A quote I’m pondering today from the East-European dissident Václav Havel:
Life rebels against all uniformity and leveling; its aim is not sameness, but variety, the restlessness of transcendence, the adventure of novelty and rebellion against the status quo.
This characterization about life (variety, adventure, spontaneity), in contrast to death (uniformity, discipline, sameness), is related to the “erotic” of Esther Perel in Mating in Captivity and the “quality without a name” of Christopher Alexander in A Pattern Language. Perel says that the erotic is the antidote to death. Alexander proclaims that the “quality without a name” manifests in the flourishing of chaos within rigid structures.
Both Perel’s “erotic” and Alexander’s “quality without a name” share a rebelious and subversive character, apparent qualities of that which is alive. To be alive is to be free. And to be free is to be alive.