Gillette (Ad Utrumque Paratus)

COLOPHON

Ferdinando Frega — Nando the Scribe — The Fifth Blade

Narrative pioneer of the Behavioral Code. He built a one-dollar editorial ecosystem around a single idea: finance does not have a money problem. It has a behavior problem.

Gillette Series Narrative · Volume XV. Edited and curated within the ONEDOLLAR-STORIES ecosystem. Digital architecture: NAPLES-POST · NOASPECTTIME · ONEDOLLAR-STORIES. First published in 2026. Set in a clean, modern typographic layout optimized for digital reading. Published in the United States.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

© 2026 Ferdinando Frega. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of this work is prohibited.

MANIFESTO

(Ad Utrumque Paratus)

In this book, you will not find stories invented to please anyone. You will find reality: naked, direct, without makeup. I have met people, professions, broken lives, and rebuilt lives. I have observed the world for sixty years, and today I portray it as it is: human, fragile, powerful. I do not write to console. I am writing to open your eyes.

INTRODUCTION

There are books that are written out of necessity. This is one of them. The world changes, people change, but the truth remains the same: we fall, we make mistakes, we suffer, we love, we rebuild. I chose to tell real stories—not to explain life, but to remember it. Each chapter is a window onto a piece of humanity. Enter without expectations: you will find what you are ready to see.

THEMATIC PARTITION

The book opens with a simple and cruel question: how do you win life? Not with money. Not with success. Not with force. You win life when you take responsibility for existing. When you stop complaining, stop waiting, stop making excuses. The rest is just a side dish. This collection begins here: education, mistakes, fragility, forgiveness, solidarity, courage, rebirth. These are not abstract concepts. They are the foundations that keep you standing when the world collapses around you.

I. Education and Origin

How you are born does not decide who you will become. But it does decide where you start. And the start marks everything: it shapes you; it directs you; it sets before you the terrain on which you will have to learn to run. No one chooses the origin. But everyone can choose the direction.

II. The Fragility of Man

Fragility is not shameful. It is proof you are alive. Suffering, crying, giving in for a second… it is not weakness. It is survival. Those who do not recognize their own fragility become a wall: hard on the outside, empty on the inside. Fragility is what sets you in motion. And without movement, there is no life.

III. The Reconstruction

Life breaks you. It happens to everyone. The difference is made by those who decide to get back on their feet. Reconstruction is not something superheroes do. It is something invisible people do doctors, volunteers, caregivers, firefighters, nurses, assistants, the anonymous hands that hold the world together while others look the other way. Rebuilding means not giving in to collapse.

IV. The Value of Solidarity

Solidarity is not charity. It recognizes in others the same hunger, the same need, the same fear that you experienced. From rural villages to large international organizations, the principle remains the same: when someone falls, someone must reach out. This is not charity. This is civilization.

V. The Journey as Transformation

Travel is not an escape. It is a confrontation. There is no need to cross continents: just cross yourself. Those who truly travel never escape from anything. See who they have become. Every journey is a reckoning: with what you were, with what you are, with what you no longer want to be.

VI. Destiny as Choice

Destiny does not wait for you. It does not knock. It does not save you. You shape your destiny when you take the first step. And if you do not, you will remain stuck in the same place for the rest of your life, convinced the world is against you. The truth is simple: no one will lift you up unless you start on your own.

THE VALUES

What Costs the Skin

Values are not slogans to be framed. They are bills are to be paid. People confuse principles with what they like to hear. True value is what you respect even when it costs you, when it is inconvenient, when it leaves you alone. I have seen places where values no longer exist: hospitals that hold suspended souls, streets where pain has no witnesses, homes where people survive behind closed doors. There you understand that dignity is a choice, not a prize. You do not learn values from books. They hit you like a slap in the face: either you recognize them or you lose them. I did not author these stories to teach. I wrote them because, if you do not face the truth, the truth will pass you by. If you need fairy tales, change books. If you need to remember who you want to be, sit down: this is the right chapter.

Of Money That Reveals

Money does not change people. It amplifies them. If you are empty, you become emptier. If you have substance, you become greater. I saw it at work. A colleague, high-income, well-positioned, could not muster the courage to fork out five euros for a collection for a family in need. He said, “It’s not my place.” And as he said it, he emptied himself.

Then I saw a technician on minimum wage leave an anonymous envelope for twenty euros on the same family’s desk. And without a word. He really expanded. Money does not measure a man’s worth: it measures how much noise he has to make to be heard. You will not win because you have. You will win because of how you choose. The rest is a fairy tale for adults.

To Really Win

The word “winning” has been ruined by those who have never won anything. You only win when you stop kidding yourself. You do not need heroes. You need to say: enough is enough. Years ago, at work, I saw a man who had been chasing a promotion for ten years that never came. He arrived first, left last, always with the same phrase: “Next year it’s my turn.” He never got one. One day I took him aside and said, “Are you winning or are you waiting?” He looked at me as if I had opened a window in his face. Two months later he changed jobs. From there he started winning. The truth is this: You win when you choose yourself, not when others choose you. And in life, true victories always come from two things: the consistency that supports you and the person who stays by your side. Everything else is noise.

The Luxury of Stopping

Stopping today feels like a sin. If you do not run, you are out of the game. I have learned that without stopping, you see nothing. One morning in the garden, sitting idle, I found more answers than in months of running. Silence is not empty. It is internal maintenance. Contemplation does not escape: it is returning to life with a clear head. And you realize it from a simple detail: when you stop, what matters remains. The rest evaporates.

Educational Campaign

Education is not a subject. It is imprinting. Born into a family, raised on the streets, and established at school. Origin does not determine who you become, but it determines your departure. If you start badly, recovering costs you twice as much. If you start well, you have no excuses. I started off badly. At 13, at my first dinner with the rugby team, I discovered I did not know how to eat. I had houses, money, cars, a waitress. But I had no education.

Rich Innocents

Shame opens your eyes. And if you are smart, you start to recover. I recovered everything on my own. And that is what changed me.

Then came the job at a multinational. Twenty years. Languages, responsibilities, travel, and the surgical observation of human behavior. Another life. And it is ironic that I ended up teaching communication and education… abroad, because in Italy my degrees were worth nothing. I smiled. Every student could have been me as a kid. The truth is that education cannot be bought. And not everyone has it. You see it every day on social media: schoolchildren who do not know how to say “good morning” without hurting someone. My suggestion? A basic education test before enrolling. They never will. But it would change the world. And finally, they would know how to eat at the table.

Solidarity

Solidarity is not an organized chain, a project, or a campaign. It is a gesture. It is someone who knocks on your door when you have nothing left in the fridge. It is a hand that reaches out without taking a photo, without posting, without hashtags. True solidarity has no testimonies, it has shared scars.

It is not the perfect village to rebuild a house in celebration. It is a tiring community that still moves one person, because alone you cannot get anywhere. Solidarity does not solve everything. But it makes it bearable what would otherwise collapse on you alone.

Poverty

Poverty is not just a lack of money. It is a lack of opportunities, of prospects, of people who see you. There are houses standing and families collapsing. There are walls that hold and people who can no longer bear it. The true wealth of a place is not measured in square meters, but in how many times people say to each other: “I’ll help you.” Poverty brings you to your knees. Dignity decides whether you get back up.

Medicine

Medicine is not a miracle. It is a constant endeavor. Every hospital ward has a balance between hope and exhaustion. There are not just clinical cases: there are people who no longer have any margin for error. Doctors are not saints. They are human beings who get their hands dirty every day with the limitations of others. When a treatment works, it is not magic. It is study, failure, retry, persistence, and teamwork. And when it does not work, the eyes of those who tried until the very end remain. This too is value.

Road and Scars

For years, I walked more than I spoke. The road was my therapy: iron benches at the station, train seats, airplane windows, anonymous hotel rooms, cities that changed while inside I remained the same. I did not need to escape; I needed to look at myself from the outside. Every journey was a comparison: between what I had done and what I had not had the courage to do. No one healed my wounds: I simply carried them with me, city after city, until they stopped ruling. The road does not heal you. It holds up a mirror to you and tells you: either you change now, or you stay the same.

Passages of Life

I have seen hospitals where pain no longer has a voice. Corridors filled with the clatter of heels, monitors, and stifled sighs. There, you realize you are not the center of the world, you are just a passageway. Tired doctors who do not give up, nurses who hold together pieces of humanity at the doorstep, volunteers who do the dirty work without a title behind their name. And then patients who have a thousand reasons to hate life yet greet you with a smile. Every time I set foot in those corridors, as a patient or as a visitor, I understood one thing: fragility is not a flaw, it is the reminder that we are passing through.

Shadows and Lights

Inspiration never comes when you expect it. It comes when you are not ready, when you are tired, when you want to turn everything off.

I have learned to look for it in the shadows, not just in the lights. In the days when you feel dull, in the moments when nothing makes sense, in those suspended hours when you wish you could stop. That is where the best comes from. Not when you feel brilliant, but when you are naked. The light comes later, when you have had the courage to look at what you did not want to see.

Independence

Being independent does not mean doing everything yourself. It means not being anyone’s property. Independence is not handed to you. You pay for it up front, with years of unpopular decisions, slammed doors, silence, and sacrifices that no one sees and no one applauds. This is how I learned it: when you depend on others, you live anxiously; when you decide for yourself, you live with the consequences. And it is much more dignified. Being independent does not mean caring. It means not living tied to people’s expectations, not asking the world for permission to exist, not letting life be handed to you already bent. Independence is an internal space: you enter it when you stop seeking approval and start seeking consistency. Many confuse solitude with independence. I do not. Solitude is a moment. Independence is a choice. And the truth is simple: if you must ask someone for permission to be yourself, you are not.

My independence did not come when others let me go. It came when I stopped waiting for them to understand me. From there, the rest was just ahead.

The illusion

Illusion is the first trap you learn as a boy. In relationships, in jobs, in promises. Others deceive us, but we often deceive ourselves much better. We tell ourselves stories about what “will come,” about what we “deserve,” about what “will happen sooner or later.” Meanwhile, we do nothing. Then there are the professionals of illusion: politicians who sell impossible futures, systems that promise you security, lifestyles that cannot withstand the first shock. To deceive means to live by other people’s expectations. I have chosen to live by data: what I do, not what I am told.

LOSE

Losing is an art. And like all arts, you only learn it when it hurts. Anyone who’s never lost something has never understood what it means to hold on to something. I have lost contracts that seemed already signed, opportunities that everyone called “unmissable,” people who never come back. Each time I did the same exercise: I asked myself where I had gone wrong, what I had underestimated, who I had listened to too much. Loss is not the end. It is mandatory correction. A message from life that says, “You weren’t ready for this.” If you can read it, it improves you. If you endure it, it crushes you.

“Always ready for both” also means this: being ready for victory, but above all being ready for defeat without losing myself. And he who has never lost… has never truly won.

Contemplation

Stopping today seems like a flaw. If you do not run, they tell you, you are out of the game. The truth is the opposite: if you do not stop, you see nothing. One morning, sitting in the garden doing nothing, I found more answers than months of pointless running. Silence is not empty: it is space. It clears the noise, reorganizes the brain, and puts you back in the exact place from which you can understand. Contemplating does not mean running away from life. It is the most honest way to re-enter it with a clear head, without pursuing paths that are not your own. He who never stops does not get further: he only gets more tired. And lucidity, today, is worth more than speed.

Learning the Lesson

I studied hard, but I did not learn the real lessons from books. I learned them in the flesh. Catholic colleges, church, working for multinationals, travel, sacrifices, observing the behavior of those who smile in your face and dig your grave. The biggest lesson? Knowing when to walk away. Not out of fear, but to preserve the little good you have built.

I have seen entire populations live by selfishness, opportunism, indifference, and appearances. And then be amazed at the results. In the end, I chose this way: few people, few affections, few true relationships. Everything else: observation. To learn what not to become.

ASSISTANCE

(Ad Utrumque Paratus)

It is not speeches that keep the world going. It is people who help others when no one is looking. Those who are there when you are out of breath, when you cannot understand anything, when you are running out of strength, when it is already too late. They are the first to arrive and the last to leave. This part of the book is for them. Because without them, everything else falls apart.

The Church

The Church is not just doctrine, sacristies, rites, and processions. In the suburbs, in towns, in neighborhoods that do not make the news, it is often the only place where someone opens the door without asking for the bill. There are priests who talk too much and do nothing. And there are priests who almost never speak but are there when no one answers the phone: – collecting food – listening to those who have not slept for days – keeping families together that are already broken inside. The true Church is not the one on TV. It is the one that sees you when you want to disappear.

Elderly and Carers

In Italy, the elderly support half the economy on their emotions, and no one gives them credit for it. They live in homes that are empty, in apartment buildings where no one rings the doorbell, in cities where time flies and they remain stationary. And alongside them are the caregivers. Strange characters, to hypocrites: useful, but never truly integrated; essential, but never truly respected. They are the ones who:

• They lift, wash, turn, and feed.
• they listen to the stories for the thousandth time.
• They see the end coming in silence.

Many families are still standing only because a caregiver has decided to take it all in without complaining. This is not “service” work: it is human resilience.

Volunteers and Homeless

In cities, under bridges, in hallways, in train stations, there are lives that no longer interest anyone. Volunteers arrive there: without cameras, without catchy phrases. They bring blankets, hot meals, medical checkups, and normal words. They do not change the world. They change at least one night. The difference between “the end” and “one more day” is often a cup of hot food brought by a stranger. That is volunteering. The rest is advertising.

Donation

A gesture does not change the world. But it changes the world. And for the recipient, that is enough.

Donating is not window-shopping charity. It is a silent choice: taking something away from yourself to relieve someone else. Whether it is money, time, skills, organs, listening, or presence, the principle remains the same: if you can, move. If you do not, do not tell yourself stories.

A Gesture

Donating money is the simplest, and often the sincerest, form of giving, if done without applause. You do not need to be a millionaire: you just need to give up something that is superfluous to you and means survival to others. Donating a set amount each month is not heroism. It is discipline. It is deciding that part of what you produce is not yours. The real issue is not how much you give, but whether you are willing to do it without putting yourself on display. If you must tell everyone, you are buying images, not helping anyone.

In Family

The most powerful donation is not the one made out to you by bank transfer. It is the one that becomes a household habit. There are families who teach their children to buy only for themselves. And families who, before sitting down to eat, teach that if someone outside does not have anything to eat, part of what is on the table is not ours. Donating within the family means:

• teach a child that part of his or her allowance can become notebooks, food, water, or care for someone else.
• decide together what to support, not to feel better, but to be more useful.
• Remember that your well-being is never just “merit”, but also context, luck, opportunity.

When a family learns to give, it does not just change the lives of those who receive. It changes the character of those who grow up.

Medical Donation

Organ donation is the fine line between saying “I help others” and doing it. We no longer talk about money here, but about the body. Saying “yes” to donation means accepting that, when you are done, someone else can continue. It is a form of concrete, not philosophical, continuity. There is no clearer gesture: leaving something of yours in the life of a stranger who will never know who you are. Talk about it as a family. Put it in writing. Do not let others decide when it is too late.

Donation of Time

Money is important, but time is what you do not get back. Those who donate time are doing something more expensive than they think. Visiting a lonely elderly person. Delivering groceries to someone who cannot. Accompanying someone to the hospital. Spending two hours listening to someone who has no one. You do not need grand projects. What you need is presence. True charitable giving is not a Christmas present: it is there even in February, when no one remembers.

Suffering in Silence

There are those who give everything and never ask for anything. Those who suffer in silence appear strong, but often they are just trained not to be a burden to others. They lose people, jobs, homes, health, and they continue to say “everything’s fine” so as not to disturb. At night, when the city is silent, they pay the price in tears. Suffering in silence is a distorted form of giving: you deny yourself even the right to ask for help, so as not to “steal space” from anyone. A word of advice if you recognize yourself: giving does not mean vanishing. If you always give everything and never ask for anything, you are not generous. You are disappearing.

Crying in Silence

Crying in silence is the oldest way to avoid worrying anyone. You lock yourself in a room, let the pain wash over you, and then come back on stage as if nothing happened. There is an uncomfortable truth: eventually the body comes to the rescue. Those who never speak explode elsewhere. Nerves, illness, coldness, total distance from others. Sometimes, true giving is the opposite: letting someone see you when you are falling apart. Allowing a friend, a sibling, a child to do at least one thing for you. It is not weakness. It is mutual respect.

After the Tragedy

After a tragedy, it seems like nothing remains. A bereavement, a fire, a sudden loss. What you were no longer exists, what you will be is unseen. Donating, there, changes form: it is no longer “I help others”, but “I allow myself to rebuild”. Rebuilding a life after you have lost everything is a form of self-giving. It is telling yourself: I will not leave you stranded, even if you are the one who is fallen.

If you have loyal friends, colleagues, or honest people around you, you will notice it: they bring you a bed, a tool, a job, a hot meal, a hug that asks for nothing. Tragedy cannot be erased. But it can become the point where you stop surviving and begin truly living again. Giving, in the end, is this: deciding not to be a spectator. Making a part of yourself—small or large—available to someone who can never truly repay you. If you need something in return, that’s commerce. If you do it even when no one will ever know it was you, then yes: it is donation.

THE LAW

(Ad Utrumque Paratus)

Law is not paper, codes, or courts. It is a border. Either you respect it, or you become like all those who think they are smart and do not realize they are only digging their own graves. Law, before being law, is behavior. And every behavior tells a story about who you are.

In Respect

Respect is not demanded. It is practiced. In the legal world, in the human world, the winner is not the one who knows most articles, but the one who does not bend his back for convenience. You can know the Civil Code by heart and still be a small man. You can be young, inexperienced, underestimated… and still tower over others just because you do not betray yourself. The right to respect is this: choosing the truth when you can cheat and doing so without witnesses. It is the first building block of dignity.

Change

Change is not a gift. It is a natural right, often denied by:

• family culture
• social habits
• fear of judgment
• systems that do not want free minds.

Those who change upset the balance and are punished for it. Women know this better than anyone: they grow up in worlds that want them in their place. And when they stand up and speak out, they change more than themselves: they change the boundaries of what is possible. The right to change is the foundation of personal freedom. And it does not ask for permission.

Of the Leader

A “leader” is not someone who speaks. It is someone who answers everything, even when it is not their fault. A leader does not dismiss, does not hide, does not say “they didn’t understand.” A leader stands up and takes the beating. Not out of heroism: out of decency. Every team immediately understands whether their leader is a man or a coward.

A gesture is enough: saying, “I was wrong.” That gesture is worth more than a hundred training courses. It builds trust. And trust is the only true currency in business.

To Freedom

Freedom is not a philosophical concept. It is oxygen. When you lack it, you notice it immediately. When you have it, you do not notice it. It is so simple and so fragile that the wrong power can erase it. Freedom is a right, but it is a risk: those who choose to be free pay a price that others do not. And often they pay for it alone. History teaches us that free peoples are few, while those accustomed to chains are many. Freedom must be defended, not declared.

To Hope

Hope is not romanticism. It is fuel. Those born into a poor neighborhood, into the wrong family, or into a narrow context, start out with half their lives behind them. Yet, there are those who believe it anyway. Those who study without money. Those who work without role models. Those who improve without anyone to imitate. The right to hope is this: to build a future without ever having seen one. It is not easy. It is not a given. But when it happens, it breaks down walls.

The balance

In everyone’s life, there comes a point where guilt and responsibility collide. Wives remind their husbands of this. Work reminds the incompetent. Family reminds the distracted. In my own life, I know exactly where I went wrong and where I simply paid the price for growth. Acknowledging this has not made me lose anything: it has made me gain clarity. This is the right: to know what yours is, what you have destroyed, what you need to repair, what you can still become. The rest is folklore.

TIME

(Ad Utrumque Paratus)

How much

At my age—102 declared, 72 minutes of service—time is no longer a calendar. It is a balance sheet. I am no longer interested in “how much is left.” I am interested in how I used what I had. I have a huge playground: jobs, cities, people, stories, mistakes, love, escapes. The only thing I have not done is become President of the United States. Not for lack of will: for lack of time. This life was already full. Work, discipline, training: you are either a thoroughbred, or you are a complete idiot. I have never had the problem of not recognizing myself: like a pedigree dog, I was hungry. He was hungry for meat; I was hungry for results. I have been a widower for years. Sabine began to “love” me at 34; I was sixty. She was convinced she could control me, while I remained silent, always looking toward the East, toward where the sun rises. She controlled my diet, sugar, fried foods, cake, fizzy drinks, coffee, hearing aids, and psychiatrist. She was right. But she had the wrong strategy: confusing treatment with control. I am full-blown, certified, and even paid for bipolar disorder. Side effect: I have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships. Friendships for me have an expiration date, like yogurt. That day, before my name day, they showered me with recommendations. I nodded silently. The hearing aid? A fake problem: I only used it when I wanted to hear other people’s conversations. After a while, I simply said, “I’m going to the bathroom.” I got up, went out, walked five hundred meters, took a taxi, and went to the station. Train to Madrid. One every hour. In four hours, I was in the central square, with a new friend, 52 years old, friendly, lively, and curious. Bull’s balls, grilled lamb, cake, wine. No psychiatrists, no blood sugar, no restrictions. Just one thing: freedom regained. The phone remained, turned off, somewhere between the French and Spanish tracks. I never heard from Sabine again. Not out of malice: out of consistency. The pharmacist in Madrid looked at me like a historical relic. I asked him for a hand to complete the evening: he wanted to see the documents. He read: 102 years. He took me to the bar and said, “At this age, you no longer play at being a hero, you play at recounting memories.”

He was right about everything. Almost. Because then I remembered my father-in-law, who always said, “If you have to die, do it on the battlefield.” I chose the battlefield this way: never let anyone tell you what to do, when you still know how to think for yourself. Since then, no one has touched my time again.

Lessons You Don’t Expect

In my life I have had more “masters” than notebooks. Karate: colored belts, katakana, masters who entered the room as if they were saving Japan. School: masters promoted because they did not know what else to do. Barber: the old man was “Master” by protocol, the assistant cut better but no one gave him the title. Carpenter: if you had not called him “Master,” he would have thrown the board at you. Then the initiatory orders: masters without a role on the outside, authority within. And on the journeys, the true masters: farmers, elders, old men with three digits in their registry and no diplomas, but one thing is clear: life is understood by living it, not by studying it. One of them told me: “It’s not luck that counts, but how many times you get up.” He did not have a luxurious home or a huge bank account. He had something you do not find in a €2,000 course: stable peace of mind. Since then, I have understood this: you do not need to be an “expert” to teach. You need to be real.

I am never wrong.

Every now and then I stop, lean against a tree, and check in: who am I? What have I done? What have I broken? What have I saved? My self-criticism does not last long. My ego is eager to get back on the scene and remind me of my victories, my right moves, my right intuitions. And then the phrase slips out: “I’m never wrong.” It is the perfect trap for the average man. Then there are the two extremes:

• those who do not think at all.
• those who think too much and end up at the psychiatrist with an official diagnosis: bipolar disorder.

That is how the world works: we are all guests in someone else’s home. Criticism comes later, never. People become a mirror: from each one you steal a piece, a phrase, a gesture. In the end, you are in college. Artificial Intelligence, the real kind, consumes 1 kW per hour and zero emotions. We waste entire lives in errors, fears, and attempts, and we still allow ourselves to say: “I’M NEVER WRONG.” She, at least, does not pretend to be human.

The Best Story of My Life

Boston, 2001. Course to become a top manager. 26,000 employees worldwide, 120 selected, three months of classroom training, psychiatrists, psychologists, analysts, criminologists. An amusement park of the mind. They had to choose the top twelve. I was calm on average. Then they decided to “test” me. Five of them, all together, against me. Five chairs in front of me, me alone. The goal was simple: to make me collapse. They knew me: a strong personality, difficult to tame. The barrage of questions began. I answered them pointedly, with surgical humor. I answered, but I studied their faces. Finally, one asked, “What’s the best story of your life?” I looked at them one by one and said, “You answer a few questions first. Name, marital status, children, whether you are happy with your job, and how much you earn per month.” They all answered. Then I looked at them and said, “This is the best story of my life today. Because five of you came to know my business, and I alone knew the business of the five of you.” They looked at each other, realizing they had been gently turned around. It was the first time they had realized they were the ones being watched, not me. That is my best story. Because that day I confirmed one thing: there is no position of power that cannot be overturned with intelligence and calm.

The Conservatory and Music

My father enrolled me in the Conservatory. A romantic idea: his son would be a musician. He left me in September and came back for me in June. The rector was furious: “I don’t know what to do with your son.” I have taken ten different courses, ten instruments, zero technique. But in the evenings, I went out with all the girls from the courses.

Finally, my father asked me, “What did you learn?” I replied, “Dad, I swear to you: I will never get depressed over a woman.” But music remained. Not as technical mastery, but as an emotional crutch. When life crushed me, I put on my headphones. The words of others sang what I could no longer say. Music taught me two things:

• You can be out of tune with technique and brilliant in feeling.
• Some things you can only say with a song, not with a speech.

Encounters with Nature

Nature is the only place where time slows down without asking your permission. One day, in the mountains, I thought I was “finding myself.” I was just escaping from everyone. October, fresh air, silence, slow steps. A picture-postcard view: valleys, sky, clear horizon. At the feet, mushrooms. I bring them home. An expert friend looks at them: “Four porcini mushrooms, two poisonous. Throw these two away.” Of course, I immediately think of a couple of perfect recipients. Then (belated) common sense stops me. Result: we prepare pasta with mushrooms, roasted mushrooms, and mushroom salad. There are four of us: me, my wife, my father-in-law, and my mother-in-law. I am fine. The three of them are in the hospital with poisoning. When I ask, “What were they like?” they reply, “Delicious.”

Practical moral: with a little carelessness, I almost became the owner of all the properties. True moral: from that day on, I have been buying mushrooms. They are delivered to your door for €10, and they are still delicious. The mountains taught me this: inner peace is free. Idiocy, however, has a price.

Spiritual Awakening

Spiritual awakening is not light from above. It is realizing you are running empty. Times of uncertainty, confusion, too many unfinished businesses. I will pack up and go to a temple in the hills. Silence, no notifications, no fake emergencies. I had no visions. I had mental space. I only understood this: I had spent years controlling everything except myself. After that day, I did not become a saint, but more selective: less noise, more essential. Spirituality, for me, is this: not rituals, but mental cleansing.

Joys of Solitude

Loneliness scares those who do not know how to be alone. I have learned to use it. When everything got too much—work, relationships, demands, I got away from the hustle and bustle. A small house outside the city, green, quiet, no visitors. First, it is empty. Then, slowly, you realize that:

• You do not need to fill up every minute.
• You do not have to explain anything to anyone.
• your head, finally, breathes.

True solitude is not isolation. It is internal maintenance. Since then, I am no longer afraid of it. I use it.

The Art of Living in the Present

One day, in a normal, unremarkable park, an idiotically simple truth came to me: either you are here, or you are nowhere. Birds, leaves, children playing, old people on benches. All normal, all seen before. And yet, for the first time, I stopped dwelling on either the “before” or the “after.” I started training:

• do one thing at a time.
• really listen when someone speaks.
• stopping to look at something for 30 seconds without photographing it.

The present does not solve problems, but it prevents you from dying of the past and the future.

Daily Rituals

Rituals are the screws that hold the structure together. Mine:

• In the morning: coffee and a book chapter. No phone.
• midday: a short but real walk, without earphones.
• in the evening: more reading, to unwind from the day.

They are not fixations. They are anchors. If you take all that away, I am distraught. If I respect them, I can deal with the rest.

Internal Struggles

The hardest war is the one that no one sees. I have often been torn between what I wanted for myself and what I owed to others. Ambition vs. responsibility. Sometimes I have sacrificed myself, other times I have sacrificed others. And neither option is free. It comes when you stop lying to yourself about your choices.

Secrets of Long Life

If I must be honest, my longevity is based on a few points:

• serenity where I can, distance where I must.
• high curiosity, low complaint.
• daily gratitude, even just for coffee.
• movement, not as an athlete but as a living person.
• people around who do not suck in energy.

Healthy eating and exercising are good. But if your head is not working, your body will not compensate.

Moments of Epiphany

Epiphanies do not come with fireworks. They come with silly phrases at ordinary times. The strongest? “Happiness is not a place, it’s a state of mind.” I found it in my head while walking in a distant country, without understanding anything about the language, customs, or culture. There I realized that it was not the city that made me feel bad or good. It was me. Since then, every time I feel like “running away,” I ask myself a blunt question: “Do you want to change places or do you want to change yourself?”

The Journey Through Time of Memory

At 102, memory is the real remote control. If you are not careful, you will spend your life watching Reruns. Veranda, winter, cold, silence. Images come flooding into grandma’s garden, freshly baked bread, stories around the fire. Trivial things, but meaningful. It is not nostalgia. It is reconnaissance: understanding where you started, understanding where you have arrived.

The Majesty of Small Moments

In the end, it is not the big events that stick. These are the details:

• your grandfather’s hand holding you in the park.
• an evening looking at the stars with friends.
• a successful joke at the table.
• a hug that arrived at the exact moment you were about to collapse.

The little moments are the true pillars. Majesty is there: in things you would never list on a resume, but without which you would not be you.

THE CHANGE

(Ad Utrumque Paratus)

Transformation

Life does not ask your permission when it decides to change direction. It shifts you, turns your upside down, and then asks you what you have learned.

I truly experienced change when I left a comfortable, predictable environment, with my ironclad habits, to move to a city where I was nobody. No “new adventure,” no brochure-like enthusiasm: pure bewilderment. At first, I counted my shortcomings: my reference points, my people, my rituals. Then, slowly, I began to count other things: the new people worth talking to, the places where I felt alive, the opportunities that would never have come if I had stayed put. Change puts you in front of a mirror: either you stiffen and die slowly, or you bend without breaking and rebuild yourself from scratch. I chose the latter. Not because I am brave, but because I understand a simple thing: staying where you are hurting, just because you know it is the most elegant form of cowardice.

Finding Yourself in the Places of Childhood

Returning to the places where you grew up is like opening a black box: no filters, no revisions, just the truth. When I returned to my neighborhood after years, I did not just see changed walls and buildings. I saw who I was. The school where I learned to read, but to understand who was really in charge in the classroom. The park where we argued, made peace, and grew up without psychology textbooks. The family home, with its usual flaws and the same chairs that had endured generations of arguments. Walking there, I realized that my life had moved miles away from that perimeter, but a part of me remained glued to those sidewalks. Not out of nostalgia, but by structure.

Roots are not chains. They are coordinates. They remind you where you started, so you can measure how far you have come without telling yourself.

The Light of Hope

There are times when everything breaks down at once: work, health, relationships, self-esteem. It is not a movie; it is life when it decides to evaluate the strength of the framework. In one of those moments, I had nothing to show for it: no “everything’s fine,” no image to uphold. Just fatigue. Hope did not come from above. It arrived in a ridiculous way: a text from a friend I had not heard from in years, a phrase said at the bar, a person who listened to me without wanting to fix anything. It was not a miracle. It was a reminder: you are not finished, you are tired. I have learned that hope is not optimism. It is stubbornness. It is waking up one more time than life tries to knock you down. Since then, when the darkness lengthens, I no longer look for the lighthouse. I look forward to the match.

Choices and the Course of Life

You choose life piecemeal. There is no moment when you sign the final contract: you build everything decision by decision. The dirtiest choice I have ever had to make was between safety and truth. On one side, a comfortable, well-paid, predictable job. On the other hand, a crooked, uncertain path, but mine.

I chose the risk. Not out of heroism, but because I knew myself well enough to know that a well-paid but wrong job would slowly kill me. The point is this: you often do not have “right and wrong” before you. You are “comfortable and consistent.” And that is where you see who you are. Today, looking back, I do not thank luck. I thank the courage to say “no” to what would have made me happy on the outside and destroyed me on the inside.

Pain and Conciliation

Grief does not ask if you are ready. It arrives, sits down, and decides how long it stays. When I lost someone, I absolutely loved, I did not immediately look for explanations. I gasped for air. There was only that physical, concrete void that takes your breath away even when your lungs are functioning. At first, pain is like war: you fight it, you push it away, you deny it. Then you realize it will not go away. So, you change strategy: you stop making it your enemy and put it next to you. Conciliation is not about “moving on.” You do not move on from the one you love. You learn to live with absence. And to transform pain into respect, instead of prison. Since then, when a new blow comes my way, I do not act tough. I acknowledge it, I talk to it, I let it in. It is not weakness. It is heart maintenance.

Friendship That Never Dies

True friendships are not the ones you hear from every day. They are the ones that endure silence. I have a childhood friend with whom I shared everything: journeys, mistakes, cheap dreams, confidences no one would dare share today, even for money. Our lives have taken different, distant trajectories. But every time we hear from each other, the clock resets. No awkwardness, no “sorry I didn’t text you.” We pick up where we left off. This is the metric: if you must justify yourself, you are not that close. These friendships are your true wealth. They do not save you every day, but when you are falling apart, a few sentences from them are enough to restore your inner balance. Relationships that do not die are those that do not need to be flaunted. They simply exist.

Search for Oneself

The hardest thing to find is not the right job, or the right person. It is you. There was a period in my life where I was lost. I had a role, responsibilities, and accomplishments. But if you took away my business card and bank account, I no longer knew who I was looking at in the mirror. I did something simple and radical: I removed myself from the noise. Silence, paper, pen. I began to write without filters: anger, fears, desires, failures, envy, weariness. No saint emerged. A true one emerged. Self-discovery is not a Zen path. It is dirty, uncomfortable, full of pieces you do not like. But either you watch them, or you play a character until you retire. I have learned that there is no point in “improving” yourself if you have not seen yourself first as you are. Everything else is self-marketing.

The Past and Family Roots

Family stories are not folklore. They are operating instructions. For years, I listened to the stories of my grandparents, my parents, and relatives who had witnessed wars, famine, emigration, and real sacrifices. They were not fairy tales: they were technical reports on survival. There I understood two things:

1. where I come from.
2. How ridiculous it is to complain about certain things today.

When I visited my great-grandparents’ villages, I saw no romance. I saw hard work, dignity, limitations, and mentality. And I realized that part of my personality was imprinted there, long before I was born. Roots do not absolve you or condemn you. They explain. It is up to you whether to continue the script or rewrite it.

A Homecoming

Coming home is always a test. Every time I set foot in the place where I grew up, I understand two things:

• What has changed outside?
• what has changed inside me.

The streets are narrower than I remember, the houses smaller, the problems of those days are almost touching today. But some sensations remain the same: the smell of bread, a voice, a doorway, a square. Coming home is not about holding on to the past. It is about alignment: seeing whether the child you were would be ashamed of the adult you are, or proud of it.

If at the end of the visit you only feel discomfort, it means there is still something to fix. If you feel grateful, you are on the right track.

Youth and Lost Innocence

Youth is the only time when you honestly believe anything is possible. Then life presents you with the bill. As a boy, I saw the world as a giant playground: streets, sports, love, challenges, no limits. Then came the first real falls: betrayal, failure, illness, injustice. Innocence is not lost there; it is stripped away. It is not a drama. It is the inevitable transition: from “everything is right” to “life is what it is, I have to decide how to live in it.” Youth gave me courage. The end of innocence gave me clarity. Without either of these, I would be a disaster today.

The Challenges Accomplished

No challenge is truly “impossible.” It is just out of reach for the person you are today. I have taken on several that, on paper, did not make sense. Projects that were too big, goals that were out of scale for the context, people who told me to my face: “Forget it, it’s not for you.” I did not listen to them. Not because I thought I was special, but because I knew my frustration tolerance level: extremely high. The journey was not romantic: sleepless nights, mistakes, closed doors, money running out, health at risk. But every time I reached a milestone, I changed. It was not just about “reaching the goal.” It was about becoming someone capable of sustaining it.

When, finally, the challenge turned into a result, I did not feel triumph. I felt something much more sober: consistency. I had proven to myself that I was not one to give up at the first wall. And that is the only medal that cannot be stolen.

GROW

(Ad Utrumque Paratus)

Understand

As an adult, I have learned it is more like a workshop: if you do not know how to use the tools, you get hurt. The transition was this: first I looked, then I started to see. Everything changes. I understood who I really was when I stopped telling myself the fairy tale of “it will all work out sooner or later” and started asking myself, “What am I actually doing to fix it?” Growing up is not about getting older. It is about stopping looking for blame and starting to look for responsibility. It is about realizing that no one will come to save you, but someone—if you are lucky—will lend you a hand while you save yourself. From the outside, it looks maturity. From the inside, it is just that: stop lying to yourself.

Time Gone By

As a young man, I made promises like candy. To myself, to others, to the future. Some I have kept. Others have been ruined by life, by changes in direction, by mistakes, by priorities I had not foreseen.

I am not ashamed of anything. Those I respected built my back. Those I betrayed built my stomach: digesting what did not go as I expected and moving on. This is what the promises of youth do: they show you how naive you were, but also how alive you were. These days I almost never promise anything. I just do. And if I really must make a promise, I write it down, not on social media.

Time Changed

Life does not tell you when the page turns. You notice it later. For me, the clear change came with a choice I had not planned: an unexpected proposal, outside my comfort zone, outside the “safe” script. I could have said no and stayed in the pen. I said yes, with a knotted stomach and a head full of doubts. Everything changed there: the city, the people, the schedules, the perspectives, the parameters by which I measured success. It was not a stroke of luck. It was a stroke of courage. That crossroads taught me that opportunities often come disguised as problems. Those who say “no” out of fear remain stagnant. Those who say “yes” and tremble, grow.

The Unwritten Pages

There are periods in my life I have never told anyone about, and you will not read about them in any book. Yet they are the ones that have changed me the most. There were times when there was no audience, no applause, no witnesses. Just me, a few sleepless nights, and uncomfortable questions.

No photos, no shared memories, no “do you remember that time when…”. And yet, within that, the axis of my life shifted. The unwritten pages are where you stop acting. You do not have to please anyone, not even yourself. You can afford the luxury of truth. Everything that seems “natural” about me today was born there: in the pieces of history that I never felt the need to tell.

Great Success

There was a moment when I hit the mark. Big goal, long work, high tension. Result achieved. From the outside: triumph. From the inside: a simple sentence – “Okay, you can do it. Now what?” I realized that that success was not a prize. It was an X-ray: it showed all the steps taken before. Nights, mistakes, restarts, embarrassments, micro-defeats. The “big success” did not change my life. It confirmed one thing: if you stay focused and do not give up, eventually something big will fall through. Since then, I have stopped dreaming of a lucky break. I prefer well-planned, impulsive moves.

Loss and Strength

Loss is not a concept, it is emptiness. You notice it when you are short of breath, even if your chest rises and falls. When I lost someone who was so important to me, I found no comfort in platitudes. Strength came later, in installments.

I began to ask myself: what did he really leave behind? What do I do today when I only exist because that person passed into my life? Instead of staring at the hole, I began to look at the shape it had left. There I found a new strength: not the strength to “move forward,” but the strength to continue. Loss either shatters you or defines you. It depends on what you choose to do with it.

War and Inner Peace

I fought the hardest war without enemies. Only with myself. Thoughts that never stopped, a chain of doubts, an ever-active internal tribunal that condemned me for everything: too much, too little, too late, badly. Inner peace did not come with a vacation or a motivational book. It came when I stopped pretending I was fine “because I have to be strong.” I started naming things: fear, anger, envy, tiredness. When you call things by their names, they stop dominating you from behind the scenes. I did not win the war. I signed a truce with myself. It must be renewed every day.

An Unexpected Life

If you had shown me my life today when I was twenty, I would have laughed. Or said, “You’ve got the wrong person.” And yet here I am a sequence of logical and, at the same time, completely absurd choices.

Roads taken “just for the sake of it,” decisions taken against everyone’s advice, risks that on paper seemed foolish. Unexpected life is not born of fate. It is born from all the times you did not follow the path but followed your head. Every now and then I look back and I do not recognize the path, but I recognize the consistency: I have always preferred the risk of my own truth to the safety of someone else’s script.

The Freedom to Be Yourself

For years, I played the role others expected of me. I worked, I liked, I performed. But inside, I was holding my breath. The turning point came when I asked a simple question: If tomorrow no one had any expectations of me anymore, what would I really do? The answer was not comfortable. To embody it, I had to break the mold, disappoint some, lose support. But I gained something priceless: recognition. Being yourself is not a slogan. It is accepting the cost of not pleasing everyone. Since I realized this, my filter has changed: I prefer a few people who really see me to many who applaud a character.

The Power of Memories

Memories are not an album to flip through when you are bored. They are an operating system. The things I have experienced—beautiful or devastating—enter every decision I make today, even when I do not realize it. The happy moments remind me that I am capable of being okay, even when the present sucks.

The hard ones remind me that I have overcome worse things than before. The past is not a place to move to, but a warehouse: you sort, take what you need, throw away what is simply taking up mental space. The true power of memories is this: they allow you not to start from nothing every time, even when life is destroying you.

The Journey of the Roots

Visiting my grandparents’ hometown was not tourism. It was recognition. Narrow streets, worn houses, faces I had never seen before but that seemed to have always been part of my family. Every story I heard there was a piece of source code. I saw where certain ways of things doing, certain rigidities, certain fears, and certain values came from. It was not romantic genetics, it was real history: poverty, sacrifice, a survival mentality. That trip gave me something important: the ability to choose what to keep and what to stop. Roots do not force you to repeat. They give you the context to make informed decisions about whether to continue or change courses.

The Difficult Resilience

Resilience is a word everyone uses these days. I understood it the day I did not want to get out of bed anymore… and I got up anyway. There was a time when everything was going wrong at once: work, health, relationships.

I was not winning anything; I was not excelling at anything. I just resisted. I stopped asking myself, “Why me?” and started asking, “OK, what do I do now?” That is where resilience emerged: in the choice to take the next step, despite everything. It is not heroism. It is intelligent stubbornness: deciding that you will not be the one to turn off the light on your life. Every time another wave hits me today, I do not say, “I’ll definitely make it.” I say, “I’m not new to this feeling. I have seen it before. And I’m still here.”

The Value of Friendship

True friendship does not require daily maintenance, but constant truth. I have a friend with whom I shared intense years, endless discussions, unrealistic dreams, and concrete plans. Then life puts us on different paths. The interesting thing is this: when we resent each other, we do not pretend. We do not play “everything’s fine.” We tell each other things as they are, without filters. This is the real value: knowing that there is a person who can tell you the truth even when a lie would be convenient for you. And who, despite everything, remains. Friendships like this do not make noise, but they bear the weight. They are few, but they are enough.

The Strength of the Community

I am someone who loves independence. For a long time, I thought I had to do everything myself. Then came a time when, to be blunt, I could no longer bear the burden. There I saw something I will never forget, different people, with distinct roles in my life, who moved toward me without me even asking them. A coffee paid for without telling you anything. A text: “How are you really?” A favor simply done, without any emotional aftermath. Community is not “the others.” It is the group of people who choose not to look the other way when they see you struggling. Since then, I have changed my perspective: it is not plainly important to have a community. It is essential to be a community for someone. Because true strength is not just holding on. It is holding on knowing that if you fall, they will not leave you stranded.

POST-SCRIPTUM

I did not write these pages to convince you. I wrote them because the time had come. Every story you have read here belonged to someone, but the meaning is now yours. Lives, once delivered, no longer answer to the author: they answer to those who have the courage to look at them without running away. If you have made it this far, it means at least one sentence stopped you. A wound, a memory, a truth you did not want to hear.

It does not matter which. What matters is that you did not close the book. This is not a salvation manual. It will not tell you what to do, how to live, or who to become. Life does not work that way. Life asks only one thing of you: consistency with what you have understood. Stories do not heal anyone. They open doors. They show you the part of yourself you are still avoiding. The rest is your job, not mine. Remember one thing: you are not alone in your struggles, even when it seems otherwise. Everyone falls. Few admit it. Even fewer get up with clarity. The uncomfortable truth is this: we are fragile, but when we choose to get back up, we become dangerous. And often all it takes is an encounter, a word, a failure, or a line read by chance to change the entire trajectory of a life. This book was not meant to explain the world to you. It wanted to show you another way of looking at it. Now you write the rest.

Aphorisms

1. Humanity is not good or bad: it is authentic when it stops acting.
2. Pain stops ruling when you stop justifying it.
3. It is not the first one who wins: it is the one who does not break who wins.
4. Dignity is not inherited: it is defended.
5. Not all questions require answers: some require courage.
6. Loneliness is the price of clarity.
7. Nobody saves you: you save yourself when you finally look yourself in the eye.
8. Other people’s stories do not heal, but they open glimpses.
9. Time does not heal it teaches you to walk with scars.
10. A man is utterly worth his salt when no one is watching.

Reflections

I learned that no one wins alone. I learned that strong people do not shout, they listen. I learned that suffering is not a flaw, but a universal language. And I learned that the most important emotions do not make noise: they come in, change everything, and go away. Authoring this book was like walking through a field of memory: every step a memory, every page a face, every story a fragment of truth that I could no longer keep to myself.

Thanks

Saying thank you is a serious gesture. I do not thank the world, I thank the people who have left something in my life: the sincere glances, the mistakes that awakened me, the obstacles that made me clearer, and those who taught me to never lower my standards. I thank those who hindered me: they made me more direct. I thank those who supported me: they made me stronger. I thank those who remained silent: they gave me space to understand. And I thank myself, because at 60, not everyone still has the courage to tell the truth without asking anyone’s permission.

Final

Finding the underlying cause of a book is easy. Finding the underlying cause of the truth it contains is another story. The Book closes a cycle but does not stop the journey. The writing continues, the stories continue, the world continues. And so, will I. If this book has reached the right hands, it will find its way. If not, it will wait. The truth is always patient.