Let’s take a minute to organize ourbrains. Right now, mine is a chaotic mess, due to recent events that havesidelined any regular sort of thinking, interacting, and emoting. At somepoint, I know things will roll back around to normal-ish. But right now, I amin the position of trying to help my usually rational brain find some semblanceof reason. For me, that means I need to organize it. And I need to write.

Much like a closet that has become adumping ground for every sort of box, bag, whatnot, or other nondescriptschmazz, our brains often end up collecting information, ideas, emotions,feelings, decisions, insults, furies, stresses, plans, and multiple stimulifrom any number of sources. Our brains get burdened, overwhelmed, and “mushy”sometimes, and in those times, we have to communicate with ourselves to find understanding,direction, and peace. Organization can bring clarity and levelness to yourthinking and your outlook, and it can also have some unexpected effects if usedwith rigid absolutism.

Organization is one of the mostimportant tools we possess as beings that can use reason to solve problems.When you clean out that closet, one of the best things to do first is to cleareverything out of it. Remove it all, then return it in an order, and with a structure, that facilitates your purposefor that space. A pantry doesn’t have the same specific function as a bedroomcloset, which is different from an attic storage space. You have to know whatyou’re trying to accomplish with your closet in order to organize it for thebest efficiency – and it’s okay for your closet to look different from someoneelse’s; your personality, your interests, your experience, your resources, andyour time will have an impact on your organization and your space. A similarprocess works when organizing your brain – clear your mind, then intentionallybring back each facet of your issue, consider it appropriately, then disregardit or add it to your brain map in a way that helps you think clearly. Again,your personality, your interests, your experience, your resources (mental,educational, emotional, spiritual, familial, social, etc.), and your time willimpact your brain organization – be aware of these factors and let them workfor you, rather than against you. For instance, someone who has a degree inengineering will likely have a different thinking process than someone whoteaches music. So the engineer may embrace her scientific, orderly approach,and the musician may employee his creativity and rhythm to find his brain’sgroove. I think we find a way to make all our methods work, but organizing ourbrains will help us start the process, analyze the issues, and make decisions ina more efficient way.

Through basic organization, we identifyparameters and start to draw a mental (or actual) map to reach our desiredgoals – humans function better with some type of structure. In raisingchildren, you need to set “rules” and be “consistent.” In our jobs, we clarify“expectations.” In relationships, you have to understand “boundaries.”Developing a personal budget allows you a certain amount of freedom within yourown financial “parameters.” The FBI “profiles” individuals to help solve casesbecause there is, generally, a “type” of criminal. If a relationship with acertain “type” of person goes poorly or splendidly, we will use that experiencethe next time we encounter that “type” of person. Being able to characterize aperson or experience allows us to draw a mental picture of our situation – andif you’re going to figure out anything in life, a picture, a map, a clue, apath, some instructions, a job description, or any sort of plan can put youmuch further along to reaching your goals.

This basic brain function, that allowsus to organize our thoughts and make sense of our world, also teaches us, andsomewhat “hardwires” us, to look for those patterns, rules, and constants ineverything that we do. It easily drives us to believe that those constants areactually unchanging situations; they become absolutes in our minds. If you meetone blond guy, who drives an Audi, drinks merlot, lives in a lakefront condo,and has a poodle, and then he acts like an entitled brat, you are very likelyto remember these things about him. And if you later meet another blond guy,who drives an Audi, drinks cabernet, lives in a lakefront condo, and has agolden doodle, there is a really good chance that you will assume he’s anentitled brat before you even meet him. We use our experiences to learn so thatwe can handle things better the next time. Experience is a brilliant teacher.

We then tend to look for absolutes inall aspects of our lives – including absolutes about people – this team is“good;” this person is “bad;” this candidate is too far left/right for me; Idon’t like jerks; I do like people who run, etc. We end up categorizingeveryone into groups, based on ourperception of their character. I believe we do this for a couple of reasons:

1. Peopleare weird, and assigning a classification or (unfortunately at times) judgmenthelps us understand them, and
2. Theprocess of organizing our brains and, by extension, the people in our lives,into positives and negatives, helps us build a foundation for forming our ownbeliefs and expectations.

In nearly everything we do, we processinformation and situations with much better accuracy if we can classify themproperly. We are conditioned to look for patterns, organization, and typesbecause these things benefit us greatly in learning. The downfall, however, ofstarting to characterize every personas an absolute, is that we tend to lean toward everyone being “good” or “bad.”For those of us who have spiritual views, that kind of thinking seems to becritical in laying the foundation for our beliefs – everything is good or bad.

If we always categorize or judgesituations too absolutely, we may become stubborn and afraid to questionpeople/groups/philosophies that we have previously classified as good or badbecause it disrupts our organizational learning patterns. If we never questionour own beliefs and morals, simply because we respect the teachers of thosebeliefs and morals, we may never have the benefit of questioning and findinganswers that bring us back to our previous truths. Independent thought and challenge,followed by examination, determination, and renewal allows the solidificationof our moral foundation in a way that simply learning and repeating can neverprovide.

Mindless application of “Good” and “Bad”is easy. But the truth is never quite as simple as we would hope. The truth isoften very complex; life is complex; relationships are complex, so a socialtool, like classification being as simple as “good” or “bad,” has become ourcrutch – easy to assign, easy to explain, and easy to process – but almostalways inaccurate, because true absolutes are INCREDIBLY rare.

The fact is that no human is simply“good or bad.” We are all “good” in some ways and “bad” in others. Everyonemakes mistakes and terrible decisions. “Good people” do “bad things,” and “badpeople” do things that we may consider as “good.” When these situations happen,depending on how “sold” we are on the original classification, we often findourselves either reassigning the classification or ignoring the individual goodor bad deeds of those whom we have already classified as the “other” group. Politicsis a great example of this: “if my party does this thing, I’m for it, but ifthe other side does it, I don’t like it.” Obviously, that seems ridiculous, butif we were to disguise some of the policies congress writes, we might besurprised to see what we really support if someone else doesn’t classify it forus. If an adulterer is also a great humanitarian, many people will choose tofocus on the “bad” side of his character and disregard the “good.” Or maybethey overlook the infidelity and only identify with the “good.” The truth isthat the characteristics of infidelity and humanitarianism exist in the sameindividual – that is a lot harder for us to handle when we seek our moral highground.

When we start to classify people intoour own character groups, and then make immediate assumptions about theircharacter because of how we have assigned them to a group, we begin to lose ourindividual thought, and we become intolerant and prejudiced (we pre-judge). Wemay also become more naïve and less aware – this could happen if a shyster isso charming and appears to do good works, and trusting souls are dazzled intobelieving that his motives are scrupulous and “good,” and he steals theirmoney. The same good-bad thought process that makes you think the guy next doorwould never steal the Amazon boxes off your porch is the same organizationalerror that makes you think the guy who lives in the warehouse district woulddefinitely steal the boxes off your porch. Sometimes life isn’t the way wepicture it; we don’t know others until we actually know them.

Of course I’m not so naïve to suggestthat anyone should fail to pay attention to the world around them. Organizingpeople and experiences in our brains for our safety is a basic survival skill. Italso helps us understand relationships and how to anticipate cause and effect.I’m not suggesting that we ignore all our life lessons. But when you begin todeal with people on an individual, personal level, and you consider theirtalents and contributions, or what they could bring to a job, a group, or ateam, be mindful about classifying anyone too rigidly or absolutely. “Good” and“bad” are easy, but they often hinder us from seeing the whole picture – the wholeperson. The humans around us deserve to be characterized by the lives that theylive and the way they treat others. They deserve the opportunity to participatein life as unique souls with varied skills and qualities. We have to be carefulthat we don’t send them down the path we think they should be on just becausethey are driving a green car, when their road actually follows a differentdirection.