Why I Never Despair?- Because I'm A Cleaner, I Like To Clean, And I Love Cleanliness!

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness", as they say, and I believe it.

They say that good writers like to start with a quote.

“All right, they’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us…they can’t get away this time.” -Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller

Sometimes during the course of Our Struggle, it is easy to become overwhelmed. I believe that it’s a perfectly natural cycle to, at times, oscillate between moments of despair, or unbound hope, or to be merely invigorated by the challenges. Our Journey is one of endless fact finding, and theorizing about those now revealed facts, and all of that coupled with the need to course correct, and continue to plot a new path through the many struggles ahead. One simply cannot help but to do so.

However, there is a reason that I never despair- Because I’m a cleaner, I like to clean, and I love cleanliness!

You see my friends, life can fool you into thinking that everything is complicated, or that far too many problems are mired in confounding complexity, a Gordian Knot that requires being untangled, baffling the mind with it’s knots, twists, and tangles, but none of that is true.

Life, and Our Struggle, is actually very, very, simple.

It’s all about Cleaning, and Cleanliness, and making everything Nice and Clean; Spic and Span, if you will, so that all that stands before us is Nice, and Neat, and Tidy!

What is the enemy of cleanliness? Rubbish, Refuse, Invasive Weeds and Plants, and the occasional Thicket, filled with all of the above. That’s really all there is; Just a bunch of stuff that needs to be Cleaned Up.

So, knowing that the problem is just that simple, how does one go about achieving a high level of Cleanliness?

You start within your home, your yard, and your neighborhood.

Do you have some Rubbish about? Well, Step One is Identifying The Rubbish! You merely Scour Your Home, and Find, Identify, and Label The Rubbish.

Then, once you have clearly Identified all of the Rubbish, you begin to gather it together. You simply pop about, to and fro, gathering the Rubbish, into a single, more manageable pile, so that it is ready for Disposal.

Now, if you are like me, there likely isn’t any Rubbish in your home, but I’m simply putting it out there, just in case you have some.

Next, you need to examine your yard, property, and the the adjacent properties. Sometimes there is easily identified Rubbish, but it can also get more challenging.

Invasive Plants and Weeds- Years ago, I saw a news story about some people in Hawaii, and their job was to scour the islands, looking for various Invasive Plants, and Weeds, that can be carried in by the Trade Winds, and begin to germinate and grow, on the islands. These Plants are so ruinous, that if allowed to propagate, could overtake and wipe-out the indigenous Flora and Fauna, corrupting the natural beauty of the entire Hawaiian Islands’ ecosystem, and nobody wants that! So, the job of these people was to systematically search the entire landmass, find and identify these Invasive Plants, and pluck them up by the root for disposal. What a great job! Just wandering the jungled wilderness of Hawaii, taking in the natural splendor, and destroying the weeds that could corrupt it.

Hence, when you shift your focus to the outside of your home, you’re going to have to put in some real work. Sometimes, you have scour and scrutinize every inch, at the most micro level, to be sure that there are no Weeds hidden amongst the Grass, Trees, and Flowers, but that comes later.

Most Weeds are very easy to see, they stick out like a sore thumb. They grow faster, stand taller, and always appear darker than the Grass and Flowers that we want. These can easily be addressed, but you also must take some care. Because they stand out so obviously, one could just as easily just run around with something like a machete, and just chop them down, and this is not without it’s value, it works, and it’s really easy.

It doesn’t fix the problem 100%, but it does make the rest of the work easier. Some people really thrive while doing this type of work; It’s invigorating, yields quick, noticeable results, and can make for very rewarding labor.

However, if you really want to solve the problem for good, you have to also pull them up by the root, and take the time to eliminate the tiny seedlings that can spawn around them, and gather together their seeds for eradication as well. This can be much harder than just chopping them down, or even pulling the larger Weeds up by the root.

It’s takes the right people to perform this type of work, as it is not for everybody. It requires the vision to search every inch, scrutinizing each and every Blade, Leaf, and Petal, and while capturing every remnant, gathering them together for isolation, eradication and disposal. Some are obvious, but some are not, and require greater degrees of scrutiny to be sure.

It’s challenging work, but if we are to truly fix the Problems, it must be done, completely.

Expanding one’s gaze, we can begin to look at our neighborhoods, towns, and overall area for Clean Up.

Sometimes, there are already piles of Rubbish, Refuse, and Waste, that can be quickly eliminated. If there is a pile of Trash in your area, quite often, the most efficient way to eliminate it, is to simply burn it. Sometimes that requires some accelerant and fuel, but quite often, it doesn’t need anything but a spark. Burning it won’t necessarily destroy every single particle, because there is almost always some residual effluvium, which can be dirty and stinky, but it too can be managed. Simply dig a hole, and bury it.

If you know that you are in the process of gathering Rubbish together, an easy solution is to dig the requisite sized hole, beforehand, and burn the Rubbish in that hole, so that afterward, you can just bury it in the hole where it was burned, by shoveling the removed dirt, back into the hole, with no extra steps needed.

Perhaps, in your area, there is a Thicket, filled with Rubbish, Garbage, Refuse, and a wide variety of Weeds, but also, Grass, Plants, Trees, and Flowers. Depending on the size of the Thicket, and the size of your Labor Force, you might be able to go in, and clear out the Garbage, while preserving the Healthy Plants, within the Thicket, and certainly, this would be ideal. However, quite often, this just isn’t practical.

One has to hope that all of the valued Grass, Plants, and Trees, have already cast their pollen into the wind, spreading their seed across the wilderness, but even if they haven’t, there is an endless supply of the same, available for intentional reproduction in the aftermath, in a more controlled environment.

Anyway, getting back to our Thicket, here again, I recommend a controlled burn. Also, if you start from one side, setting your blaze in a manor that will cause the fire to advance, but not rage out of control, you can use it to move all of the little Woodland Creatures into a direction that you can control, and filter them for processing.

Most of them will likely perish, but that’s alright, because most of the infestation in the Thickets, is of no value to us, and it is critical that these Garbage Filled Thickets be completely destroyed, so that New Life, of more controlled species, can spring up in their footprint, creating a beautiful garden, where these ugly, Garbage Filled Thickets once blighted the landscape.

Isn’t that a beautiful dream?

This can be repeated as many times as required, until all of the Rubbish, Refuse, Garbage, and Invasive Weed Filled Thickets are reduced to ash; A Clean Pallet for the growth of our Beautiful Gardens.

Some of you might say- “But there could be some pretty Flowers in that Thicket, or perhaps an Apple Tree!”. Certainly this is possible and most likely, probable, and we do have the option of going into the Thicket, if it’s safe, and recovering the Apples, or Plants, Flowers, and Trees, of our liking. However, one must first weigh the risk versus reward, of attempting to do so, as it may be impossible, but it is always worth considering.

However, let’s now return to the subject of picking through the Grass to find all of the Weeds- Part of the challenge is that many of these unwanted Weeds, can hide within the leaves of Grass. Sometimes there is 100 blades of Grass surrounding a single Weed. It can be 10-1, 100-1, or 1000-1, but whatever the ratio, it is key to search through each and every inch, scrutinizing them at the near microscopic level, quite nearly genetic, to find every single weed, to pluck, pile, and burn.

Also, and this is important- Certainly we want to achieve a perfect level of Absolute Cleanliness, but we can’t allow “the perfect, to become the enemy of good enough”.

As with any major Cleaning Project, you want to make quick work of the piles of Rubbish, Heaps of Refuse, the Burning of the Thickets, and the destruction of the large, poisonous, obviously Invasive Weeds. Basically, go after the low hanging fruit, right out of the gate, and eliminate the obvious Garbage, quickly, while it’s so easy to do.

Like any Cleaning Project, you start with all the largest, local pieces first, working outward in ever growing concentric rings, and it’s okay to leave some of the more micro work for later, when people that specialize in that type of detailed work, can get around to it.

You will find that some people are great for Cleaning around the house; Gathering the limited Rubbish together, for disposal, light dusting, etc.

Others are more capable of the vigorous Yard Work, or the Clearing of the Thickets.

As the saying goes- “Many hands make for light work”, and this is certainly true, but it is also important to know your team, their skills, strengths and weaknesses, etc., so that you can get the right people to focus on the right type of work for them.

In the working world, there are a couple of great sayings-

“Never decide if you like a job, until you have done it long enough to be good at it”

And-

“People are rarely good at a job if they don’t like it, or aren’t good at it”

This is just to say that it is very important that you select the right people for the right kinds of work, otherwise it can go poorly.

When I was a teenager, and worked at a McDonalds, they had a great saying “Clean as you go”. The point was to Always Be Cleaning (ABC), as you do all of your other work. You just do some of this, some of that, do some Cleaning, then go back to working.

An example would be that as you are driving around, if you see some Garbage, stop, pick it up, and throw it in the bed of your pick-up truck. Then, when the truck bed is full, drive it all over to one of the burned out Thickets, dig a hole, burn the garbage in that hole, and then cover it with soil. Then, return to your normal day and normal work. If you do this all the time, we can, collectively, Clean Up a near infinite amount of Garbage, and dispose of it completely!

Imagine how much better our country and communities would be, if we all did the work to eliminate all the Garbage? Dispose of all the Rubbish, Pull and burn all of the Weeds, Burn down the dirty, Refuse Filled Thickets…

It’s really, just that simple! There is no Gordian Knot to untangle and untie, we just chop right through it, by Cleaning!

Speaking only for myself- I’m a Cleaner, I like to Clean, and I LOVE Cleanliness!

I hope that all of you, engaged in Our Struggle with me, will pitch in, when the time comes, and help to Clean Up: Our Homes, Our Neighborhoods, Our Lands, Our Countries, and Eventually, The Entire World.

If you can see how beautiful it will be, when everything is Clean, then you share my vision.

Some writers also like to end with a quote.

“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” -General James “Mad Dog” Mattis