all living processes “are composed of millionfold repeated applications and combinations of a single type of unfolding process, governed by certain transformations which make each center help the larger centers and thus keep creating living wholes
I believe all living processes are sequences, or combinations, or combinations of combinations, of this kind of unfolding process.
Centers involve flows of animals, plants, elements, the earth’s hydrological, meteological, astrological cycles, people’s work, play, leisure— street corners, gardens, an old tree stump, a hearth, a horse cart — are all in some sense both living centers as well as centers of life, receiving and generating flows.
The key point here is that wear itself is a design principle. in soft
Notice wabi-sabi-zen
The very first step is to understand our own selves as centers of generative potential.
Software reimagined as objects that grow. wabi-sabi-in-software software.beauty
In the article, Jenny reminds us that Alexander was experimenting with the different ways people responded to objects when instead of asking “which one do you prefer?” — they were asked “which one is more like your ‘self’? People were surprised how much their perspective shifted between the two. Something different was being used to evaluate. In the first case that something was like an objective measure, something perhaps more generalized and socially conventional. In the latter case— the “self” was evaluating the objects. Jenny reflects: “Alexander is counting on our ability as ‘living structures’ ourselves to discern between degrees of life in the objects around us and, with practice, to improve on that ability, making increasingly fine discernments.” To which Pam Rostal responds:
This reminds me of how C. S. Lewis described ‘joy’ as the feeling we get of being home in a place we’ve never been before. Somehow, the Absolute in such a place resonates with the Absolute within us.
Alexander identifies what he calls “wholeness and the theory of centers” as the essential qualities in what has more life. A center does not have to be “in the center” of something. A center is a point of relation, a grounding point from which life can propagate. Take a blank sheet of paper. Mark it with a dot anywhere on the paper. The location of the dot determines what becomes possible — the kinds of symmetries of asymmetries unfold from the chosen spot. We might say the paper remains latent until the dot potentiates in it . The dot sits in a specific location, and implies what might unfold. There is a gradient array susbsisting in the possible relationships that the dot can unfold. The dot becomes a provocation. It already has meaning and generates meaning …
Life comes from wholeness and wholeness grows from living centers