Lover Boy…
"…to move in space with minimum waste, and maximum joy."
3:14 PM: I awake, shower, dress, throw dirty laundry in a trash bag, and dash out to my car.
3:31 PM: I arrive at work to grab my stack of unclaimed pay checks.
3:37 PM: I arrive at the bank, deposit my checks, and retain 20 dollars in cash.
3:48 PM: I arrive at the laundrimat and throw my clothing into a washer. (-3 dollars)
3:52 PM: I dash across the street to a resturant for breakfast and a newspaper read. (-10 dollars)
4:18 PM: I return to the laundrimat as the final spin cycle comes to a stop, and put my clothing in a dryer. (-3 dollars)
4:23 PM: I dash over to my land lord’s house and drop off a rent check.
4:28 PM: I return to the laundrimat with 10 minutes left on the dryer, and proceed to sew two buttons on my coat.
4:38 PM: I finish sewing the moment the dryer stops, fold my clothing, and take it home.
4:45 PM: I return home, and dress in fresh clothing.
4:55 PM: I race to apartment rendezvous set for 5:00.
5:00 PM: I head to the Opera…
Efficiency, as I see it, is the fine tuning of any small system. A system where the accumulation of subtle changes and modifications result in a significant impact on the system as a whole. A course carefully plotted to minimize distance between variables, creating small bits of extra time that would have otherwise been wasted, allows the tasks at hand to not only be accomplished in a calm and orderly mannor, but to also be completed with time to spare. Chronologically speaking, I view efficiency as an appealing act of creation, and take delight in it for motives that are burried a bit deeper inside my character.
It all goes back to formal systems, and my obsession with them…rooted in my childhood alter boy style conditioning. It is also a product of my appreciation for detail, and inability to fit so much detail into a single cognitive object. I function the most creatively in a system with seemingly overwhelming rules and limitations. I would take significantly more delight hashing something useful out of a single lump of wood with only a small tool to aid me than I would if I had an entire metal shop at my disposal, with limitless possibilities. I find creation infinately more satisfying and personal when I can create something out of nothing, with nothing… rather than something out of everything, with everything.
My sense of dress style, for example, perfectly mirrors this philosophy. As I decided when I was a teenager that attempting to keep up with style and participate in such games was as inefficient as it was limitless, I simply chose one timeless male fashon trend and resigned myself to simply utilize it until I expired…thus saving me countless hours of thought, effort, and financial expense in reguards to clothing. This style, efficiently executed, destroys many possible aspects of my appearence, but also creates something very personal and elegant. Why more men don’t follow suit is completely beyond me.
This fixation and tendency of mine is deeply rooted, and can often be mistaken for a number of other methods of operation that often have similar products. For instance, I could be compared to naturalists and flower children for my simplistic nature, and fondness for creating things from very limited materials…however, such people take delight in their creation because it was done so within their own rather large "hippie" formal system, which is often extremely inefficient. It tends to be executed out of social obligation to their hippie peers, and a desire to better coexist within nature. I, however, only take delight in such things for my own sake…the thrill of creation. For it is within rules that I find the most freedom, and within nothing that I find the most content.