2024 was a year that stripped me to the bone. A year that began with hope, but quickly turned into a storm that tore through everything I thought I could hold together my company, my health, my friendships, my love, my money, my sense of control. I set out to document Tanah Airku, to trace the soul of this country from end to end, but what I ended up documenting was my own collapse, my own survival, and the raw truth that sometimes the road takes more than it gives.

2024 It started quietly, almost deceptively. The early days carried the illusion of balance small wins, ideas being born, the studio still functioning, the project breathing. But behind the surface, the cracks had already formed. A flood swallowed the studio and equipment. I sold cameras just to keep afloat. Money bled out of every pore of the project. And love what I thought was solid slipped away like water through fingers. That loss was sharper than I expected, a kind of death that you carry in silence. But I kept moving because movement was the only medicine I knew.
The road pulled me in again, the same way it always has. Hitchhiking, buses, boats, strangers who smelled like trouble and strangers who felt like angels. I fasted for weeks, shedding weight and demons, welcomed Couchsurfers into my orbit, clung to distractions that would keep me from thinking too hard about what was gone. Every time I thought I was at my limit, something dragged me deeper another promise, another dream, another island waiting. And so I gave myself to the journey.
But once I crossed into the heart of the expedition, reality struck harder than any plan could handle. There were nights when I rode with reckless drivers who flirted with death at every curve. Days when money ran out and I didn't know if we would eat, or make it to the next town. People stole from me, guides scammed me, and sometimes entire communities seemed to turn their backs when I asked for help. And I stilI kept filming. I kept walking into villages, listening to stories, recording dances, prayers, rituals that pulsed with life. Because even in the chaos, beauty refused to die.
I was not alone, but sometimes it felt lonelier than solitude. My team came with me, but their weight was often heavier than their help. Some quit, some fought, some stayed only to burn everything around them. Dimas, my brother on the road, said goodbye when the road became too much, leaving a hole that no one else could fill. Happy stayed longer, but her presence was another storm, another fragile balance between loyalty and conflict. And then came Ara, the kind of man who could drain light from a room with a smile, a liar who smoked through my budget and poisoned the air with promises he never intended to keep. With every betrayal, every fight, I wondered why I was still holding it together. But the truth was I didn't know how to let go.
Sulawesi broke me in ways I didn't think possible. Beautiful landscapes that looked like heaven carried the weight of hell behind them. The roads twisted like snakes, impossible to conquer. We lost drones to the sea, we lost equipment to accidents, we nearly lost our lives in Banggai when a boat crashed and we were left clinging to survival, water swallowing everything we had worked for. There was a machete raised against me in anger, the kind of moment where you realize how fragile the line is between filming life and losing it. Ara became more poisonous by the day, and Happy's crisis burned alongside his, until I was juggling two storms with empty hands. By then, my bank account was dust, my spirit cracked, but the road still demanded I keep moving.
There were moments when I thought it was over. Nights when the debt felt heavier than my body, when betrayal cut so deep it felt permanent, when the silence after losing hours of footage was louder than any storm. And yetthere were also nights when families took me in like blood, when strangers fed me when I couldnt afford to eat, when children laughed into the camera and reminded me why I started this madness in the first place. There were sunsets that felt like forgiveness, dances that felt like eternity, songs that reminded me that no matter how brutal the world is, beauty finds a way to break through.
The year became a cycle of death and rebirth. Every time I thought the project had finished me, something pulled me back into it. Every time I thought I was too broke, too broken, I found a way to take another step. I borrowed money just to keep the car moving, just to feed the team that was falling apart in my hands. I let go of people I loved, only to see them return with jealousy or regret. I fought with myself in the dark, asked questions I didn't want to answer: Was this project worth my life? Was I clinging to a dream that had already died?
But I couldn't stop. Even when I wanted to, even when logic said quit, my heart refused. Because this road, for all its cruelty, was mine. It gave me pain, but it also gave me identity. And in the fragments of beauty the villages, the oceans, the mountains, the people who looked me in the eye with sincerity I saw pieces of myself reflected back. Maybe broken, maybe scattered, but still there.
By the time the year ended, I was bankrupt, exhausted, scarred. The project stood unfinished, the company in ruins, my health hanging by a thread. I had lost equipment, friends, money, and almost my life. And yet what I gained was something no one could steal. The story itself. The confession of a year where everything I thought I was burned away, leaving only what could survive the fire.
2024 nearly killed me. But it also revealed me. It showed me who stands in the storm, who runs, who betrays, who loves. It stripped me of illusions, it left me bleeding on the road, and still it kept me alive enough to write this. There is no jungle without predators, no road without thieves, no island without storms. And there is no Lion without the road.
So I stand here, broke but unbroken, whispering to myself and to the camera: I don't know if I can finish this, I don't know if I can recover. But I know that in this year of fire, chaos, and fragile miracles, I found the rawest truth of all.
I am still alive. And that, somehow, is enough.

MY 2024 | GO TANAH AIRKU GO!