“So you see the imagination needs moodling--long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: "I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget." But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.”
—Brenda Ueland
Every couple of weeks or so I go to Costco and buy, among many other things, a bag of limes.
I bring the bag of limes home.
I open the bag and pour the limes into a basket.
Over the next couple of weeks, I use many limes.
But never all of them. Never in time. I end up throwing some away because they get too hard or too mushy before I get to them.
The day before the next Costco trip, I throw away any remaining limes that are too old and bitter.
And I go buy another bag of limes.
I like having limes.
I like having too many limes.
I like seeing limes piled up, a green pyramid of tart goodness, ready to add the perfect amount of fresh to my glass of water or half an avocado or an end-of-day gin and tonic.
I like having too many limes more than I like having not enough limes.
I don’t want them in 1s and 2s, in small pieced-out bits, in just-enough. I don’t want to be efficient about it.
Sometimes excessive means the same thing as enough.
Some things are worth wasting.
That’s all.
👉 Today’s theme-ready song suggestion is Waste by David Vertesi. I love it when a good plan comes together.