Ben and Me_ From Temperance to Humility - Cameron Gunn [73]
My parents’ basement is filled with old chairs, clothes from several people’s wardrobes, and my childhood bed frame. There are paintings and photographs long since relegated to below eye and ground level, a pinball machine in two pieces, magazines and books, and games from before my birth. Trunks full of the stuff I left behind when I flew the nest remain unmoved, and there is furniture enough for a small apartment. It all comes together in something that resembles the storage area at the Smithsonian.
My father laments, out of earshot of my mother, the state of the basement, but he knows that there is little he can do. He’s battling an ingrained need to keep things that’s fueled by a heady mix of nature, character, genetics, and probably some other things my mother never threw out.
And that’s what concerned me about Cleanliness. My mother’s capacity for accumulation may have been part of my DNA cocktail. Franklin and I might have been battling the very forces of creation in an effort to make me more virtuous. Perhaps I was simply not predisposed to having an orderly habitation. Maybe I was doomed to a life of “stuff.”
I would soon find out.
Next to Godliness
After much reflection and rumination, I decided that the secret to Cleanliness was . . . to clean. Each night I would select an area of my house to tackle. Options abounded. My wife complains often about the computer desk and the piles of paper, CDs, and various other items that have accumulated in that small three-by-six-foot area. The junk in my garage means that my car only fits in occasionally, and my clothes closet has become a museum-like collection of life’s trinkets. The only real dilemma was where to start.
In one sense, the choice was obvious. Given how I began this chapter, could I commence my cleaning anywhere other than my closet?
I never gave a single thought to the amount of space I needed for my stuff until I was muscled out of the closet in the bedroom. Ostensibly I was to have half of our closet; however, the encroachment into my closet turf by my wife makes the Middle East conflict look positively sedate. Gradual advances—some clothes here, a book there—have led to massive and widespread incursions. There are girly things among my manly things, and this is cramping my style. For a while I had almost been prevented from accessing my work clothes by a giant green exercise ball.
Until Ben and his virtue of Cleanliness, I had accepted that I had lost the closet war. But now, armed with the excuse of the pursuit of moral perfection, I renewed hostilities in this conflict. I would take back what was once mine. I would repatriate my closet—or at least sort out my side.
As I began my sorting and rummaging through years of accumulated T-shirts, gym shorts, ties, and cuff links, I saw immediate benefits of the virtue. Not only was my closet looking decidedly less like a warehouse, but I had also found things—useful things. An unopened stick of deodorant (as opposed to an opened, used stick, which would have been a little gross), a miniature golf bag full of tees and ball markers, shoelaces, photographs of my children, notes made to myself about writing ideas, and a box full of never-attempted magic tricks.
Of course, all of these treasures were buried under a considerable amount of nonessential stuff. In the process of cleaning my closet, I filled two garbage bags and one fair-size cardboard box full of clothes for donation to a local charity (I can mark that down as a Good for the day), threw away nearly a full garbage bag of useless items, and discovered that I had more than enough room for what was left over.
As I was cleaning, an odd feeling came over me. I had a small sense of euphoria as I discovered that throwing things away sometimes brings things back. I’m back in the closet!
Okay, that sounded wrong.
I was just excited about seeing the floor.
Indeed, by the end of Day 1, I was feeling full of Franklinian virtue! Not since Order or perhaps Sincerity had I felt such a flush of