Order and Chaos?

Walk into a room, any room and tell me your first impressions. Is it pleasant in appearance? What about the volume of space? Is it appropriate to human dimension and proportion? Does it have flair that excites thinking? Or does it induce quiet, calm and slumber? Is it neat and tidy? Or is it sloppy and cluttered?

Space is something we relate to easily. It is either comfortable or not, welcoming or not. What makes it so comes from a combination of many factors. Temperature, draftiness, fresh air smell or stale and fusty? Color palette matters, too, but also the shape of the room and the shape and proportion of the things in the room.

My taste is favorable to order and straight lines with softness introduced by fabric and shapely furniture. Overstuffed couches coupled with rectangular bookcases, drapes that absorb annoying sound but natural surfaces like stone present near the fireplace. Welcoming chairs that are firm and supportive but cushioned have an allure. Poofy and fluffy don’t attract; soft leather does. Wood floors with ample area rugs with one or more inches of pile are preferred.

All of this, however, in my mind must be orderly. Expected arrangements yes, disarray of baubles and reading material, no. Papers stacked to the ceiling do not comfort; orderliness does. Tidy. Neat.

It doesn’t have to be exceptionally clean, just neat.

All this relates to spaces in which we live and work, too. Flow of work requires orderliness of thought, process, expectations, and stimulating interchange among fellow teammates. Break the orderliness of this flow and interchange of ideas, and chaos results.

Walk into the city room of a newspaper. Watch people hunched over keyboards, talking on the phone, most probably on the phone and computer simultaneously. Phones ringing, staff walking or trotting between desks and rooms. Even a few shouts to co-workers are heard. A hubbub of labor is apparent in every direction. This is what it is like to put together a newspaper every day. Different editions and varying markets get different targeted articles and materials.

Writing used to be a loud clacking of typewriters, now it is a soft thrumming of keyboard clicks and fingers flying. Muted sounds, but a rhythm of movement is noticed.

Interrupt that flow and chaos erupts quickly. Voices are heard questioning events, reports, chronologies, and meaning.

Interesting parallels occur when chaos reigns in governing circles. We witness such today. The White House – normally the scene of order and agenda driven precision – is in disarray in the trump White House. In-fighting among staff; unclear policy formation; work lists and schedules unperformed, perhaps unassigned? Press conferences that do not explain, only extol; communication efforts that sound more like orders and public relations posts; these are the signs of chaos in which the left and right hands do not know what is going on or even what is supposed to be going on.

The staff reports 38 bills have been enacted; that is not correct. Thirty eight executive orders have been written and signed but they do not have the force of law, nor are they bills. Bills emanate from Congress – written by elected officials and their staff after much discussion, agreement and compromise; votes are taken and drafts of bills are tweaked and rewritten; and finally agreement leads to a final vote and the bill is approved and sent to the President for signature. When signed, the bill is law and enact-able. Not until then. 

Definitively a bill is not an executive order.

Little has been accomplished in the first six months of the trump administration. Only chaos, anger and questions result. If the agenda is to turn everything upside down, then progress has been made. If not the agenda, then no progress.

Perhaps a new Chief of Staff will help. Time will tell what is expected of him and what authority level he has been assigned to get his work done. If no authority, then order will not likely result. Only more chaos. Removal of Scaramouch is a hopeful sign.

Meanwhile the business of a nation awaits to be done.

Without order, it will not be done.

August 2, 2017