Process > artifacts

As I’ve learned to let go of my prior fixation with outcomes, I’ve found myself more inclined to explore and play, and in this is another lesson: play does not imply lack of purpose. Quite the opposite, it honors the most meaningful kind of purpose: that which arises from process. We don’t find meaning, we make it.

When we are... See more

If I look at things that have turned out well in my life (my marriage, some of my essays, my current career) the “design process” has been the same in each case. It has been what Christopher Alexander called an unfolding .1 Put simply:

• I paid attention to things I liked to do, and found ways to do more of that. I made it easy for interesting people

... See more

But I don’t hesitate to say that I mainly did it because—as a solitary endeavorer in a so far unproven second career, my old laurels wilting on the shelf—I wanted a quick way to remind myself of at least one lingering excellence.