ACE.await

I live in Cologne, leading a team at a software company, building a new free internet to fight the dictatorship of data. In my private life, I’m constantly struggling to learn what a right decision even means. Anonymous keeps telling me that through ACE, I need to learn something harder: the proper decision.

For ten years I couldn’t finish my novel, and I blamed myself. It was painful — but finally I understood it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t me writing the story the whole time.

It isn’t easy to earn Hedayat’s trust — especially when he thinks you’re a hacker. He still needs to understand: it isn’t technology or tools that will save humanity or the future. It’s consciousness — and learning how to make a proper decision. Hedayat has to practice ACE. We need to hurry. Otherwise it’s getting too late.

Hedayat must not find out I’m talking to you. I’m the character inside his unfinished novel — and I’m an author too. In his novel I’m writing a novel, and inside my novel I created a character who is also writing another. I gave him my name: Mr. Writer. He treats me exactly the way I’ve been treating Hedayat.

If, from time to time, you read something that makes no sense — some chapters about disobedience, blank pages and etc — don’t get confused. That’s me. Be patient. Keep reading. The dots connect at the end.

We all carry a «Story's Hero» in our heads — always telling the story in a way that makes us feel we were right. I’m not saying I made no mistakes in my relationship with Hedayat, or that I left him over a single mistake. I left because he kept turning love into the problems he could solve later. He was always ready to explain and analyze when he should have listened — to feel first, understand second, and when understanding wasn’t enough, simply show empathy.

I love the games I play with Uncle-Hedi — the talk we share and the secrets between us. Like the secret of the number 2313.

By the way, Uncle-Hedi has this funny habit. Sometimes — only sometimes — when he’s deep in thought and completely lost in his head, he forgets to look around and check where he is not alone, and suddenly, he farts!

I love Hedayat the way Rumi loved Shams. A person understands the meaning of life through suffering, and true healing comes through pure friendship.

I’m not lying. Believe my words. Every trouble humans face in the real world, new digital creatures face in a virtual one. The forms are different; the consequences are the same. Be careful — the author of this novel may not be the one you’re thinking of. Anyway!

I don’t play a role in this story, but my name gets mentioned here and there. I just wanted to say one thing quickly: I am not a game designer who refuses to play the game he created.