Truth Beauty Math Coffee
About this site#
This site is where I live digitally. It’s where my stuff ends up—ideas, notes, projects, art, poetry, music, half-finished experiments, side hustles, and the occasional hard-won insight. The blog itself stretches back a long way, an ephemeral trail through curiosity, confusion, learning, and reinvention. Some things here are polished, some are provisional, and some are simply saved from being forgotten. Think of it less as a showcase and more as a workshop, a notebook, and an archive rolled into one. A place to build, reflect, and keep moving forward—one project, one post, one strange idea at a time.
About the blog#
Ya know, I hesitate to put it this way, but this blog isn’t just for you. No offense—it just wasn’t written with solely you in mind. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you’re here! But I started this as a journal, a kind of breadcrumb trail for myself. A way to remember, reflect, and maybe keep track of what I was trying to do with this life. Most of it, anyway.
The name Truth Beauty Math Coffee comes from the things I keep circling back to. Truth, because it’s rare and clarity matters. Beauty, because life without it feels thin. Math, because patterns—whether in numbers, music, or ideas—help me understand how things fit together. And coffee, because reflection tends to happen better with a warm cup nearby.
If you’ve somehow found your way here, feel free to wander. There are stories. Struggles with shelter. A few triumphs. Some experiments in making art with math and other creative efforts. And then there are the stories of my family—as best I can remember. It’s a long conversation with myself, stretched over years, chapters, and cups of coffee. If you find something here that feels true, or beautiful, or just slightly caffeinated—well, welcome.
About me#
Some mornings I wake up clear and energized. Other mornings I wake up asking myself what I’m doing with this one life I’ve been given.
I no longer see that question as a problem. I see it as a compass.
I believe life is finite, attention is precious, and meaning is not something you stumble upon—it’s something you make. Over time, I’ve learned that I feel best when I have an orientation: a set of values, questions, and practices that give me something real to engage with. Something worth wrestling into shape.
I strive to be a creator above all else.
I believe many of the ailments of modern life—alienation, anxiety, numbness, passivity—are not solved by better consumption, but by better participation. By making things. Anything. Music, stories, art, tools, performances, conversations, experiments. The act of creation shifts us from being efficient consumers of the world to active participants in it. That shift matters.
Much of my life has been spent exploring creative expression in its many forms: music, writing, theater, building, tinkering, learning out loud. This site began years ago as a way to document a very practical struggle—remodeling a neglected house I once called My Filthy Hovel. Over time, it evolved into something broader: a record of curiosity, effort, reflection, and ongoing becoming.
Lately, a new thread has moved to the center of my attention: artificial intelligence.
I believe AI—non-human as it is—has the potential to help us become better humans. Not by replacing thinking, creativity, or judgment, but by augmenting them. By helping us learn faster, reflect more clearly, notice our blind spots, and engage more deeply with what matters.
That belief is the seed of a new project: howtobebetter.ai.
The idea is simple and ambitious at the same time—to explore how intelligent tools can support human growth: intellectually, creatively, ethically, and civically. This isn’t about hype or shortcuts. It’s about careful use. Responsible experimentation. Treating AI as a collaborator rather than an oracle, and always keeping human values in the driver’s seat.
What you’ll find here is not a finished philosophy, but a practice. Thinking in public. Making things. Trying ideas, discarding some, refining others. Paying attention. Taking risks. Remaining playful.
The values I return to—sometimes gracefully, sometimes clumsily—are these:
Kindness. Integrity. Playfulness. Courage. Truth. Beauty. Math. And some decent coffee.
If you’re interested in making more than you consume, in using new tools to deepen rather than dull your humanity, and in treating life as something to be actively shaped—welcome. You’re among friends.
About the tools I use#
- Claude Code
- ChatGPT
- Python
- JavaScript
- Hugo
- Git
- AI/ML
- Linux
- Processing
- Guitars
- Banjos
- Ukes
- Accordions
- Keyboards
- Loopy Pro
- AUv3 plugins