Field Note — Pavia

A lecture hall at the University of Pavia. First-year political science students.
Italy. Eastern Europe. Africa. The Middle East. When I started speaking about the United Nations, the room became very quiet.
So quiet you could hear a pin drop.I did not celebrate the UN.
I reflected on it.Not as a perfect institution.
But as a political arena — […]

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Field Note — Armona

Yesterday I returned to “my” island, Armona. It welcomed me with its light.
Clear. Wide. Quiet. So different from the cities I moved through over the past seventeen days. Milan — a small independent publishing house.
Pavia — political science students, thoughtful, restless, searching for orientation.
Berlin — conversations about the soul of cities, about meaning beyond data.
A […]

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Field Note: The One File

There are moments when I catch myself wondering: What if it isn’t ideology that unites people — but disgust? Not left.Not right.Not North.Not South. But a shared realization that those who call themselves “powerful” have been protecting something far smaller than power. The Jeffrey Epstein files sit like a stone in the collective stomach. They […]

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Field note: On permission to move

To apply for a Schengen visa with an ECR stamp in your passport — a mark used for Indian citizens whose international travel is officially classified as requiring protection and supervision — is not a single act. It is an accumulation.The fact that such a classification is physically stamped into a passport, visible at every […]

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04.02.2026 – Olhão, Portugal

I had just landed from Germany.Unusually heavy rains and storms for this region — the kind they say hasn’t happened like this for decades. From Olhão to Armona, the ferry crosses the Ria Formosa Natural Park.There are usually four ferries a day.That day, only one was running — and I arrived just in time for […]

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Field Note: Enough

Reading about overtourism and degrowth didn’t feel like encountering a new idea.It felt like recognizing a language for something I had been circling for a long time. The word arrived late.The sensitivity came early. Long before I became a nomad, I learned — without naming it — that places behave like ecosystems.They don’t thrive through […]

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Field Note: Solitude

Western Australia, 2024–2025. I came here intending to be alone.Not accidentally — deliberately. South Fremantle first.Then Yanchep. Two places, very different, both quiet in their own way. In Fremantle, there were conversations, ease, a sense of shared rhythm.In Yanchep, there was mostly wind, ocean, and time. I noticed how quickly external structure fell away. No […]

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Field Note: Pressure

I am watching what is unfolding in the United States under the current Trump administration. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a larger pattern beginning to form.Since then, that pattern has continued — not abruptly, but steadily. What I notice now is not a single event, but accumulation. Each move targets something slightly different, […]

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Field Note: Untethered Power

I am observing the early weeks of the second Trump administration in the United States. Three weeks in, what stands out to me is not a single policy or decision, but the tempo.A rapid sequence of moves that bypass, strain, or openly challenge institutional restraint. Courts are reacting.Cases are forming.Rulings are issued. What I notice […]

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Field Note: The Circle

Saturday, 14 September 2024 – South Fremantle, Western AustraliaMorning meditation with music. During the session, something became clear — not suddenly, but steadily. I noticed the image of a circle forming. Not as a concept, more as a felt structure. Birth did not appear as the beginning of life, but as the opposite of death.Life […]

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