Let’s recap.
I started writing regularly again sometime in the second half of 2025. By that I mean, writing regularly about the things I want to write about - not thousands of words of reports for my work as a strategic design consultant et plus.
At the time, I launched this as Brave Old Work. An outlet for me to talk about all my issues and questions with the modern life we’ve spun ourselves and how we might start to wriggle out of it towards something more human.
I still have those thoughts. But, I’ve realised my interests aren’t as limited to just work and modern technology. I can’t help but be preoccupied with ideas on modernity, the human experience, parenthood, writing and creativity, technology, social media, identity, and more.
Little by little this project became a thinking and writing practice and more than what it had been. I just didn’t know what to call it.
Then, I wrote a ~4,400 word piece on writing, creativity, and AI, centred around my childhood notebook:
On the Origins of the Author & the Death of Voice
After my mother passed away, I was granted the Herculean task of cleaning out her home.
That notebook, though lost for years, was as familiar to me as my own hands. And I was stunned to realise I remembered that cover - the glittering Jupiter sticker I’d stuck over the illustrated boys head.
Oh. Jupiterhead.
Perfect.
This is Jupiterhead:
I’m a big believer in iteration. Not just in design, but in life. Having all the answers worked out now is not only usually a misguided assumption - it’s also just boring.
I’m probably going to be back here editing this section in the months or years to come. Because all things, especially creative pursuits, should change.
For now though, here’s what I’m doing in Jupiterhead:
Essays
Longform essays once a month on humanity, technology, and society. From what AI looks like in a word gripped by loneliness, to why we stopped naming decades and how we now live in a fiction genre.
Problems
An essay-in-reply series based on user submissions about sleepless problems.
Monday Notes
Weekly notes on a Monday - part writing practice, part update, part way to share the things I’m thinking about, reading, and doing.
Video Essays
Occasional video essays on deep dive topics. I’m intending to do more of these, when I can wrangle the time - I do, after all, love to talk a bit.
There’s also one other thing I’m hoping to add into my work here on Jupiterhead, once a quarter. But I’ll talk more about that later.
Let’s get reintroduced
I’m the son of an artist and a programmer.
In our childhood home there were two opposite ends of the spectrum: mum’s artist studio at one end, and dad’s software office at the other. I’ve always loved and understood both. As a kid I was HTML coding my own Pokemon websites and little games, while printing out my own novels chapter-by-chapter and going to writing camps.
Eventually, I’d go to uni and study a Bachelor of Arts, dipping my toes in Psychology, Literature, and Screenwriting. Then, due to family illness, I stopped going and eventually dropped out.
In my early twenties I co-founded a non-profit in mental health (and later, social cohesion) based on my own experiences with mental illness. Our work has reached millions of people, won Good Design Awards and been nominated to a UNESCO prize.
To fund this work, I started a consulting studio in strategic design and ended up working with governments, non-profits, and private entities in the pursuit of improving social outcomes.
I’ve also coached at the UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Shenzhen and Singapore, mentored the Orygen Mental Health Fellowship, helped award funding for Movember projects, and was the first Global Good Fund Fellow from Oceania. I’ve spoken for the World Economic Forum and the Obama Democracy Forum.
I was also in the founding cohort of the Obama Foundation Asia Pacific Leaders. They wrote about me here.
And - plot twist - I got invited back, years later, as a guest speaker for the uni that kicked me out.
I’m also a dad of young boys, a husband, and a lover of books, cooking, video games, and fitness. The last two increasingly difficult to come by in dadland.
There is a part of me that feared I might never return to writing regularly. And, for a long time, I struggled to find the time to revive that part of my life.
Jupiterhead has become something of a lifeline to the person I have always been and want to be.
So if you’re here, whether you’re letting my little bits of writing into your inbox or not - thank you.
-W.S-S
