deepest insights, the most mystical,
and spiritual insights, are somehow
less ordinary than most things -- that
they are extraordinary. This is only
the shallow refuge of the person who
does not yet know what he is doing.
In fact, the opposite is true: the most
mystical, most religious, most wonderful --
these are not less ordinary than most things --
they are more ordinary than most things.
It is because they are so ordinary, indeed,
that they strike to the core.
And this is connected to the fact that these
things can, indeed, be expressed clearly,
discovered, talked about. These deep
things which really matter, they are not
fragile -- they are so solid that they can be
talked about, expressed quite clearly.
What makes them hard to find is not that
they are unusual, strange, hard to express --
but on the contrary that they are so ordinary,
so utterly basic in the ordinary bread and
butter sense -- that we never think of
looking for them."
-- Christopher Alexander, "The Timeless
Way of Building", 1979, page 219
