Title: OFF THE GRID Genre: Non-Fiction / Poetry / Reflections Language: English and Italian Designed by Veronika Valtonen Printed in Berlin

I wrote this book in the Asturian mountains, about an hour from Oviedo, in a small house surrounded by wilderness. It was a place where time felt different—where the rhythm of the days was dictated not by meetings or emails but by the changing light, the shifting winds, and the slow process of restoring an old stone house.

For weeks, my days were spent working with my hands—rebuilding, fixing, carrying, assembling, feeling the weight of materials and the satisfaction of physical effort. My nights were for writing. Sitting at a wooden table with only the sound of the wind and the distant bells of grazing animals, I began pouring my thoughts onto the page.

At first, I didn’t know what this book would become. It started as a diary of my time in the mountains, a way to make sense of what I was experiencing. But the more I wrote, the more I realized that I wasn’t just documenting a retreat—I was trying to understand the world I had stepped away from. I was questioning why modern life often feels so overwhelming, so disconnected, so unfulfilling.

In the solitude of the mountains, memories surfaced—of my father, of childhood moments spent driving through winding mountain roads, of long silences that meant more than words. His presence became an unshakable part of this book, shaping my reflections on time, loss, and what it means to live a life that truly matters.

The more I wrote, the more I saw that this book was also about grief and transformation. My father was sick, and his illness made me reflect deeply on mortality—not just his, but mine too. What does it mean to really live, knowing that time is slipping away? What does it mean to create something meaningful, not just for a career or a paycheck, but for yourself?

As I worked on this book, I felt an increasing resistance to the modern structures that dictate our lives. Why do we treat life as a competition? Why is our worth measured by productivity? Why does happiness often feel tied to accumulation rather than experience?

I realized I wasn’t just writing about my time in the mountains—I was writing a manifesto for a different way of living. One where work isn’t something that drains you but something that builds you. One where we stop chasing things that don’t matter and start focusing on the essentials—connection, meaning, slowness, contemplation.