J ~ Greer

A Place to Start

Hello, World!

I’ve been Thinking About Writing a lot lately. To be honest, this feeling comes and goes every couple of months. I’d like to try to capitalize on the moment and take a moment to chart some places I’d like to take this blog:

  1. Thoughts on coding. As of writing, this is the eve of a new job in software development. I’ve spent the last decade in support roles for software, but now I’ll actually be adding lines of code. The raw craft of this really appeals to me, and is something I want to take seriously. To that end, I hope to use this place as a little learning journal. I’ll be starting as a junior, so curiosity, learning, and reflection are going to be my holy trinity here.
  2. Thoughts on music making. I’m the messy middle of making my 2nd collection of songs. Being an artist is important to me, but the reality is that it is confined within the schedule of a job, family life, social life, etc. I personally find this to be the path most of us are on, but not as often talked about. Compared to the artists of yore, we are our own patrons. Both Medici and da Vinci. I’d like to try and Work In Public with my musical craft here, both to add to the conversation about this lifestyle, but also to try and accelerate my own artistic feedback loop. The goal is for it to be self-oscillating.
  3. Y’know… whatever else! We’ve come a long way from sepia-toned pictures of lattes, but I think the spirit of it remains. We love to self-document whatever minutiae of life. On the noble side, maybe we’re trying to make meaning out of the random chaos. On the other side, well, it’s a little self-indulgent and mostly drivel. I will try to insulate us from that, but I can’t promise we won’t take diversions. I am human after all!

Finally, why here? Well, I have been Thinking About Writing, but really, actually, I’ve really been Thinking About Posting. Substack, Instagram, the like. These platforms are glitzy and promise a lot, but they feel really overwhelming to start something. Maybe it’s just because of how much the platform is thinking about growth… it nearly kills all the joy of creating. I’m at the stage where I really just want to focus on that. The joy of making stuff. Here, it will be words. But usually words about making things! I hope you enjoy, but more so, I hope I do too.

JG