If I consider my life honestly, I see that it is governed by a certain very small number of patterns of events which I take part in over and over again.Being in bed, having a shower, having breakfast in the kitchen, sitting in my study writing, walking in the garden, cooking and eating our common lunch at my office with our friends, going to the movies, taking my family to eat at a restaurant, having a drink at a friend’s house, driving on the freeway, going to bed again. There are a few more.
There are surprisingly few of these patterns of events in any one person’s way of life, perhaps no more than a dozen. Look at your own life and you will find the same. It is shocking at first, to see that there are so few patterns of events open to me.
Not that I want any more of them. But when I see how very few of them there are, I begin to understand what huge effect these few patterns have on my life, on my capacity to live. If these few patterns are good for me, I can live well. If they are bad for me, I can’t.
Of course, the standard patterns of events vary very much from person to person, and from culture to culture.
For a teenage boy, at a high school in Los Angeles, his situations include hanging out in the corridor with other boys; watching television, sitting in a car with his girlfriend at a drive-in restaurant eating coke and hamburgers. For an old woman, in a European mountain village, her situations include scrubbing her front doorstep, lighting a candle in the local church, stopping at the market to buy fresh vegetables, walking five miles across the mountains to visit her grandson.
But each town, each neighborhood, each building, has a particular set of these patterns of events according to its prevailing culture.
A person can modify his immediate situations. He can move, change his life, and so on. In exceptional cases he can even change them almost wholly. But it is not possible to go beyond the bounds of the collection of events and pattern of events which our culture makes available.
We have a glimpse, then, of the fact that our world has a structure, in the simple fact that certain patterns of events–both human and nonhuman–keep repeating, and account, essentially, for much the greater part of the events which happen there.
Our individual lives are made from them…so are our lives together…they are the rules, through which our culture maintains itself, keeps itself alive, and it is by building our lives, out of these patterns of events, that we are people of our culture.
Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building
After I read this I listed my patterns on two Post-Its. The scale of my life is described by the circles I stir in my porridge.
What are your patterns? Do you live well?
Dervala.com 
You must stir big circles. Or is it figure-eights?
I think it possible to stir large circles in small pots.
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This is an amazing concept. When paring down what happens in life to patterns, it seems almost ritual. And it makes it easy to see which patterns it would be nice to change, how this or that pattern wasn’t what I was expecting or wanting.
I am in the midst of changing my patterns. Changing a commute of an hour to working from home, I hope. Changing my sedentary life to one where I dance, walk and stretch. One where I make time to connect with the people I love instead of working and emailing in my spare time. Communication habits are patterns too.
Thanks for sharing this!
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I think the patterns we choose – and making sure we include things we really enjoy within our daily routines – make the difference in how much we enjoy life. One of the tricks is to make time for things that give us fulfillment. And to change them up periodically ….. I think you change your quite often!
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Thanks for this! It’s thought-provoking. Like most people, I suspect, I have some patterns that are very nurturing–rewards, if you will, that I’ve learned, or become willing, to give myself. Then there are others that are time-bandits–automaticities that require the scrutiny that I fail to give them. Alexander provides a helpful frame of reference.
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I had two reactions to the Alexander passage. My first reaction was what a creature of habit he is! And then I took some comfort in reconsidering what I would call habit or routine — ie boring, to my way of thinking — as ‘patterns’ instead. So, I’d agree with the good and bad patterns, but I still try to break up the patterns and add a little spice.
p.s. I like Moose’s quote, “I think it possible to stir large circles in small pots.”
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Fascinating. This reminds me of the Well of Mimmr from pre-Christian European mythology. We “lay” our deeds in the well and it inevitably shapes our present.
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Glad y’all liked the Alexander post. His books are fascinating–he seeks to analyze the patterns we live by, and then break down the buildings we need into patterns of their own to address those needs. This is one architect who campaigns against starting with the drawing board; instead, he encourages people to consider groups of patterns they need and build around those. These might include Farmhouse Kitchen, Sleep East, Grandparent’s Cottage, Bathhouse, Outdoor Rooms, etc. Wonderful stuff, though oddly I was more familiar with it from its adoption by tech designers than house/space builders.
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Glad y’all liked the Alexander post. His books are fascinating–he seeks to analyze the patterns we live by, and then break down the buildings we need into patterns of their own to address those needs. This is one architect who campaigns against starting with the drawing board; instead, he encourages people to consider groups of patterns they need and build around those. These might include Farmhouse Kitchen, Sleep East, Grandparent’s Cottage, Bathhouse, Outdoor Rooms, etc. Wonderful stuff, though oddly I was more familiar with it from its adoption by tech designers than house/space builders.
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This may be where Sarah Susanka formed her ideas for The Not So Big House. She says look at the functions of rooms, and their best use for you. Perhaps you don’t need a 3000 sq foot house with cathedral ceilings in the living room. The way she suggests you use space are clever and make much more sense for the way we live today. Base the floorplan of your house on the patterns in your life.
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