"No such thing as writer's block"

“There is no such thing as writer's block, only holding yourself to too high a standard. You can *always* put words down on a page, if you're willing to accept a sufficiently awful first draft.” - Eliezer Yudkowski

When I read that, it really spoke to me. So I started retracing my steps.

2021 is still somewhat of a big blur to me. My sister passed away on the 20th of May, 2021. We got Covid in March of that year, in Naïrobi, which was her first posting as a diplomat, where she was living with her family, and where I was a frequent visitor. She was one of my best friends, my role model and my North Star. One day I will write the full story about the 3 months she fought in the hospital and the aftermath, but today is not yet that day.

I was and still am absolutely devastated by losing her. A period followed where I was often scared, hypochondriac, recluse, borderline paranoid that more horrible stuff was about to happen. This period feels like somewhere between ‘just’ and ‘already’ two years ago. I still frequently have PTSD.

On the 20th of September, 2021, my grandfather was euthanized. He was 96 years old and led a great life. I really loved him and I often see parts of myself in him. Aside from mourning his loss, it also compounded the pain of losing Noëmi.

I vowed to crawl back up and to start 2022 in a courageous manner. I started my first professional activity since ending my career at TEKsystems in 2019 and set up some freelance activities. I started working out again. I started this blog.

Shortly after, my friend Tom passed away of heart failure, leaving behind his family in an absolutely devastating manner.

In some way, I think the loss of my sister is such a life-changing event that it was impossible for me to truly mourn losing my friend at that time. I spoke at his funeral in Amsterdam, and on my way back, I felt something like this:

I decided to travel again. Or perhaps more precisely, to get over the fear of travelling again. Initially meeting up with friends in Dubai, but in my heart I knew that I was only there because it was halfway to Kenya, and I needed to return there, even though I had vowed never go back. I spent a few weeks there, it was difficult, but great.

Shortly after, I returned to Brussels and effectively became COO of a Dutch cybersecurity company focused on Zero Trust implementations, on a part-time basis. This is effectively the moment I stopped writing. It’s working surprisingly well, growing from 3 to almost 30 FTE with clients such as the Nationale Politie, Schiphol, Rabobank, and others. A consultancy ‘voor engineers, door engineers’, ran by my friend Jacky Willems who I headhunted back in 2016, with me in the shadows to make some occasional moves for them.

Then I spent 7 months in Naïrobi, living here and working from here until April 2023. And I’m writing you from Naïrobi now, too. There’s this unique dynamic here. A beautiful green city in the sun, many AI/Crypto/Solar start-ups, many digital nomads, along with the UN HQ, the embassies, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Odoo..It’s a place that has quite a lot of momentum and is attracting people from all over the world.

During my last stay in Brussels, I was a little lost, lethargic. I didn’t know what I was doing there, neglected many relationships even though they were close by. It ended with me being hospitalized for pneumonia in September of this year, which was quite scary at times, thinking of what happened to Noëmi basically non-stop. As insane as this sounds, in a way I felt like I ‘deserved’ it, like I was waiting for something bad to happen instead of living anyway, and simply got what I expected. All in all, I recuperated as well as I could, celebrated my father’s 70th birthday, and left to Naïrobi again.

My lung capacity being severely reduced, I reminded myself that:

For my standards, I trained in the most disciplined manner since 2019. I’m back to my old self, and for the first time in many years, probably since my time at TEKsystems, I have the feeling I can look forward again. I will be here in Naïrobi until July, with a holiday trip to LA in February.

The truth is, I genuinely enjoy writing and opinionating and always have. AI Alignment, community notes on Twitter, Milei wanting to shut down the Central Bank of Argentina, the betting markets odds on whether Biden&Trump will both actually run, the seemingly secular education trade that’s on the table, the Bitcoin ETF, the adventures of working for a Dutch cybersecurity scale-up, life here in Kenya…I love all of it and feel blessed that I’m able to devote so much time to do the things I love.

So I will start blogging again, about my travels, strong opinions, my professional activities and my quest to find my Ikigai. I’m assuming only good things will come from it.

Thank you for your time.

Nils