Clutter

While exercising this morning, random thoughts bounced around my brain [as usual!].  I began to think about clutter and the importance of random bits of information stored in no discernible way in my mind.  Specifically I recalled something Sherlock Holmes said in one of the stories - that he did not know if the sun went around the Earth, or the Earth around the Sun as this fact was not relevant to solving crime and he did not want to clutter his mind with irrelevant facts.

I thought about that but wondered, what if this seemingly irrelevant fact was needed to solve a particular crime?  How does one know that information is relevant or is not?  This gave me some comfort as my mind is cluttered, and I mean cluttered with odds and sods of information disconnected often from its provenance.  When needed I rummage around .. or more often, they just pop into my head at the right time - a small scale, personal example of kairos I guess.

This all began as I thought about my current writing project - a series of histories of religions I am doing for Northern Blue.  This sort of writing requires careful charting of facts and their equally careful organization.  There is room for words that leap off the page at the reader, but these leaps are fun  embellishments of the necessary structure.  Well, for me they are not embellishments I guess, as I would go mad if I couldn't practice writing as an art first.