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- What are the Laws or Rules of Order? [Not the rules of Parliamentary Order, but Order in life and living.] Success in almost anything, and the level of “success”, is determined by the degree of Order we’re able to impose upon or infuse into a given situation. Being able to organize (order) things, people, products, ideas, movement, time-resources, enables us to do things. The more we hope or intend to do, the more Order or organization will be required. I’m not sure what the Laws or Rules of Order are as yet. But I’d like to think about this question and attempt to arrive at a sense of what these Laws or Rules may be. This much I do know. Order is very important. But the kind/type, style and intensity or extensiveness of the Order is also important and is usually determined or dictated by the demands of any given situation. Some call for a casual approach. Others require intensity. Part of the trick is to be able to tell the difference. “A place for everything. Everything in its place.” This off-quoted proverb formed the heart of my conception and understanding of Order from a very young age. I have no idea where my Father learned it – perhaps from his father or a mentor – but he emphasized this linked pair of ideas as he went about demonstrating what he meant. While our Dad was away working, the rest of the family members would regularly disperse Howard’s many tools all over the house, the property, and sometimes the neighborhood. Upon returning home he set about returning each possession, tool or otherwise, to its designated place. In the end our house – his house – was in Order. Modest but Orderly. Aristotle had a similar notion which he addressed in a lengthy article entitled “On Memory”. He described the astonishing memory [mneumonic] capacity of the clerks in public auctions in Athens. These men could recall every sale and the price and purchaser in a day-long slate of items. Apparently Aristotle wished to improve his own memory capacity so he asked these giants of short-term memory how they did it. They told the great Father of the Philosophical Categories that they used “the place system” to accomplish what might seem impossible. In this system the auctioneer would “put” each item in a room of a house in their memory. This gave order and structure to the material and made recall as easy as walking from room to room in their own house. It eliminated the random and chaotic tidal wave of information and turned it into a placid and manageable body of information. “A place for everything and everything in its place.” The benefits of Order are obvious in a situation of this kind. Access to information was more efficient. Calculation of profits was easier as they also kept a running mental sub-total. The operation of the business, in this case an auction of goods, was smooth and not delayed by the necessity of writing everything down, a process much slower then than even now. Beyond this, the benefit of their practices have come down to us and many have been enriched by exposure to this memory technique. Even more have likely benefited from the aphorism taught me by my Father, an organized and disciplined man who was self-possessed and competent in so many things. |