In order to write the book _The Dayton Experiment_ in Ward's new wiki, I had to develop a new model of meaning-making.
I was no long constrained by the serial logic of a traditional book. That liberty, however, was a two edge-sword. Misused, I could create a solipsistic maze that would be, in the end, nihilistic. A rabbit hole to nowhere.
I began to think about the patterns of meaning that was emerging in my writing as being on a geometric plane. As a did that, I appreciated that, in order that for this meaning to be shared, it needed a context from which this meaning could be spatially understood - a center, an origin. A zero point.
As I did that I realized that this origin had to be connected to an aspiration that created the reason, a purpose for the meaning that was emerging. And once there was a purpose, a story needed to unfold that would create the narrative for the meaning. A narrative that would be the vessel of conveyance to others.
I was up in the branches of my old pear tree doing its annual pruning when the image of what I needed to do manifested. Lost in the wild, craggy chaotic branches of my ancient tree that is nearing its last days. For me, a tree of wisdom.
Planal Pattern
The image was of a story arc shaped as a golden mean emanating from the origin of a plane. And on that arc would be key ideas and concepts that branched off into nodes, pages that would be interconnected together to form a pattern language of meaning. A meaning matrix.
This form would allow me to articulate the three elements of what I now realized were vital for a pattern language: purpose, narrative and meaning.
Soon after, a friend of mine stopped by and gave me a book on da Vinci. As I read it, I began to visualize how he, as a polymath, was able to build multiple planal pattern languages of meaning that then became interconnected. And it was through these inter-planal connections that powerful new insights were possible.