Now - December 2025
It’s the last Now Page update for the year.
And holy fuck, what a year it has been.
Forgive the length of this update: it’s a whole year to cover.
Let’s go in order. I started the year changing roles at work. In February, I agreed to take up building the Product Compliance function at Satispay.
I should probably write about Product Compliance, because it’s a pretty cool concept, but to keep it short, we make sure that compliance functions (compliance, legal, finance, etc.) understand what the product does and how it works, and product and engineering understand what they need to do to make sure they deliver a compliant and well thought out product.
In June, the role change became official. Four days later I left for the Naval Academy in Livorno.
After three incredible weeks of training, experiences, and commitments, on June 19 I swore as a Navy Officer of the Italian Navy. I’m now a full reserve officer, and part of the Great Crew.
In the summer I spent some time travelling Europe with the Family, between England, France and Spain. We saw rivers, and volcanoes, and shores, and swamps, and coloured birds, and bulls, and horses, and old ships, and new boats.
A common thread has been the Sea, which is the central theme of the whole year, and that will be I reckon even more central to next year, in spite of our home being relatively far from the coast.
My already pretty musically focused family became almost fully musical: my son and I play the guitar, my daughter the flute, my wife started with the violin, and we’re just waiting for my youngest to pick an instrument up: probably drums.
August and September brought hardship as my mum, who had been sick but relatively well for many years, had a change of fate.
She woke up one morning struggling to get up, and all went downhill from there. She quickly got bedridden, and her illness took over her.
By the time November came around, she was very unwell for most of the day, heavily medicated, and not herself anymore. It has been a painful struggle for all of us, as we saw this strong, intelligent, witty and loving woman wither away, eaten from the inside, poisoned by her own body.
In movies, in narrative, people either die of violent death, or they gently pass, sadly but heavenly. Like they fall asleep. In my experience, that’s bullshit. Death is gross.
On her last afternoon, my mother, at that point mostly sedated, started to struggle with breathing. By night, a bone chilling death rattle was the only sound in the house. My dad and I stayed and waited.
She was gone at twenty-two minutes past six in the morning. She was cremated and will be staying forever in her garden, under a rose tree, in the house on the hills she loved so much.
So now it’s December. Christmas just went by, a different type of Christmas, but still good. Children had presents, the cat climbed the Christmas tree, and traditions were preserved.
Oh, the cat! I didn’t mention the cat.
My parents have this amazing house on the hills. It has been their refuge, their safe haven, and the place where they felt they belonged. They went there consistently for long weekends for 25 years, except during COVID, when they actually lived there for months in a row.
There are flowers, and fruit trees, and chestnuts, and oaks. And cats. Many cats, that live outside, and mostly wild, but got food consistently from them. The cats would just go about their life, and would show up en-masse for food on weekends, or whenever they were around. They’d otherwise just lazily live in the garden.
When my mum got worse, and had to stay in bed, they stopped going to the house on the hills. Naturally, the cats dispersed, looking for a new source of food. All, except a tiny kitten, who probably couldn’t just walk away easily.
Whenever I drove from my home to my parents’ home to visit my mother, I’d stop by at the house on the hills to check that everything was ok, keep it clean and so on. On Halloween, I drove there under pouring rain. The kitten was soaked, alone, hungry, and desperate. She let me pick her up, and after a little convincing of my wife over the phone, she came home with me, just in time for my daughter’s birthday.
So yeah, this year brought us a cat.
I wonder what it will bring us next year.
Goals
As the new year starts, I am going to track personal OKRs instead of good intentions month after month.
My personal OKRs are quarterly. For Q1 2026 I have two: a personal growth one and an impact one. Each has two key results.
My growth OKR says: "Objective: Advance my personal mastery and competence in body, mind, and action." and requires me to train for a half marathon, and read and document insights from books.
My impact OKR says: "Objective: Deliver helpful creations that people anywhere can use to improve their life in a practical, tangible way." It requires me to write a short book and to make an app.
This is an experiment: I have no clue if these are even remotely achievable, especially while being all at the same time and in just three months. But I’ll take you along the journey with monthly updates here.
And if you just want to know week over week how things are going, I track them in public on my Goals page.
On my mind
Shift
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”