Had a brilliant conversation with my long-time friend, Leandro last night. We caught up with each other’s lives, and talked about each of our own passions— computers in my case, and architecture. Such conversation was something I truly miss. We talked about how architecture was about solving problems. Leandro asked me if I had heard about Christopher Alexander; I replied that the name was familiar to me. It was, because I realized belatedly, after Leandro described Alexander’s major work, A Pattern Language, that Alexander influenced current-day thinking into the production and design of software— he is considered the father of the pattern language movement in computer science. We talked about the intersection of the two fields. And we talked about the opposite sex, about love, about life.
It was refreshing to hear my friend’s thoughts once more, but one thing he told me struck me in particular. He pointed to me that it is our name that defines us. We stake our reputations on our name— our family name, our own name. We either build upon the foundation made by our parents to that name, or we break off and build our name for our own. (I’m paraphrasing here, so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t currently seem to make any sense.) We are here to change the world, and we are recognized by our names.
Previously: Strange Week... and It's Just Beginning