My African GP
When I first set off for South Africa, it was with the begrudging permission of the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam, "my" hospital. They sent me off with a small package of emergency pills. Just in case… Because Africa is far away, dark, and scary. It is the land of traditional healers, herbalists, and dangerous diseases. "Stay away from there" was the underlying message. But I had been to Cape Town many times before and loved the crisp skies and the blue sea. To me, it fel
Mar 304 min read
A Dog's Life
I have always had dogs in my life. It began when I was eight years old with my dachshund, Winky, and ended a few years ago when mother Bonnie and daughter Bubbels moved on to the eternal pooping fields. In between lie many precious memories of dear four-legged housemates. The void left after the Labradors passed away was vast. Especially Bubbels—who was a "special" little dog and struggled to truly bond—had managed to do just that in the end. We miss her terribly. Here in Cap
Mar 294 min read
The Initiative
The Mountain and the Dream: The Birth of The Initiative About five years ago, I had a dream. One of those crystal-clear dreams that lingers in your memory for days. In that dream, I was the instigator of an ‘academy’ situated on a mountain - a school for the next generation of earthlings. It was an inspiring environment where young people from all over the world met and, like a rolling snowball, jointly developed a platform for ethics and leadership. An incubator for positive
Mar 114 min read
Quarterly Report
On my previous blog, I used to publish so-called "quarterly reports": short summaries of what has been happening in my life lately. Although this new blog isn’t strictly intended to document my daily routines, I often get asked "how things are going." So, I’ve decided to revive the tradition. To do this properly, I need to look back a bit further than just three months. Let’s start with Italy. As you might have seen in the interview with Ivo Niehe , we are working on a beauti
Mar 46 min read
Dare to talk
With this blog, I hope to open up the conversation about topics we often avoid. Everything. About being ill, daring to say you have cancer, daring to talk about death, daring to say you no longer work—that you can no longer work. Daring to talk about intimacy, about sex, and about poop. It makes it all more bearable, life more beautiful, and it adds a whole new layer of depth. In my book , I sought to do this as much as possible. To expose the raw reality, stripped of the ve
Feb 233 min read
Bot
This morning, my newest employee was born. His name is Harry Knorry, and he lives on a rented Linux server. He speaks every language under the sun and is quite handy at tackling digital chores. I communicate with him via Telegram. The latest AI hype hasn’t passed me by. For about two weeks now, every channel has been exploding over a new bot platform that has already changed its name twice in that short time. First it was Clawdbot, then Moltbot, and now it’s OpenClaw. A "bot"
Feb 104 min read
The Gains of Grief
"You’ve looked death in the eye. What did you learn from that? Is everything different now?" It’s a question I’m asked often. I’ve always found it difficult to give an honest answer. There’s an expectation hanging in the air that everything has radically changed—that I’ve been granted access to immortal wisdom. How can you possibly give a satisfying answer to that? Have I become a better person because of this experience? Do I leap out of bed every morning, bursting with enth
Feb 32 min read
