I need to cut the grass. It’s a routine during three seasons. Mostly a chore. Weekend job.

We cut a lot of things that grow.

Outside we not only cut grass, we prune roses, clip shrubs, pull up weeds, lop branches.

On our own bodies we clip nails, cut hair, exfoliate skin, pluck eyebrows, shave underarm hair, trim beards or shave them off all together; each day, often at prescribed times.

Most of this cutting seems to serve a tidiness purpose.

But our children grow their knowledge and we cut that too. Don’t do this, don’t say that, run away and play, not now, because I say so… Not tidy. Just timely. For us.

Our own knowledge grows wild, unkempt, organically. We prune that too. Discarding things which might be useful because they’re someone else’s opinion, experience, idea, viewpoint. Tossing our own experiences aside because we cannot find meaning or make sense of it. Often because we don’t have time to. Not tidy. Just timely.

Meanwhile, out of control, inexorably, experience washes over us. And we randomly accept knowledge and learning every day, through every interaction, every experience. Our brains filing it away with dutiful order and precision. Some to be recalled, some to be lost forever in the grey matter. There is no real plan, no real order, no tidy symmetry. Structured randomness.

Unkempt sense making, messy knowing, time restricted learning, disorderly growth.

Neat gardens, neat hair, neat nails, neat lawns, neat children.

Neat lives?