I just told Aaron I was going to post to blog and go to bed. He responded “Bed post, go to blog?” which is probably more accurate.
So after reading yesterday’s entry, my friend Brian asked me if I was going to further elaborate how to de-clutter one’s mind and how does one actually go about doing so? And I said, That is a very good question.
I genuinely have no idea. I’m pretty relaxed about it, because I do a whole lot of things I have no idea how to do. I mean, I work in museum collections. My first question about an object is if it can kill me, and the second is figuring out what it was used for and how it works. YouTube is amazingly helpful when you actually know what the item is. Over time you see enough things to start recognizing things you’ve never actually seen in person before. Yesterday my volunteer held up a small scoop on a handle and I immediately said “That’s a black powder measure,” though I can’t remember if I’ve seen one in person or not. A lot of the time I’m faced with an object I have no idea what it is, so I have to make a lot of educated guesses and use a lot of search tools and books to figure it out and if I turn up stumped to ask a lot of people who might have some idea. If I get really stumped there’s actually a professional listserv where you can post pictures and any information and basically ask a whole bunch of museum professionals across the country at the same time.
So, figuring out how to declutter my mind can’t possibly be quite as challenging since I’ve lived in my mind my whole life and everyone I know has a mind too.
Links:
Live Grenade (or in museum-speak, A Very Bad Day)
Large Prehistoric Aquatic Lizard Births
MINERVA ZIMMERMAN 