A Place To Be

Preparing my questions for the forest and nature conservation institute in Madeira to find out how to get horses, ponies, donkeys, cows and goats onto our land 😊🙌🏼🫶🏼

Today I walked our land with 3 families who are ready to become shareholders in our project. They dream of a neighborhood where their children can grow up in freedom—running, exploring, learning, and playing without limits. This vision is becoming real: families raising kids outside the system, close to nature, connected to each other.

Letter to School Kid Parent Dear school kid parent, I know you want the best for your child. I know you love them more than anything in this world. That’s why I am writing to you — not with judgment, but from a place deep in my heart, with love, understanding, and a longing for truth. I hope you will read this with openness and pause for a moment, because what I am about to share is not often spoken out loud, though many of us feel it in our bones: School changes your child. Before you send them away from your loving arms and the warmth of home, their unique character shines, their innocence is intact, their sense of wonder is alive, their curiosity knows no limits. They look at you with trust, with a bond that is natural and unshakable. They want to be with you, learn with you, laugh with you, and grow in your presence. This is what makes them whole. But school reshapes this. It teaches them to sit still when their body longs to move. It teaches them to raise their hand for permission to speak, when their voice deserves to be heard freely. It teaches them to compete, compare, and measure their worth against others, when in truth their worth is immeasurable. It teaches them to obey strangers over listening to their own heart and their own family. It teaches them that learning is a chore, a duty, something done for grades and approval, instead of the joyful, self-driven exploration it naturally is. Slowly, the spark in their eyes dims. Slowly, they begin to believe that fitting in matters more than being true to themselves. Slowly, they forget that they were once explorers, creators, dreamers. I know this is painful to hear, but it is the truth many of us have witnessed. And yet, there is another way. Children don’t need to be molded — they need to be unfolded. They don’t need to be taught what to think, they need the freedom to think. They don’t need to be standardized; they need to be cherished in their uniqueness. When a child grows up surrounded by love, family, and a community of caring people, something extraordinary happens. Learning flows naturally — through projects, play, passions, and peers. They learn not because they are forced to, but because life itself is fascinating. They learn responsibility by being included in real life. They learn compassion by being treated with compassion. They learn creativity not by filling out worksheets, but by living in a world that values their ideas and imagination. And this isn’t just about childhood joy — it’s about preparing them for the future. We live in times of enormous change. Artificial Intelligence and automation are already replacing traditional jobs. The skills that once mattered most in the school system — memorization, repetition, standardized answers — are now the very skills machines can do better than humans. The future belongs to those who can do what machines cannot: - to imagine, - to empathize, - to create, - to collaborate, - to question, - to dream. And those are the very qualities that schools suppress but that natural, free, family-centered learning nurtures. Your child doesn’t need to be trained for a shrinking job market. They need to be empowered for life — for creating, innovating, building communities, solving problems, loving deeply, and living fully. And here is something else that is often overlooked: when children grow up whole and unbroken, they don’t just bring joy to their own lives, but to the entire world. A child who learns in freedom becomes an adult who lives in freedom. A child who grows in love brings more love into humanity. A child who is trusted becomes trustworthy. Dear parent, I know this is not the path most people take. I know it feels safer to do what everyone else does, to send your child to school and hope it will all turn out fine. But the truth is: we cannot outsource childhood. We cannot outsource love. We cannot outsource the one thing our children need most — our presence. Your child’s time is precious. Their wonder, their laughter, their ideas, their hugs — these years are fleeting, and they will not return. Do not let a system that was never designed for human flourishing steal them away. You are enough. Your family is enough. Your love is enough. And in choosing to honor childhood, you are not only giving your child the best chance in life — you are also giving the world a gift it so desperately needs: a whole, joyful, capable human being. www.aPlaceToBe.me

Lately, I’ve been posting a lot on Nostr about the paradox of being a Bitcoiner while still sending kids to school. What I see so clearly is that Bitcoin and unschooling are two sides of the same freedom movement. Bitcoin is about taking back sovereignty over our money. Unschooling is about taking back sovereignty over our children’s learning. Both are about trust, responsibility, and refusing to outsource our freedom to systems that were never built for us. As we’ve been unschooling Bitcoiners for about 8 years I feel called to be a bridge between these worlds—helping Bitcoin families see that their values naturally lead to unschooling, and showing unschoolers why Bitcoin is an essential piece of living free. Reach out if you’re on a similar journey and have any questions regarding unschooling 🫶🏼

We bought the land today! 530.000 m² of wonderful nature on the best island in the world! 🌿🏝️✨ There is truly no better place than A Place To Be 🥰🫶🏼😇🙌🏼 This is just the beginning of building a sovereign, unschooling neighborhood where families can connect with nature, freedom, and each other. 🌱👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 👉 Follow along as we bring this vision to life — and if you feel called to be part of it, subscribe and book a call with us. Your future home might already be waiting for you here. 💫 www.aPlaceToBe.me https://blossom.primal.net/5465f6d45689d68afd338afaca2c3db48036826a0d2ea3ae7a404e049f86c52c.mov

If Bitcoin fixes money, Unschooling fixes education. Running a node gives you sovereignty over money. Unschooling gives kids sovereignty over their lives.

Bitcoin = decentralized money Unschooling = decentralized education Sending kids to school? 👉 Still plugged into the system. 👉 Outsourcing parenting. 👉 Limiting their freedom. 👉 Teaching fiat thinking. Ask why. Unschooling is easy and fun when you have a community: https://blossom.primal.net/5b7d99ee38c0d0d55e65970b9e83442e6fa80a520a6bdda1b9b2692fe2eeeab7.mov

My video didn’t upload earlier when I was on the land, when I posted: Building our #unschooling neighborhood in #Madeira … 😉🫶🏼 https://blossom.primal.net/22bbe4e1b647cd53bf7e73c4355decbd881ca32f856d3dbfd7ae771b7c5b3e31.mov

In the process of building our #unschooling neighborhood in #Madeira and I’m #learningbydoing #lfg 😎🤟🏼🩷

Grab your free copy of our unschooling magazine The Toshi Times issue 2 when coming to our stall at the nostr:npub167n5w6cj2wseqtmk26zllc7n28uv9c4vw28k2kht206vnghe5a7stgzu3r in June! We’ll be with nostr:nprofile1qqsfqxcta0cz4darnex66sl0nux0kmcurwnr8w8muakyzz66qf7556cprfmhxue69uhkummnw3ezucm9wf3kzarjdamxztndv5hszyrhwden5te0dehhxarj9ekk7mf045xxm8 from CitadelGarden, our new partners. Come and connect 😊🙌🏼🫶🏼

In 1903, John D. Rockefeller said: “I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers.” That one sentence says more about modern education than any government policy memo. The school system was shaped around industrial needs—bells, schedules, standardized testing—all designed to mimic factory life. Obedience, repetition, memorization. No room for questioning, autonomy, or purpose. As a parent, I can’t un-know that. It seems more like participating in a machine than nurturing a life. https://m.primal.net/Qika.mp4

Building a place to pee - our off-grid outdoor toilet because we also set up a tent and will camp on our land soon woohoo 😎🙌🏽🫶🏼 https://m.primal.net/Qbxs.mov https://m.primal.net/Qbxw.mov https://m.primal.net/Qbxz.mov

Don’t trust, verify! We hired a mobile mechanic to help us figure out whether this Nissan pick up truck is a good buy for our land. https://m.primal.net/QBdZ.mov

An excerpt of the A PLACE TO BE story: … My childhood was rich in outdoor time, having a lot of freedom to play and explore our surroundings, however, this was limited to after-school hours and I must admit that I didn’t enjoy school at all. When learning that schools are not just unnecessary but rather harmful in many ways, it was an easy decision to not send our kids there and to value their time and our bond instead. For my own family, I envisioned living in a neighbourhood full of unschooled kids where they could just run outside and play whenever they wanted. To cut a long story short, I didn’t find it so I decided to create exactly this: A neighbourhood called A Place To Be for us and all other families who want their children to grow up freely. So, I hope you’ll come and visit us soon in sunny Madeira! READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE: https://www.aplacetobe.me/our-story

We spend at least one day a week walking shelter dogs and playing and stroking the cats … zap us if you thinks we should adopt a few once we have space for them! The kids (and me too) definitely want ALL of them 🐈‍⬛🐶🫶🏼🤩🥰 https://m.primal.net/PJjR.mov https://m.primal.net/PJji.mov

Another fun day of muscle work to clean our land and then a well-deserved Espatada BBQ. On Monday a company will start clearing the roads and pathways to create access to the clearings where we’ll build houses and other structures for our unschooling neighborhood 😎🙌🏽🤩🫶🏼 https://m.primal.net/PDRs.mov https://m.primal.net/PDRt.mov

#fiatproof your kids 😎 A Place To Be - our unschooling neighborhood is progressing nicely… Will you fiat-proof your kids too? Get them out of the system asap 🫶🏼

Today we started clearing our land to prepare it for usage. Tough and BIG job but we all enjoyed it massively! Soon we’ll camp and do some BBQ’s there. 😎🙌🏽🫶🏼 https://m.primal.net/OElq.mov

Footage from our last visit of our land in Caniçal (east of Madeira) … next week we’ll be spending the day there with our architect to find the best spots to build 😎🙌🏽 We have more than 530.000m2 to explore 🫶🏼 https://m.primal.net/NwIc.mov https://m.primal.net/NwId.mov

Bo (5): mommy, I want honey melon on my bread please. Me: Honey melon on your bread… Bo: of course! Trying new things is great 😁 She doesn’t like … #unschooling