My four birthdays this September

“In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world.”
Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms

Happy birthday(s)

This September, I’ll be celebrating four birthdays:

As if that wasn’t enough, my first novel will also be published around the same time. Writing it has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Yet, now I can’t wait to finally share it with the world, after so many months of waiting, of doubting, of suffering.

For now, it will only be available in Italian, but the first English draft is already complete. Now it’s simply a matter of finding a publisher interested in bringing it out here in the UK. It may take months, perhaps even years, but the intention is there – and I feel optimistic about it.

A different balance

I don’t have great expectations, in any area of my life.

The years when I believed I could change the world are behind me. And it shows: I’ve almost completely disconnected from everything online; I spend less and less time on social media; news from around the world – the genocide in Palestine, the war in Iran, the earthquake in Venezuale, the new Prime Minster, the endless succession of global crises – now reaches me only indirectly, through conversations with friends when we meet in person.

It’s not that I’ve given up hope. I’m simply searching for a different kind of balance: further away from screens, closer to the people who understand me and love me.

The late diagnosis

2026 has been a year of profound transition. Of everything that has happened, my ADHD diagnosis has been the most significant, without any doubt.

On one hand, I felt immense joy. It was as if I had finally found the key that unlocked dozens of doors I had believed were sealed shut for 37 years.

On the other hand, though, I felt an overwhelming sense of anger. Because for 37 years I blamed myself for every struggle, every forgotten task, every apparent failure, without ever realising that my brain simply works differently.

I’m still trying to absorb the impact. Apparently, it’s quite common for symptoms to seem even more intense during the first six months after receiving an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood. Once you finally understand why everything has always felt so difficult, you slowly stop masking. You begin to let go of the defence mechanisms that allowed you to perform, to function: the constant anxiety, the hypervigilance, the endless search for stimulation, the spotless calendar, the long list of reminders.

Yes, these copying mechanisms made you a functioning human being, but at what cost for your mental health?

I’m crazy, I’m weird

Today I know that I don’t want to go back. I lost many people along the way, but that was the price to pay for being authentic – for being myself.

My best friends call me crazy. I laugh with them, because I know that I’m actually crazy, that I’m weird.

Yes, I’m crazy and weird, but only according to the standards of this capitalist society – a society that demands straightness, productivity and normality at all costs, even when this means its own self-destruction.

In a way, I’m okay with that – I’d rather embrace my authentic weirdness than perform a version of myself designed to make other people comfortable. But, deep inside, I feel an atavic frustration at the state of the world.

The world’s on fire

My best friend keeps telling me that we live in the best of all possible worlds, as Pangloss insisted in Candide. I kinda agree with him when he says that humanity has never been wealthier, healthier or more technologically advanced. Yes, it’s true, we can travel the world, we can speak to someone on the other side of the planet in an instant. Diseases that once killed millions can now be treated. Knowledge sits in our pockets, waiting to be summoned with a tap.

And yet I struggle to share his optimism. Because I see the world continuing to race towards ever greater crises.

Summer 2026 is the coolest summer of the next fifty years. It has already dried up rivers and harvests, while enormous data centres consume vast amounts of water and energy to feed our growing appetite for artificial intelligence.

We have just witnessed the rise of the world’s first trillionaire while millions of people struggle to afford food, housing or healthcare. Climate change will claim millions of lives. We know this, it’s a fact. The only uncertainty is how many, and how soon.

Wars and genocides that once seemed unimaginable have become part of the daily news cycle. Entire populations are displaced or killed, democracies are growing more fragile, while loneliness and depression have become the defining illnesses of our time.

I hold on there

Sometimes it feels as though we’ve become extraordinarily good at building apps, cars and what-not, yet remarkably poor at building communities.

That’s what I’m trying to focus on now: investing my energy in the things that AI will never be able to replace – writing the book that only I could write; creating events that are neither scalable nor profitable, yet magical and unique; and building communities rooted in love, kindness and genuine human connection.

It’s clear by now that I can’t change the world. Yet I can carve out small corners of it where people feel seen, safe and free to be themselves. And, for now, that’s enough.

I still believe in kindness. I still believe in queer utopias. I still believe.