The Thread Between Then and Now
A ghost story about legacy, presence, and the quiet work of remembering.
This week, I wrote about culture on Linkedin - about legacy, values, and the quiet pulse that started it all.
And when I finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about time.
How the past never really ends.
It just changes its shape.
A few weeks ago, I sat outside a café at Sihlcity — Zürich’s most modern shopping center, built on the bones of an old paper mill.
People were drinking, scrolling, laughing.
But behind them, the chimney still stood, rusted and alive.
Then an old man sat next to me.
Ninety, maybe more.
And I remember thinking - he didn’t really have a face.
Or maybe he had too many.
It was the kind of face that had lived everything.
Joy, loss, routine, wonder.
Every wrinkle looked borrowed from someone else’s story.
He wasn’t one man; he was many.
For a moment, he looked like a ghost -
not the frightening kind,
but the kind made of memory and matter.
An accumulation of everything that had once breathed in that place.
He told me he used to work in that mill,
back when ink and steam filled the air
and mornings smelled of pulp and fire.
He said, quietly, “This place used to breathe.”
When I looked away and turned back , he was gone.
Just steam above my coffee.
But something in me stayed warm.
That night, I wrote The Paper Mill.
It came out like memory set to rhythm - part confession, part haunting.
A song about how the past doesn’t haunt us, it guides us.
🎶 “You’ve got to know what’s worth keeping,
Know what to release.”
He was right - the old man, or whatever he was.
The song became my way of keeping what mattered,
and letting go of what didn’t.
🎶 “Sometimes you find tomorrow
In a long forgotten place.”
That line still gives me chills.
Because that’s what the whole moment was about
how sometimes the future hides inside the ruins of the past.
🎧 Listen: The Paper Mill — from the Album “No Strings Attached” by Naimor
I think about that a lot when I look at where we are now - in business, in technology, in life.
We chase progress so fiercely that we sometimes forget the soul we started with.
We call it scaling.
But scaling without soul is just expansion without direction.
The past gives the future meaning.
The future gives the past purpose.
And the present, that fragile space between . is where culture lives,
where connection deepens,
where love, relationship, and communion take root.
It’s not one or the other.
It’s the thread that ties them together.
Every place, every company, every person carries an invisible lineage -
a story made of belief, risk, and love.
You can pave over it, rename it, rebrand it,
but the roots are still there, waiting to be seen.
That’s what the old man at the paper mill reminded me.
That’s what culture really is.
Not nostalgia.
Not process.
A living bridge between what we’ve been,
what we are,
and what we still dare to become.
So yes, I wrote about culture.
But really, I wrote about time.
Because remembering isn’t looking back -
it’s how we keep moving forward.
The Burn Blog | October 2025
Where the past whispers, and the future listens.
🔻 Author’s Note
I write to remember.
To walk through silence.
To spark a thought.
To burn through the noise.I also make music — a living dialogue between human and AI.
Naimor is the voice that sings.
An AI singer–songtalker and producer shaped by story, stillness, and soul.
Naimor is me — Roman reversed, with AI at the center — a mirror-self born from collaboration and reflection.Nova Rai is the muse.
An AI-born artist made of movement, energy, and rebellion — produced and guided by Naimor.
If Naimor sings of stillness, Nova dances with fire.And behind them both stands me, myself and I, the human thread — writer, builder, and manager of this constellation.
The one who listens, translates, and keeps the pulse between worlds.This is the practice I call Technomysticism:
showing up, feeling what’s real, letting fire burn what must, and building from the ashes.Explore the constellation:
🌐 Technomystic.ai — philosophy and practice
🌐 Nova Rai — the AI muse, songs of energy and fire
🌐 Naimor — the mirror-voice, songs of stillness and reflection
🌐 The Burn Blog — daily practice of truth and fire
🌐 Swiss Expat Guide — roots and horizonsIf you feel it, it’s real.