About This Site

I heard a joke once that "Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age travels alone."

Even if we do manage to accumulate little bits of wisdom over the years, we may live our lives mostly unaware of them, perhaps concluding that we have little perspective to offer the world... we’re just muddling through.

But sometimes I'll sit down with a close friend, especially after some time apart, and all manner of hidden wisdom is unexpectedly revealed. After the obligatory pleasantries, sips of wine or other social lubricant, and some animated conversation, thoughts buried in our subconscious begin to bubble up, gradually at first, but then urgently flapping and screaming like a torrent of crazed bats streaming from a cave at dusk, on a frenetic quest to gorge themselves on mosquitos. After a couple of hours of this, on my way home I'm left wondering if I've just emerged from a some sort of mind-altering video game. Were these perspectives sitting there waiting to be uncovered all along, or were they realized in the moment in some unfathomable act of creation?

We all yearn for insights into life's meaning and essential purpose. I've never considered myself a "creative," much less wise, but I seem to have no end of insistent nascent thoughts, errant or otherwise. Perhaps they just need a little care and feeding to bring them out and finally stop them from running around buck wild in my head like caffeinated squirrels. This site is an attempt to capture some of them, test for echoes, and hopefully learn something from you if you respond. I often don't even know what I'm thinking until I'm talking with someone, making propositions and seeing how things sound. Writing is a bit like that too — the words on the page staring back at you like a window into the mind's stormy sea.

Topics will likely include evolving thoughts on work, relationships, music, money, paradox, philosophy, purpose, and the impending robot revolution. I'm still trying to find appropriate outlets or applications for what I learned during my first degree (in Biology - I thought it was going to be all about penguins and whales and such, but it turned out to be mostly about organic chemistry, worms, and bacteria), so maybe some of that, too.

AI Disclosure Statement

I write all of my articles because I want to be a player on the field of creativity; I'm trying to grow as a writer, understand my own mind, and test for echo with yours. I'm after improvement through struggle, satisfaction, self-expression, and human connection, none of which I can get if I farm it out to AI. I write to project myself into the world.

In addition, there would likely be a painful aesthetic mismatch between my intention and what AI produces. To be creative is to be human. Words need a pulse. The creative process will remain largely within the purview of the human family if it is to continue to have any value to us at all.

I do use AI as an editor after my draft is created, often rejecting what it suggests because I want it a certain way. AI does help me with heading titles, though I often have to sift through hundreds of options, because it doesn't know what good looks like to me. It often suggests I create better connecting phrases between my sections, which I often forget to do. It sometimes shows me where I went completely off the rails, and suggests changes like a good editor would, which I then write myself.

Much of this is decidedly besides the point. All AI does is give you the output. If I were writing a for-profit newsletter or other commercial content, the output might be more of the point, and I'd probably use AI more, for efficiency. And some human copywriters are so horrible that I'd prefer the AI content to theirs.

Our egos are also at play, here. Competent writers want people to know that they struggled to write something, because it raises their value in the marketplace as a "capable and thoughtful person." For some, though, the point of using AI is to simply help them communicate their thoughts, and they don't want to spend time on improving their own mechanics, so they use AI. What's wrong with that?

I agree that we do lose a big part of our connection to our authors as human beings when they use AI tools, which is not a small loss. That's another reason I use it sparingly, because I'm after those connections. But the content remains. If it's useful to people, it's useful. If audiences enjoy it, all the better. If you miss the humanity in it, then read human authors. The rest is just your ego screaming that others shouldn't get as much credit as you do for being so good at writing.

About Jeremy

I currently live in Toronto, but I think my heart may be on a beach in the Caribbean somewhere, gazing out over a vast ocean. There it patiently sits, on a rock, flushing the sand from its valves, waiting for me to pass through the folly of my "mastery of the world" phase so that I can join it once again. In the mean time, I'm stuck with self-administered chest compressions to keep myself alive. Can you take over for a little bit? I'm exhausted!

I value thoughtfulness, beauty, stillness, hope, hard work, deep connections, warm hearts, and open minds. I hold fast to the important people in my life. I'm not always firing on all cylinders, but I can be formula one if I truly believe. I love to cook (and eat), I play guitar, and I'm learning the drums. My sports are mainly basketball, tennis, and golf, none of which I've been able to play much since COVID due to crappy back problems brought about by stress, not enough sleep, and a lifetime of sitting at a computer. I'd never say no to an opportunity to yammer with friends over music, food, and summer fun.

An important aspect of life is the long meandering process of getting "who we are" into other people's heads, including our own. The more we know each other, the more our worlds expand. That's why I write.

Miscellany

• born in Guyana in 1970, grew up in Jamaica for a bit before becoming a full-time Canadian at age 8

• card-carrying member of Generation X, famous for spawning marketing cynicism, technological adaptability, idea skepticism, work-life balance, and the whole trend of late-alphabet-letter generation names — take that millennials!

• spent most of my career at a software solutions company (Jonah Group) that two friends and I founded in 2001, reaching about 160 team members by the time we sold out to 3Pillar in 2022, where I worked until my retirement at the end of 2025. Work was a big part of my life, which means that there will be some entrepreneurship, business, and technology-focused content in here, principally related to the custom enterprise software business, but also more generally to agency work, entrepreneurship, and the working world at large

• hit the jackpot with my lovely wife Agnieszka and wonderful daughter Lola

• cohabitate with two Maine Coons, Izzy and Nalu