# our way of life (pattern)

*Ordinarily means:* the customs and values a community sees as defining it, often invoked as under threat

A pattern of acting that a collective self reads as what it is, so it reads those who act otherwise as outside its boundary.

- Computed level: L17 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: published  ·  Domain: agency

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [collective self](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-collective-self.shared), [boundary](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-boundary.limit), [pattern](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-pattern.regularity), [act](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-act.deed), [identity](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-identity.self), [out-group](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-out-group.outside), [read](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-read.information), [outside](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-outside.spatial)

**Through:** The self model identifies the group with a pattern and not with its members, so difference in acting reads as distance from the boundary and change to the pattern reads as a threat to the self.

**Novel properties:**
- a boundary drawn by conduct
- change read as loss of self

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-our-way-of-life.pattern*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-our-way-of-life.pattern.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*