What I am doing now ¹

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

2024

Updated: April 2024

Hello world, we are now open for business.

I am here to help small B2B SaaS development teams deploy writing culture as a 10x-ing strategy.

Meanwhile, 2023's total reinvention program continues.

2023

Updated: Aug 2023 (prev: May 2023)

Starting July, I have been back at the Recurse Center for a programmer's retreat. RC is my favourite community of gentlenerds, and it's fantastic to be in NYC again, among all these awesome people.

Meanwhile, the 2023 reinvention agenda continues.

—

Updated: May 2023 (prev: April 2023)

2023 is dedicated to total reinvention.

A dead past is being firewalled. Accumulated baggage is being tagged for eventual garbage collection. The mind's mechanics are being revised. The body is being repaired and upgraded. New experiences are being opted into. By learning to see with new eyes, a fresh vision of self, world, and life is appearing.

Analogy: Adopt "diffuse mode" mindset to reinvent, and "focus mode" mindset to then re-build.

2023 is professional reinvention number three.

My 20s were full of MBA-type work as well as one failed attempt at a startup. My 30s became about software engineering. The 40s seem to have begun with yet another pivot; toward solo enterprise. Suit and hoodie are amalgamating.

Objective: Test one's wits, skills, capabilities, knowledge in the exacting crucible of makin' and sellin' stuff.

2023 is sabbatical number four.

My sabbaticals have been times of hardcore reading, study, and hands-on use of new knowledge. Literally living eval/apply; I learn things and test myself by landing paid gigs for what I have learned. Let's see where this one goes.

Insight: Making sabbaticals work is primarily about psychology, not money.

Yes, and…

An improv-style approach is being applied to break into the present, and to also break out of the "no, but" style psychological ossification that is common experience, after having lived a bit (but not a bit too much). Living a bit too much seems to engender a "like, whatever" style of psychological regression. That feels so much harder to escape. Anyway, we're escaping "no, but" out here, and if you call this method improv-ing oneself, we won't complain.

Experience: I am about a year into what I've dubbed the "Yes, and method of reinvention". And yes, I heartily recommend it to anyone who will listen.

Small is beautiful; the lifelong trend continues.

Career-start was the first time I truly exerted my volitional muscles, and chose to work with/at small and medium companies instead of the socially approved giant MNC circuit. That drive has run through my MBA twenties, tech thirties, and seems to be the telos for the, shall we say, company of one forties?

Principle: When reinventing, known-good legacy need not be discarded. It may in fact be the very thing to subtract down to, and rebuild from, anew.

2021 and 2022

"A rebirth requires a death."

— Yours truly

'nuff said.

2020

This would be The Year Of Total Reinvention, had Certain World Events not intervened. Still, it began swimmingly, hacking Clojure code at a consulting gig, organising IN/Clojure 2020, and experiencing an amazing programmer's retreat at the Recurse Center ².

Pre-2020

Faded into the mists of time. GOTO now.