June 9, 2026

It is June 9th, and summer is here. Although there have already been a few heat waves, an incredible amount has happened over the past months.

I attended many events and discovered truly remarkable places in Paris. It proves that even after twenty-one years of living here, it is still possible to be surprised. Of course, new places have opened since then. I went to many experimental music concerts, attended book signings, showcases, and even took part in the recording of a fairly well-known radio program.

After being somewhat compulsive about attending all these events, I eventually started becoming more selective and stopped going out every single night. At first, however, I genuinely needed to get out and break away from my usual environment. It allowed me to breathe again and reconnect with what I would call my true nature—the person I was perhaps fifteen years ago.

I learned to exist by myself again while always keeping art and music in mind, not as something secondary, but as something completely spontaneous and inseparable from who I am. The difference is that I no longer approach it with the constant goal of recording music or playing endless concerts. Instead, I have been touching reality directly again, engaging with people and experiences as they come.

Throughout all these events, I never felt the need to put what I do at the center of every conversation. Once again, I met people from all walks of life. Being involved in different kinds of activities, I visited places such as Les Instants Chavirés, Le Shakirail, a bookstore called Motto, and many others.

I also managed to acquire the one piece of gear I had been missing on two different levels: the Dark World pedal by Chase Bliss.

These days, I mostly play guitar and sing. I can spend one, two, or three hours playing, recording ideas on the Voice Memos app of my old iPhone 12 Pro, which I am still very fond of. I have stopped trying to say overly profound things. At the moment, I am focusing on The Voice of the Silence from Helena Blavatsky’s Book of the Golden Precepts, a collection of contemporary Italian short stories and poems featuring writers such as Marco Lodoli, Elio Vittorini, and Antonio Delfini, as well as a collection of poems by Mary Oliver.

They are all small-format books, but they speak to me completely at this point in my life.

I have stopped practicing Shingon Buddhism—or Buddhism more generally—but I continue working with the Hajikan and the Kokūzō mantra in a completely spontaneous way. I will, of course, return to the books written by Taiko Yamasaki, as well as another work by Akuda called Kokkai Major Works. I will probably continue exploring these subjects during my trip to Vietnam.

Originally, I was planning to travel down the Adriatic coast, starting from Trieste in Italy and continuing all the way to Montenegro. However, the budget turned out to be far too high. I simply cannot afford it.

When I checked flights to Vietnam, they were significantly cheaper and more practical. This time, I will start in Hanoi and, in a way, transpose the Adriatic journey onto Vietnam itself—traveling south from Hanoi toward central Vietnam. I do not plan to go as far as Ho Chi Minh City; I think I will stop somewhere in the central region.

The main idea is to travel by train. A ten-hour train ride is not a problem for me; on the contrary, it is part of the journey itself. It is actually one of the themes I explored in a recent text. God knows I have many texts to sort through, write, and expand.

That is why I play guitar every day, working over drones and sustained tones. Unfortunately, I will not be able to bring my guitar with me, but it will undoubtedly be an opportunity to reconnect with my beloved solitude while also relying on my natural ability to socialize with the people around me.

Of course, I feel some apprehension about this departure, even though I already know Vietnam. This time, however, I will begin in the north. In a way, it is both a necessity and a very good choice.

I think I have reached a new stage. I am trying to create a symbiosis between the person I was fifteen years ago and the person I have become, while gradually clearing away the traumas and burdens that once poisoned everyday life. It is a process that I honestly struggle to describe in precise words.

As for composition, my current work will eventually move through the Dark World pedal, listened to through headphones. I certainly have not ruled out returning to my modular system, which remains fully intact. I recently expanded it with a mixer that will allow me to record multiple tracks when I begin producing the first final versions of these pieces.

The guitar will naturally remain part of the modular system, but the foundation has returned completely to songs built around lyrics, guitar, and voice. At the same time, my guitar playing has unquestionably been shaped by six years of working with modular synthesis. For six years, I did not miss a single day of that practice, and its influence is now deeply embedded in the way I approach music.

Zi