William James, in an 1899 essay, tells of being driven through the mountains of North Carolina past newly cleared coves, the local word for the heads of small valleys between the hills. The settlers had left charred stumps standing and planted corn between them, and James found it hideous, "a sort of ulcer." He asked the mountaineer driving him what sort of people made these clearings. "All of us," the man said. "Why, we ain't happy here, unless we are getting one of these coves under cultivation." To the settlers, James realized, those stumps meant "personal victory." He never says the clearings were pretty. What he takes back is his verdict on what they meant, and he admits the settlers would have been just as blind to his "strange indoor academic ways of life at Cambridge." Somebody near you has something that looks like a mess from the road: the garage your father won't empty, the yard next door full of half-built projects. Today, ask them what it means to them, and don't tell them what you think of it.