DISCOVERY
THE WRITE TRACK
CREATIVITY
Days on the Rails
20/180
Museums Visited
1
Art Galleries Visited
0
Countries Visited
7
Cities Explored
12
"We convince ourselves we are trapped because we are waiting for a perfect, sanitized escape route — a cured mind, a massive financial cushion, or a pristine plan. But absolute freedom doesn't look like a five-star reservation; it looks like wreckage. You are only truly trapped if you demand total certainty before you take the first step."
The Write Track
A 180 Day Challenge
For myself, I have spent years running away from friction, trying to engineer a safe, carefully sanitized existence. Along the way, I made catastrophic mistakes. I hesitated when I should have moved. I let countless, irreplaceable life opportunities slip right through my fingers because I was frozen by the fear of making the wrong choice.
Worse than the missed opportunities, I trusted the wrong people. I opened my life up to people who specialized in emotional manipulation and psychological abuse. It is a toxic, draining dynamic that didn't just happen in my past — it is an anchor I am still actively fighting to untangle myself from right now, even as I type these words. I have finally awoken to the fact "lies unchallenged, become the truth." The Write Track is where I choose to begin the challenge.
My internal world didn't just stall; it suffered a violent, silent structural collapse. To find myself completely fractured before I even step onto the platform feels deeply humiliating. It feels like a very public breakdown of the engine while you, the passengers, are already standing out here on the concrete holding your tickets. But I promised myself that I would bypass the automated, curated lies of modern media. If I am going to be uncompromisingly honest with you from the very first kilometer, I have to let you see the actual wreckage right now.
This is my pre-trip reckoning. I am 65 years old. When I look at the clinical ledger of my life, the math does not lie: I have failed at almost everything modern society tells you to win at. I do not have a pristine corporate resume, a massive savings account, a cured mind, or a clean manuscript. The structures I built around myself have run completely off the tracks.
But do not mistake a disrupted life for a broken man.
We live in a world completely obsessed with youthful perfection, overnight success, and hyper-optimized achievements. I am here to embody the exact opposite. I want to show you that it is never too late to pull the emergency brake on a life that is destroying you. It is never too late to change, to learn, and to grow. I stand before you with zero answers. I will never sell you a five-step roadmap to a perfect life. What I have instead is a vast, archival library of hard-earned questions and a lifetime of psychological traps to watch out for.
Despite the wreckage, my creative spirit remains sharp, and I am embracing a new, internal sovereignty I call Cedent-Power™ — yielding to the chaos to find strength. My upcoming, low-budget journey across 33 borders serves as the ultimate test of this new, honest approach. I am taking only a notebook, a laptop, and a commitment to transparency, replacing the silence with action. The train is leaving the station, and I hope you will join me on this journey.
I am no longer suppressing the damage, hiding the bruises on my psyche, and letting toxic people dictate my worth. The psychological cage I built is open, and I am now on The Write Track.
Every entry — every city, every stalled week, every mile of it — only happens with your support.
Donate nowThe cracks in the postcard
Modern Europe has been neatly packaged into a copycat, mass-produced aesthetic — a sanitized postcard optimized strictly for clicks and commercial data mining. I choose to look for the cracks in that facade.
Armed with nothing but an Interrail pass, a zero budget, and a refusal to book a single room in advance, I am tracking the real, unvarnished identity of a continent across 33 borders. The two psychological novels below are born directly from this volatile, unfiltered journey.
To survive the sheer friction of this 180-day independent migration, I have had to completely restructure how I process uncertainty. The tracks of Europe are my live field-test — by tactically surrendering to the chaos of the road, I protect my finite cognitive bandwidth to fuel my choices and my pen.
Genocide & Humanity — a six-part documentary
"I begin filming a project close to my heart: a six-part documentary series exploring Genocide & Humanity. Dealing with a topic this raw and emotional requires a new approach. My goal isn't just to document history, but to question it — examining the causes, the lasting effects, and the systemic blindspots. I'm striving to bring a completely fresh structure and perspective to this vital conversation. Stay tuned as we begin this journey."
Episode 1: The Anatomy of a Neighbor [The Causes]
Focus: Moving away from the idea of "monsters" and looking at how ordinary people are radicalized.
Question: How does language, propaganda, and everyday compliance pave the way for mass violence?
Episode 2: The Silence of the Bystander (The Mechanics)
Focus: The international community and local bystanders.
Question: Why does the world repeatedly fail to act despite "Never Again" pledges?
Episode 3: The Ripples of Trauma (The Effects)
Focus: Intergenerational trauma, structural damage, and the psychological scars left on survivors and their descendants.
Question: Does a genocide ever truly "end," or does it just change forms?
Episode 4: The Language of Denial (The Aftermath)
Focus: Modern revisionism, state-sponsored denial, and the weaponization of history.
Question: How do perpetrators attempt to erase the memory of their crimes, and why do we let them?
Episode 5: The Paradox of Justice (The Accountability)
Focus: International courts versus local, grassroots reconciliation (like Rwanda's Gacaca courts).
Question: Can legal systems ever truly heal a broken society, or is "justice" just a political tool?
Episode 6: The Future of Humanity (The Prevention)
Focus: Early warning signs in the digital age (e.g., social media algorithms fueling ethnic violence).
Question: Armed with history, can humanity actively rewire its tribal instincts, or are we doomed to repeat the cycle?
"When humanity draws borders, it erases itself."
The Anatomy of a Break Point
A complete mental breakdown, documented in full — the piece the rest of this journey is written in the shadow of.
Read about the experience →A Eulogy for the Historical Face
The first article filed from the tracks — a meditation on what's lost as the historical, unmediated human face disappears from public memory.
Read the full article →If Sarajevo provided me with answers, Nuremberg has provided me with more questions
[Article text coming soon.]
The first 48 hours
The start of this journey has been a breathless whirlwind — New York to Manchester, London, Brussels, Cologne, Munich. But the real map isn't measured in miles, it's found in the people: creative sparks with an artist from Ghent, a grounding conversation with a Romanian construction worker, and laughter that filled my heart with hope.
On the road
A lesson in human connection
Inside a cramped rail compartment, total strangers transformed into friends. Pictured left to right: Leo, Marta, and Ena — before parting ways, they handed me cards, a keepsake of a temporary, deeply impactful moment.
Mostar Rail Station
The immense scale of the building reflects a bygone era of bustling Yugoslav train networks — now a cavernous, quiet monument to post-socialist transition, still launching modern Talgo trains through the canyons of the Neretva toward Sarajevo.
Stuck in Zagreb
Nuremberg - Courtroom 600
The immense scale of the building reflects a bygone era of bustling Yugoslav train networks — now a cavernous, quiet monument to post-socialist transition, still launching modern Talgo trains through the canyons of the Neretva toward Sarajevo.
The location of The Nuremberg trials
