During the 18 years I spent in Zurich, Switzerland, advertising and film was my life; I enjoyed what I was doing and apparently was not bad at it either. I had a good life, big cars and bespoke suits. Working 90-hour weeks was not unusual, nor was earning good money. One day I bought myself a rather costly sports car. At the first red traffic light driving away from the car dealership – like a bucket of ice water in my face, an epiphany – I was suddenly aware that I really did not need all this, I wondered whether I was really doing what I loved. At school, the main objective was to find out what you really loved. The red light did not want to change to green, the halt was very welcome, the good life I felt I had seemed so utterly superficial and senseless. And no, I was not doing what I really loved. I might have functioned rather well, my executive life had its own momentum, the swirl of its g-force embracing me comfortably, but it was numbing, it utterly lacked the vitality of life. My life was so crowded with stuff, an accumulation of things, useless things. I had too much of everything. And I decided to get rid of it all, to start anew, fresh, and begin to do what I loved.
We all know what we really love, it is not that one needs to look for it. Shedding one’s life of the superfluous helps to let it shine bright and clear. In my case it is a deep and profound love for nature. My plan was to move to the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, where I still had a house (well, a ruin). I closed shop in Zurich.