up is the topic of today’s Rambling.

In fact what I have done is an actually clean up what was becoming a bit of a mess. Having a clean out, tidying up the mess and confusion which seems to inexorably grow about us on a daily basis, is a liberating and satisfying experience.

This is also about getting rid of annoying and irritating entities which we can quite easily and happily live without.

Let me explain, if I may.

I have renewed / re-modelled my webpage recently. The original design was looking amateurish and had had so many alterations over time it was also looking scraggy. So I scrapped everything and started again from scratch.

On completion of this task I was overcome by a host of silver angels descending from the clouds and blowing upon golden trumpets tunes of joy and salvation.

OK, it was not quite an epiphany, but you get my drift!

So I went to work on my computer itself, deleting a number of old and ancient photos on my files, on Picasso, on Keepthatshityou’llneverwant dot com, and some other Cloud crap that I never use. I then started re-arranging my files, because if my storage systems were an actual office it would look much like that Japanese one in the You-Tube video during the earthquake, or rather like the office did in the aftermath.

Now I am rather good at keeping my hard drive optimised, I have high quality programmes to check, clean, defragment, compress and goodness knows what. Other software ensures that no silicone version of ‘Ebola’ is infecting any file or the path it is strolling along. I have vaults and antidotes, and little ninja killers jumping and climbing through every download and external device to ensure that nothing has snuck passed the x-ray machines and strip searches in my computers airport security lounge, or was that suite?

None of the above however lends itself to getting out the vacuum cleaner or polishing cloth, not one killer ninja will, on its day off, pick up the debris and waste of underused, misnamed or forgotten files. Nothing will automatically organise your documents in the clear and precise way you have just decided you want them.

No. These are things you have to get of your backside and do yourself, or possibly sit down, on your backside and do……well, you understand. So that was my second task of the day. A task that actually took a week!

Yep a week! I was amazed at how many duplicated, or just so very slightly similar, documents and images I had.

I know why.

I do a lot of things a lot of the time, saving constantly so I do not lose all the work I have just completed. You know…like you did when you clicked on….ahh yes, you remember that don’t you! The problem is once the task is completed, the final work saved, sent, stored, printed or whatever,  I do not always remember, or cannot usually be arsed to double check the copied and saved files that I created along the long and bumpy yellow rubble path of getting the job done.

So those files languish in luxury at the poolside of the internet highway hotel, retired forever, relaxing in the heat under the multiple core silicone sun.

But now I have kicked these lazy residents out and closed the hotel. The space I have newly created will become the foundations on which I shall now erect structures of new creativity and technical beauty…..or not. But once again a good old clean out is really quite a healthy thing to do, not only for you PC or laptop, but for you too. I now have a feel good factor, and that feels good.

By this time tomorrow evening I should have a few black plastic bags full of old Sh*t to chuck in the  interweb dumpster, a fresh and clean living space to work within.

I do not know if this will enable me to write any better, or shall unleash some unknown, some latent talent which has been hiding beneath the keys, but I know that it feels as if I have performed a catharsis, something which has not only cleared the capacity of memory storage within this infernal machine, but has also strangely lifted my own mental spirits somewhat.

Maybe you should have your own clean out, it actually feels really good, even liberating, like a cool lemon scented shower….or a soak in a hot bath full of bubbles and little yellow squeaky ducks….if you prefer that!

As all this scrubbing and cleaning has worn me out I have decided to take myself off to bed, for a comforting and relaxing sleep.

I wish you the same when night arrives in your part of the world, and hope that the thought of living with an overloaded storage space, full of unwanted, unneeded and useless files which is slowing down your operating system, will not keep you lying awake all night with undue concern.

In fact I shall not even mention it, should I by doing so, place any doubt whatsoever within your mind!

Thank you for reading, Paul.