OK let's do this: A Timeless Way Of Building, Christopher Alexander [1979]

I'm actually reading this because I want some inspiration for thinking about how to improve my mind-palace, notes, tweet-webs

oh man, a writer after my own heart

THE QUALITY WITHOUT A NAME: to define it we must begin by understanding that every place is given its character by certain patterns of events that keep on happening there

patterns can be alive or dead (infinite or finite?)

living patterns set us free, dead ones keep us locked

the Quality cannot be made, only generated (like a flower from a seed)

we may gradually improve patterns by testing them against experience – see whether our surroundings live, or not, by recognizing how we feel

"we can create a structure of structures" ASSEMBLE THE MINDCITY!!

the rich and complex order of a town grows from thousands of creative acts

every individual act of building is a process in which space gets differentiated

this is Mushin, inner game: "when we give up our ideas and opinions, and do exactly what emerges from ourselves"

"that sleepy, awkward grace which comes from perfect ease"

"each one of us wants to be able to bring a building or part of a town to life – it is a fundamental human instinct."

OK so we are trying to...

- understand buildings in terms of patterns

- understand the generative processes which give rise to these patterns – the source from which the ultimate constituents of buildings come

- distinguish between processes that give life vs extinguish life

so I take a break from heavy reading about how I need to face my fears and let go of assumptions... to do some light reading about how to build things... and here too I have to face my fears & let go of assumptions??? fucking hell 😂😭

this book is "the courage to make stuff"

so mr alexander is telling me that I need to rebuild my spaces the way I have rebuilt myself

ok

that makes sense

I can do that

it's a sort of de-socialization and re-socialization, like learning to be natural again

hmmmm

this is resonating with me:

a lung is whole only so long as it is breathing oxygen from the air outside the organism

a person is whole only so long as he is a member of some human group

maybe the problem with my personal mindweb is that it's too isolated/cloistered 🤔

make yourself comfortable

OK the author goes on and on about this at some length – which might be useful for people who aren't used to thinking about this. But I think I get it. It's basically "Visa, take how you think about nourishing people into free, lively, wholesome adults, and apply that to spaces"

my takeaway here – and reflecting on when I went scuba-diving, my SF trip, shaving with a straight edge razor, and rewatching Into The Spider-Verse in another window – is that I've been playing too safe. I want & need a more intimate relationship with danger. A high voltage life

nothing to keep, nothing to lose – in this mood it is possible to do exactly what makes sense

(some people will nitpick this but the point is the spirit of it, not the letter)

Alrighty I'm going to take a break from reading here and dive into my notes