Tidiness and its failings

Subject: Tidiness and it's failings.

What is it about being tidy, what is it about tidiness that separates those that are and those who aren't into two distinct camps, the one willing to go to all lengths to keep their place tidy whilst the other group don't care and more importantly don't see the mess.
When boy meets girl, initially the stars are aligned and so much of the character of the other, the prospective mate is not taken on board until the stars have started to wain and actuality resumes its place at the table. Tidiness is one bone of contention in many households and by tidiness I don't mean OCD, I don't mean the obsessive dusting or the need to continually align the pens and the picture on the wall, although I do feel a crooked picture has to be adjusted. It's not the all consuming, finicky, tampering with the environment inside the home, the continual adjusting but the world where the tidy person clashes with the untidy person, where a titanic battle to keep the cast off clothes in the basket, and prevent the unwashed dishes piling up making access to the sink impossible and all flat surfaces around to become cluttered with stuff. Where wardrobes lie virtually empty for sake of a place for the clothes on the floor and those lying over the back of a chair, where beds are unmade and become more like a badgers earth, somewhere to crawl into at the end of the day.

What is it in the psyche of a person who's vision is blind to mess and another who is mildly keen to keep on top of things. Is it up bringing and the discipline imposed from an early age. Sometimes the untidy person is rebelling against that discipline in their later life, or is it a lack of discipline toward tidiness which spills into the conscience at a later stage and represents a fight against the chaos in their lives and the one thing they can do to prevent it.

I know couples who practice strict duties, one cooks the other washes, one puts out the rubbish whilst the other dusts and tidies. This strict separation of duties provides a template by which the housework is accomplished and doesn't become an argument in the assumption that something will be done by the other when it isn't. The home is automated and the duties are not a chore since the benefits of having a partner in what they do is clearly recognisable to both. It's this recognisable element, this organised division of labour which makes a tidy home and often, a happy home.

The psyche of allowing everything to decay into a mess, where nothing has a place can be soul destroying to someone who appreciates a level of order, some visual accountability for things and where they should go.

Of course it's only when you go into partnership with someone and share your surrounding does the matter arise. On your own the mess is yours and there is no nagging need to change. The things cluttering the house are yours and each had or have a purpose. Having them out on display means they are still a part of your life whilst stuck away in a drawer they are forgotten and cease to remind you of the pleasure they once gave. Photos on the wall and books half read remind you of yesterday, a space fondly remembered, even cherished. The story on page 51 will reengage your mind in a moment, transporting you back, providing the hinge to open a door through which you pass, like Alice and escape. Things in their place have the habit of staying in place like the fixture you may have become, tabulated and indexed with no room for manoeuvre, your only saving grace is the order around you,  which is often imposed by someone else to fit their association of what life should be.
So let's relax the image and not chastise the person for the book or cup left on the side table, it indicates, if nothing else that life is alive and well and that perhaps if we visualise each other as having needs outside our own, well thankfully we didn't marry a robot.