Travel Log — Day 1

Every time I say I’m going on a trip, the same question pops up:

So, what’s the idea?

They ask it like they’re expecting something big: that I’m off to find a new place to live, that I want to change my life, that I’m looking for something.

But no. This isn’t a journey of discovery.

It’s a journey to affirm. And that’s already quite a lot.

For months I’ve been pushing strange ideas, working on projects that almost no one believed in but me. And this trip is, in part, to see if all that I built—patiently, and with a kind of stubborn faith—can hold up even when I step a little off-center.

I didn’t come to look for something new. I came to see if what I’ve built so far makes sense. If, deep down, I wasn’t all that wrong.

And the best part is, if this goes well, it won’t be because something happened—

It’ll be because nothing did. If nothing goes wrong, it means many things are going right. That what I built can stand on its own. That the ideas I’ve been pushing now have wheels of their own.

The first flight was to São Paulo. The first of three: two days of travel, four airports.

A short one, yes, but just long enough for one of those conversations that sneaks up on you. I sat next to a guy I ended up talking to like we’d known each other forever. He was Israeli, had family in Argentina, and said—with a mix of relief and caution—that things over there seemed to be calming down. You could tell he’d really liked the country, he spoke fondly about it. But also with that urgency of someone who just wants to get back home.

I can’t even remember how the conversation started, but by the time we said goodbye, I had the feeling that the trip had begun just the way it should: with a door open.

Because that’s what good trips are about, in the end.

Opening up a little.

Letting new things in.

Trying, even for a moment, what it feels like to not be in control.

Why don’t things like that happen more often in regular life? On a random Tuesday, in an elevator, in a waiting room?

I don’t know.

Sometimes it feels like they do… maybe we’re just not fully open to noticing them.

And then, as if the universe wanted to add a little cinematic touch to the start, I ran into Bernie Ecclestone.

Yes, that one. The Formula 1 guy.

Not only one of the richest people in the world, but the man who turned F1 into what it is today ^[1].

And I didn’t just see him—I somehow found the nerve to walk past four security guys, his wife, and a few others, and ask for a photo.

Short, kind, with the face of someone who’s already seen it all.

He greeted me like he knew me.

I don’t know if it was a gesture, a reflex, or just a polite old man.

But it stayed with me, like a footnote of color at the start of the trip.

Hours later, in Chicago, at an airport McDonald’s—yes, I’m one of those people who secretly enjoys eating McD’s now and then—I saw an employee struggling to open a door while pushing a huge cart. I helped him without thinking. Just a small gesture, automatic.

But when I went to pick up my order, something didn’t add up: I’d only asked for a cheeseburger, nothing more.

Yet the bag came with fries and a drink.

The girl behind the counter came up to me with that kind of conspiratorial vibe you don’t expect in a fast food place. She spoke softly, gave me a wink.

I wasn’t sure if she was trying to flirt or make up for something.

But I like to think it was a kind of quiet justice, a soft accounting system where good deeds come back as french fries—

like maybe she’d seen it all from afar and figured some small gestures deserve to be returned.

Later, another one of those unplanned details: on the next flight, in one of those rows of three seats, the middle seat stayed empty.

That little bit of empty space that feels like a prize in today’s planes.

Suddenly, the trip got comfortable. A fake business class, but it felt real.

The final leg of the journey went fine too. How could it not? Nine hours later, I’d finally arrive—not so much at the destination, but at the starting line.

Because that’s what this trip is: a beginning.

But a strange one—one where absolutely nothing has to happen for it to be good.

If everything works like it should, if things keep flowing, if the calm holds steady, then I’ll know it was worth it.

And so, without really meaning to, we circle back to the start.

That’s how it begins.