Summer ('sum er) n.
1. The usually warmest season of the year, occurring between spring and autumn and constituting June, July, and August in the Northern Hemisphere, or, as calculated astronomically, extending from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox.
2. A period of fruition, fulfillment, happiness, or beauty.
3. adj. Of, having to do with, occurring in, or appropriate to the season of summer: summer heat; summer attire.
Soul (sol) n.
1. The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
2. The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
3. The central or integral part; the perfect embodiment of an intangible quality;
4. A strong, deeply felt emotion conveyed by a speaker, a performer, or an artist.
5. Soul music.
Summer Soul ('sum er sol) n.
1. A sweet, horn-infused, life-evoking sub-genre of soul music perfectly matched to a warm summer evening with friends, food, and drink.
2. The kind of human soul whose true happiness is a warm summer evening with friends, food, drink, and music.
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.
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 you know each other, the more your 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 now work. This probably means there will be some entrepreneurship, business, and technology-focused content in here, principally related to the custom enterprise software business, but also more generally, agency work and entrepreneurship
hit the jackpot with my lovely wife Agnieszka and wonderful daughter Lola
cohabitate with two Maine Coons, Izzy and Nalu
If you appreciate my work, please support me on substack. We commit 1% of our substack subscriber revenue toward carbon removal.
