Living Architecture- Monday with Marley

Last week we talked about the Six Laws of Gestalt Theory. They were:

1.      The Law of Continuity
2.      The Law of Closure
3.      The Law of Similarity
4.      The Law of Proximity
5.      The Law of Symmetry
6.      The Law of Common Fate

Somebody emailed me and told me there were eleven Laws of Gestalt Theory, not just six. Cool! But until he shares with me where I might find the next five, I'll make one up that I think sums up the whole theory.

7. The Law of Expectation

Faith is to believe in something not seen but hoped for.
To hope for something is to expect something.
To expect something is to look forward-to.
To look forward-to is to live in tomorrow.
To live in tomorrow is prophecy.

We expect things to make sense. Our brains are hardwired to complete things. We make sense of things by jumping from the assemblage of parts to the understandable Whole. This is why The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts.

We expect it to be. We want it to be.

And therefore it is.

This is what makes us what we are.

This inborn, undying, constant wanting to know more, do more, explore more is the engine of human evolution.

The Law of Expectation is why we build things, invent things, assemble things, write things, draw things, design things and think things into being.

Architecture would not be if not for the Law of Expectation.

The Law of Expectation is why we build pyramids.

Chichen Itza, Mexico

Up is forward. Up is into tomorrow. Up is faith and hope and yearning.

Great ziggurat of Ur, Southern Iraq

Up is to want. Up is to want to know what God knows.

Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan, Mexico

We build up to discover ourselves and our place in the cosmos and the why of it all.

Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

I think we build up because we're genetically codified to do so.

Whether it comes from an subatomic electrical gravitational timeless projection from nothingness into all-that-there-is-ness or from some innate physiological evolution of struggling squirming yearning bio-chemical squiggling molecular muck-a-muck mass-crusaders or whether we're pre-determined, pre-ordained, pre-meditated blundering children of a Indefinable Definition blinded at birth from knowing, we have it in us to discover what is in us.

And the Why of It.

It's why we hope. It's why there is faith. It's where belief comes from. It's why we think and strive and want. It's why we design and build and explore. It's why the Universe is expanding (because we are).

This Monday with Marley was brought to you because my eldest daughter Marlyce emailed me and asked, "And what would the Seventh Law of Gestalt Theory be, Daddy? Does it have something to do with why you're an architect?"

I think, sweet daughter, that God simply sang us into being. God gave us the way and the want and the need to know. God sang us into being and expected us to expect us to expect us to expect.

Theory?

Daddy