Navigating Through Life

Dear Horst Nowacki,

ships and the sea have always been my passion. And, actually I wanted to be a captain, preferably on an icebreaker. At the age of 16, as a student on a trip as a deckhand on a cruise ship (1969), I became so terribly seasick that I decided to stay on land and study shipbuilding instead.

It is now 49 years ago (1974) that I first met you, as a young student, on Salzufer 17-19 in Berlin. And you benevolently accompanied and supported me until I did my doctorate on “A design methodology for the shape optimization of deeply submerged axisymmetric bodies …” (1983).

My skepticism about the one-dimensional world view of engineers and their supposedly uncritical, technocratic belief in progress, which I felt at the time, grew steadily. I missed the aesthetics, the history, the ethics in engineering. Ecology came later. Initial considerations for an outbreak were aimed at architecture.

Seefahrer, denk an die Sirenen, ahoi / sailor, watch out for the sirens, ahoy
(Hans Peter Kuhn, Kiel 2012; Photo: Gerhard Kassner).

After a failed entrance exam for industrial design, I habilitated in Wuppertal with “Reflections on a system-theoretical model of design theory” (1994).

The, actually everlasting, crisis of the German shipbuilding industry at the time – and my mathematics weakness, which could hardly be concealed – made this somewhat risky change of course easier.

In the following 25 years with four theory-oriented design professorships at four art and design colleges in the German provinces, I talked and argued and learned a lot about aesthetics, history and ethics, but I didn’t find any more convincing or conclusive answers on how to deal with them in a meaningful way.

On the contrary, I have learned that there is professional narrow-mindedness everywhere, not just among engineers. More important are personal attitudes and values, which usually have little to do with the professions.

A few years ago, I finally got back to practice: to sailing. And I live in the city where I first had a few months of shipbuilding practice at HDW (today German Naval Yards) in 1975. With a view of the shipyard cranes.

 German Naval Yards, Kiel, seen from my kitchen window.

Back where I started? Maybe, definitely with a lot of strenuous learning and a lot of painful self-doubt along the way.

Unfortunately, it is now too late to change course again. But I have made up my mind: in my next life I will be a marine / polar explorer. Totally one-dimensional…

… and, actually not that far away from the starting point.

Applied cybernetics in the northern Kattegat.

Thank you, dear Horst Nowacki, for being a friendly, reliable and trustworthy pilot in an important stage of my life.

All the best, happiness and health,

Your Wolfgang Jonas