PF 2026      BRIGHTER  TIMES   AHEAD

Dear friends,

Warm greetings to you all, and let me wish you a truly wonderful year 2026. I wish us peace in Europe, good health, and above all enough energy to keep squeezing as much as we can out of life.

I won't look back at the past year, do any balancing or summaries. The present and the future are far more inspiring, and that is exactly what I would like to share in this letter.

Since it's not only me who is getting older, but you too, my friends, I'll allow myself to offer a few small tips for the start of the new year. One of them is essential for me: having a zest for life. I still have it — and I probably get on some people's nerves because of it. Even though my physical condition is nothing to write home about, I try hard to keep my mind active. The brain is connected to the body and needs constant exercise (see my favorite quote at the end of this letter).

I saw this very clearly with my mum.

She wasn't afraid to start driving at 75, and she took her first steps into the digital world at Christmas 2003, when she and my father found their first computer under the Christmas tree. How do I remember it so precisely? I found her first email — she was 74 at the time.

Hi Janička and Paul,
Sunday, 4 January 2004

We want to thank you for everything, and please forgive us for making such a fuss over the computer. For now, I'm completely overwhelmed by it, and it will be a big learning process for us. Grandpa comes to me and wants to know what I can do — and I can't do anything yet, so he leaves again. I hope I will slowly learn. We are happy that you arrived safely and can rest today.
We send you our warm greetings, we love you very much, thank you for everything.
Mum and Dad.

My mum learned everything very quickly. I wrote about five computer lessons for her myself — and they are still usable today because they don't depend on any system version. It wasn't just about writing emails, searching the internet, or forwarding photos and videos. Jarka created her own Excel spreadsheet to track expenses for the cottage. She installed modern music into her JUKEBOX software on the computer and listened to her beloved Freddie Mercury. She even asked me to teach her Photoshop. She remained active and curious until the age of 91; after that, she gradually lost strength and became bedridden.

When she was about 85, she complained that Facebook kept changing things and that she no longer felt like using it — which I found almost amusing at the time. I found her last Facebook post when she was 87. And as you can see, it wasn't a personal diary entry like "what I did on Sunday," but reflected her interest in what was happening in the world — it even included a link to a news article.

I have plenty of stories about my mum and her modern way of thinking, and those who knew her have already heard many of them from me.

So how am I planning to approach the new year? I can almost hear you asking.

Traveling, photography, writing, presenting (inspiring). (I'll leave the role of housekeeper for later.)

The first half of the year is more or less planned already — the flights are booked. 

In January, we're heading off on a shorter trip to Indonesia.

In March, a few weeks in southern Africa: a week around Cape Town, where we meet with our friends and will drink great wine (where I'll be celebrating my 18th birthday for the 55th time), followed by a flight to Johannesburg, meeting with other friends, and then off for two weeks in a 4x4 among baobabs, salt pans, and meerkats in Botswana. It's one more adventure into the wilderness — as long as I can still physically manage it. 

And in May, we will finally take the twice-postponed trip to Argentina. 

In June, I'll be returning as an organizing assistant for the annual international IPS Nude Photography Workshop in Southern Bohemia.

All these trips are planned by us, without travel agencies — adventures without crowds of tourists. If anyone would like advice or simply wants to ask something, feel free to get in touch. AI can also be a great travel-planning tool — just make sure to double-check everything.

It may all sound like travel plans only, but for me it's mainly a way to stay in motion — both physically and mentally. Every new journey means not only discovering the unknown, but also navigating, planning, talking to people, and dealing with unexpected situations — for example, surviving the harassment and chaos at airports. Traveling without tour operators reminds me of Thursdays in The Big Bang Theory, when Sheldon calls it: "Anything can happen Thursday."

And now to the brain and its fitness. Recently, I watched a documentary on Dutch television about a disease that frightens us all — Alzheimer's. It presented a long-term study conducted on a statistically significant group of people followed over many years. The participants were divided into three groups:

– the first group did nothing mentally demanding,
– the second group regularly exercised their brains with games, crosswords, and sudoku,
– the third group learned a new language.

After many years, it became clear that the first two groups had a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, while the third group did significantly better — brain ageing and dementia progressed much more slowly.

So: let's learn a new language. (Czech is not my recommendation for you. According to studies it's one of the hardest languages in the world — mastering it now would probably extend your life to 150. Think carefully.) Considering my future travels, I ruled out Indonesian (bahasa indonesia — supposedly one of the easiest languages) — I already know the word orangutan — but Spanish is calling me. So today I asked my "advisor" — AI — how to go about it. The method works for any language, so I'm sending it to my Czech speaking friends as inspiration in the attachment.
Spoiler: yes, it uses AI.

Time keeps moving on, but curiosity, joy, and the desire to keep going are things no one can take away from us.

May the new year bring you inspiration, meaningful experiences, and small adventures — and I look forward to meeting, talking, and sharing, wherever that may be.

P.S. My favorite quote (I have it on my fridge as a magnet) is by Eleanor Roosevelt:
"Every day, do one thing that scares you."

Note:
My past and future travels, photos, and stories can be found at:
www.tsoatsoa.com 

travels: tsoatsoa.com
phone. Czech Rep.
cell 00420 - 734 221 421