keeping it all together.

i bought this stapler for a friend. i don’t actually know if he needs a vintage stapler, but i figured he would appreciate the good design and color of it if nothing else.

a stapler is an interesting piece of office equipment, is it not? a necessary accessory used to staple papers together, keep everything nice and tidy and with other papers that by some typed, printed, categorized means they inherently belong. in the macrocosm that is this life, we all need the equivalent of a really goddamn good stapler. something to keep it all together for us. most days, i feel rather adept at handling the various miscellaneous flurry of papers that get thrown my way. i can compartmentalize, put things in the filing cabinet that keeps my little tiny mind clutter-free. i can keep every paper, every interaction, every detail, every THING each within the categories they belong. i can staple it all together and be done.

but then there are the days that i can’t. i get overwhelmed. the overload, the need to do it/anything/everything better and better and better all the time completely overwhelms me and i am paralyzed by the sudden appearance of my good friend — my longstanding companion — Fear. as kind citizens of this office space/brain wave/planet, we should all attempt to keep our shit more together. perhaps then we would be/could be nicer and kinder and more sympathetic to the plights of others and the stack of unstapled, unsorted papers that they too must inevitably sort through, prioritize and figure out what the hell to do with. a stapler may indeed just be necessary office equipment. or it could also be a symbol – a reminder – that to keep it all together, sometimes you have to let it all fall apart, papers everywhere, so that the reorganization, the restructuring of life…can begin.

you know what i mean.

© littlebrownbutterfly