concept
active
concept:pleasing-yourselfPleasing Yourself
The core prescription of the chapter: making what truly pleases you at the deepest level, which Alexander argues is the key to creating all living structure and the path to the I.
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Claims (6)
claim
- The central thesis of the chapter: pleasing yourself is the necessary and sufficient prescription for creating living structure.
- The most radical claim of the chapter: the subjective and the ethical are identical at the deepest level.
- The process of unfolding and the fundamental process follow from this pleasing of oneself, as night follows day.associated_withAlexander claims Book 2's unfolding process is a consequence of people learning to please themselves.
- The message that one must please oneself, perfectly, in order to reach God, was exactly the message of St. Francis.associated_withAlexander's reinterpretation of St. Francis: pleasing God and pleasing oneself truly are the same thing.
- The culminating identity claim: the act of true self-pleasing and the creation of living structure are one and the same process.
- Pleasing oneself, when it is truly done, leads to the most sublime, the most profound, the most truly spiritual art.associated_withAlexander claims that true pleasing oneself is identical to the path intended by the greatest religious teachers.
Artifacts (10)
artifact
- Bridge for the Rio Grande de Loiza (Puerto Rico)associated_with500-meter span pierced-concrete shell bridge designed by Alexander, Scott Hunter, and team; highly innovative structurally but not accepted in the competition.
- Blue Glasses (Royal Dutch Glassworks)associated_withHand-blown drinking glasses with blue spirals, designed by Alexander with gold enamel and gold leaf ornament; deeply liked by the glassblowers themselves.
- Vache Accroupie by Paul Gauguin (1900)associated_withPainting of a crouching cow, black and white with golden green around its head; described by Christie's as a 'minor Gauguin' but held by Alexander to be more innocent and greater than Gauguin's knowing works.
- Mexicali Projectassociated_withGroup of houses and communal buildings in Mexicali (1976), with domes, white walls, courtyards, each window different; cost $3,500 per house and was ridiculed by Berkeley faculty.
- Gioja House Terraceassociated_withTerrace overlooking Lake Travis with column capitals, sultry light, and open water; part of a courtyard house that began with a genuinely childish impulse.
- Window in the Gioja Houseassociated_withDining room window with small glazing bars looking over Lake Travis; designed without a single particle foreign to the makers' liking.
- Investment Banker's House Kitchen-Living Roomassociated_withHand-painted kitchen-living room in San Francisco with chartreuse, green, yellow, red gouache, turquoise dolphins; provoked the question 'Is it really OK to have this much fun?'
- Sunset (Sonnenuntergang) by Emil Nolde (1909)associated_withBold, wild Expressionist sunset painting with blazing yellows, crimsons, blues, and grays; exemplifies the freedom to please oneself with direct, primitive response.
- Green Tea Trayassociated_withKnot-free pine tray with green French polish and green oil pigment, made by Alexander in 1972 as part of construction experiments.
- The Pink Cloud (painting)associated_withOil on canvas, 35×50 cm, painted by Alexander in 1997; a dark pink cloud at night painted in 15 minutes of ecstatic work after doing something 'outrageous' with color.
Concepts (6)
concept
- West Dean Visitor's Centreassociated_withThe test-bed project where innovative brick, concrete, flint, and stonework were developed, informing the Mary Rose Museum.
- The I (Great Self)associated_withThe transcendent ground of all existence, the eternal self within each person, to which we appeal when judging living structure and which is revealed when we truly please ourselves.
- Best Self / Deep Selfassociated_withThe reservoir of goodness within each person that serves as the internal reference for harmony, rightness, and the recognition of living structure.
- True Liking (vs Superficial Liking)associated_withThe genuine, deep pleasure that comes from the whole person and childish truthfulness—distinguished from wilfulness, professional posturing, or pleasing others' expectations.
- Drunk in God (Sufi)associated_withThe Sufi concept of ecstatic union with the divine, equated by Alexander with the state of truly pleasing oneself.
- No-Mind (Zen)associated_withThe Zen concept of a state beyond ego and conceptual thought, equated by Alexander with reaching the I through truly pleasing oneself.
Questions (1)
question
- Does it create feeling in me, does it make me feel more whole within myself, when I confront it?associated_withThe fundamental question to ask during the process of creating order; the operational test for living structure.
Chapters (1)
chapter
- CHAPTER TEN: Pleasing YourselfintroducesThe culminating chapter of Vol 4 arguing that the core prescription for creating living structure is to truly please yourself, and that this is identical to reaching the I and doing what is right.
Related by similarity (8)
cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edgeEntities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.
- The troubling consequence of true self-pleasing: it produces beauty so deep it reveals the divine, which makes modern people uncomfortable.
- Process of reifying one's identity as an independent self; meditation practices aim to decrease selfing.
- Requirement that answers to questions be responsive as well as truthful; requires knowing that questioner will know the answer after receiving it.
- The moral revaluation: what society treats as self-indulgence is actually the path to transcendence.
- Question raised by the bridge example about whether contemporary society allows genuine self-pleasing.
- Pragmatic or extrinsic value component of expected free energy; preference maximization.
- A necessary state of mind for making living things, characterized by absence of self-importance and complete attention to the thing itself.