We tend to think of living well in grand terms. Leaving a legacy. Starting a movement. Building something huge.
But there’s also a magic in ordinary, everyday moments. Showing up to practice despite feeling tired after a long day. Admiring a pretty flower while out with your daughter. Obsessing over a sentence in a 5000 word post until it’s just right.
This site is about those moments. It’s about living with care and intention in the day-to-day. I explore questions like:
- What does it look like to make something with care and excellence?
- How do we show up and persevere in the face of pain, challenges, and suffering?
- How do we craft our character, our leadership, our way of seeing the world?
My name is Joshua. I’m a writer, engineer, and builder based in Chicago. I previously co-founded Plural Healthcare, a mental health intensive outpatient program in St. Louis. And I now help remarkable businesses thrive through improved strategy and custom tech. I also teach/train Taekwon-do at a local academy.
Growing up in Kenya, I saw the truth of the saying mtu ni watu, a person is people. And yet, I still often prefer to be left alone so I can make things, wander Chicago with my dog, or be silly with my two daughters.
For more details on what I’m doing currently, visit this page.
Featured Projects & Work
TKD Training Guide
I built a training app for learning the Taekwon-do patterns. This started as a simple tool to look up moves on a phone instead of flipping through pages in the book. But it evolved into a fully functional app (built with Laravel + Inertia + Vue) with detailed information on each pattern: showing ki-haps, combination groups, footwork diagrams, pattern videos, other notes, and more.
Photography
Making pictures helps me pay deeper attention to the world. I love making photos while out wandering in the wilderness, exploring new cities, or enjoying everyday moments close to home. Go here for a collection of my favorite work.
Plural Healthcare
I spent 3 years building Plural Healthcare, as co-founder and Director of Marketing/Technology. Our mental health intensive outpatient programs (IOP) helped address disruptive challenges like depression, anxiety, and trauma. We were unfortunately unable to overcome ongoing issues with insurance payers, and we made the decision to close in 2025.
Marketing, Copywriting, & Web Design
I helped entrepreneurs and experts grow their businesses by showcasing their unique value to the right audience. That meant building websites centered on storytelling and usability, and writing copy that converted. (One sales letter for a health product converted at 21.7% to their house list. Another project helped generate $250k in sales for a paid newsletter in 3 months.)
Cave of Monsters
At Cave of Monsters, Colin Chung and I wrote about “practical spirituality”. We believe inner work drives higher returns than any single system, strategy or skill-set… and that people get stuck when they starve their soul.
The Bright Army
My first blog explored the practice of living well. How to be generous and courageous and kind. How to honor the humanity in ourselves and those around us. Go here for my best posts.
Power Plant Design
Trained as a mechanical engineer, I worked at Sargent & Lundy designing electric power plants (mostly natural gas and nuclear). I performed stress analysis and energy balance calculations, drafted engineering drawings, and created custom software to automate reporting.