It’s John Chris Jones’s eightieth birthday today. A day worth celebrating.
I have many things to thank him for, because over the years he has influenced my thinking in many ways.
I owe him a particular debt of gratitude, because I got the “purposive” in purposive drift from him.
It is from one of my favourite books, one that I return to time after time, “Essays in Design” (page 162 John Wiley & Sons, 1984 if you want to look it up):
“When you go to process, you lose the goal, you lose the aim.
I’m beginning to see it now …..THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PURPOSES……the purpose of having a result, something that exists after the process has stopped, and does not exist until it has stopped….. and there is the purpose of carrying on, of keeping the process going, just as one may breather so as to continue breathing?……the purpose is to carry on.”
So Happy Birthday, John Chris and may you carry on for many years to come.