"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
~Albert Einstein

I was born a scribbler.  Eager to begin reading and writing, I used to take crayon to my picture books, making marks over the text, miming real writing.  Twice I caused my parents to repaint white walls; I had gotten a hold of a permanent Sharpie marker and saw the wall as an excellent place to begin my artistic endeavors.  I would fill notebooks with the few words I knew, including my name and some infantile drawings.
As I grew, my scribbles spilled over into my lifestyle; I became a messy child and, later, a messy teenager and a messy young adult.  I would leave my blocks stacked in formation to be knocked over by passers-by; I would scatter my Barbie dolls in the middle of the playroom floor in various states of undress; my paint bottles would sit uncapped on my child’s-sized desk.  Later, these trends would continue in the stacks of books that dominated my bedroom at home, the loose papers that were shoved, haphazardly, into drawers, and the clothing that would pile up on my chair.
It seemed that, for the longest time, my mother’s favorite phrase was, “How can you find anything in here?”  But the truth of the matter was this: I could only find things in my clutter.  My mess was an organized mess; I knew where I put things, and I knew where everything was.  
My clutter spilled over from my physical lifestyle into my thought patterns.  I was always a bright child, and I soaked up knowledge like a sponge; I never studied because I would remember something if I heard it once.  While I took notes in my classes, I would doodle in the margins of my paper, scribble down thoughts.  I would make to-do notes and shove them into my pockets, sometimes completely neglecting them and allowing them to go through the wash; just writing it down was enough to help me remember it for the rest of the day.  I would have bits of drawings and notes-to-self stuck in my agenda book; more often than not, I would have to bend over in the stairwell to retrieve all of these scraps before they got trampled by my peers.
I now live in a dorm room by myself, and though most people would say that my room is fairly clean, I still have my fair amount of clutter.  Books are jammed into my shelves, papers shoved in between them without any apparent reasoning.  My boots and shoes are in the closet-area of the room, but they’re thrown on top of each other unceremoniously.  My bed is made and the floor is fairly clear, but the only real reason for this is that there isn’t any room in my habitat to be messy.  But I haven’t lost the clutter and the scribbling that keep me organized.
I feel as if I live life largely on scraps of paper – all my writing gets done on memo sheets or index cards, or in margins.  Mine was never meant to be an organized, three-hole-punched, lined-paper notebook life.  I think it’s common for one to feel insecure about this – to feel as though the clutter of his or her surroundings was reflective of some sort of inner clutter that pervaded his or her life.  I honestly feel, though, that clutter – in my case, at least – is more reflective of a need to have things around as inspiration, or to be able to see aspects of my life.  I save everything with the pretext that I never know when I’m going to need it in the future; everything becomes some necessary bit of something, even if it is something so seemingly insignificant as an index card with random names or words scrawled upon it.
I don’t think I know anyone who is creative who is also ridiculously neat and tidy.  I feel that some of the brightest, most self-motivated people I know surround themselves in some sort of clutter, whether it’s the state of their living quarters, or just confined to the margins of their notebook paper.  Whether or not messiness is a character trait of the creative or forward-thinking person is probably impossible to prove; there will always be at least one person who goes against the majority.  I just know that, even though I get told that I’m messy and disorganized, it is in my disorganization that I find peace and the ability to work my best.