Well said, Simon! I was using the term mess slightly uncritically, after the talk by Collier and Ross, but even they suggest mess should not be used uncritically.
You are right of course, that a child making mess is making meaning, that lego has potential for both construction and mess, about the pig making a path… All great examples. So maybe Barnett’s notion of “supercomplexity” sounds better as one to use in pedagogical situations?
Although I do think what you just said implies something important, which you state: one person’s mess is someone else’s “x” where “x” is actually a judgment of its usefulness regardless of structure or lack thereof. If I understood you correctly…