The false star: An Atlas loop
As a lifelong admirer of both William Blake and Douglas Adams, I found the real-world conversation surrounding the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS to be a perfect,…
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The Physics of Freedom – What Rises When Everything Shakes
Imagine you have a jar filled with nuts of different sizes. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios, all mixed together. Now shake it. Shake it hard. What happens?…
What Steve Jobs’ Creative Director Taught Me About Building Bulgaria’s Creative Future
Ten years ago in Bogotá, I shared a stage with Ken Segall at a marketing conference. Ken is the man who named the iMac and…
The Forest You Carry
It started as a mistake. The kind that rewrites you. Five friends, one tired taxi driver, a road that turned from asphalt to dirt without…
The Pattern Blindness
I spent two years writing a book about acceleration. As a futurist, I thought it was time to put my thoughts on paper, but here’s…
The Next Bulgaria – A personal reflection on the future that should be.
On a winter morning in Sofia the station smells like coffee and brake dust. The departures board flips with that little clatter you feel more…
From the Ottoman Empire to Today: The Legacy of Political Apathy in Bulgaria
First a confession. I’ve been deeply interested in politics for decades at this point. I was born in Washington D.C., the son and grandson of…
The Hidden Currency – Dataius the Great visits Stoian in Bulgaria, with Middleton in the Middle (a short stroy)
I often find satire to be one of the most powerful tools not just to tell a story, but to simply tell the truth. What…
“Empathy in Motion”: A Conversation with Director-Choreographer Kosta Karakashyan
As founder of This Is Bulgaria, I was genuinely honored to meet—and learn from—director and choreographer Kosta Karakashyan, an artist whose work keeps widening what…
The Stars Over Bulgaria
I’ve always loved the story of the Michelin star system. It began as a clever trick by a tire company, which tells you almost everything…
Bulgaria’s Path Forward: Learning from Patterns, Not Places
When a former foreign minister recently told me that “those who have power have no imagination and those with imagination have no power,” I realized…
Circles of Identity: A Conversation with Natanail Stefanov
How choosing constraint created freedom — and why betting on Bulgaria is a bet on possibility. The Paradox of Choice Most stories end with tears….