Broke.

This blog post will not have any images. I like adding images, but I feel like I only need words right now ;).

I and Sasha have 900 Euros in total. That’s it. Hopefully we will get back some money from the apartment deposit, but probably it will be around 100 Euros after paying the remaining bills. Perhaps I can get 100 or so Euros from Patreon too. But yah, I can finally say I am broke. I threatened everyone about that for a few years now, haha, and now it finally happened.

I write from the same house where I made the second version of TROM documentary back in 2012. And from the same room where I built TVP Magazine, VideoNeat, and a few other projects. We made the room neat, as much as we could. I took my hand-made desk from the other place, and my galaxies. I printed 8 A4 pages with some of the most iconic space-stuff, back in 2012 when TVP donated me a printer to print a non-disclosure document…yah. Well. Retarded, but thank you for the printer. I have no clue why people still use printers… So back in 2012 (wondering about the same thing), I used all of the ink to print these amazing space-stuff-things. Some of the first exoplanets ever captured on camera, the farthest galaxy ever photographed (that was back in 2012 but still fuck-amazing): our sun, a few other galaxies and clusters, and the cosmic microwave background. I framed them into one mega frame, and hanged them on the wall behind my monitor so I can face it anytime and remind myself of my story – the one of a human being. To diffuse all of the human-invented problems that could cause me a lot of scars. Money problems mainly, and some stupid societal issues here and there, that condiment the shitty life of a citizen.

So here I am, same place, same stuff. Let me remind myself:

From 2007 or so I kept on writing on my romanian blog about all kinds of important subjects: from religion to money, abundance to technology, mysteries to science. I loved to let my brain explore the world through this digital vessel. There was no Facebook or any such centralized place online – it was a wild wild west kinda. You went there and didn’t know where there was, what was there, how to even reach somewhere. So you went about and around, searching and poking all kinds of websites. It was fun. Today it is all about 5 or so websites (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok and the like). A managed online life, by ads companies. It is the difference between my childhood and today’s childhood. Back in my days, all kids were going out. No phones, nothing like that. We interacted with each other, climbed trees, made tree houses, played football or any other game, laughed, ran, biked, it was an endless stream of adventures. Some newer than others. Today, from what I can tell, everything is organized: here is the park for children, here is a gym for adults, a cafeteria for the rest. Kids go for lessons: guitar lessons, football lessons, tennis lessons, ….. Not such thing in my childhood years. We played and had fun. The Internet today is like the childhood of today: a few places, all organized, all tasteless. No adventure, no fun.

So yah, from 2007 on I was poking around the Internet having fun, and writing a lot about the world. I was broke as fuck. Had 0 money. Dependent on my family? I was. Then made TROM documentary, still broke. And remade it; still broke. Then collaborated with TVP and created their online magazine for like 8 months – still broke. I was lucky as fuck when we made a TVP Magazine Indiegogo campaign and we raised over 20.000 Euros. That’s insane that I think about it. It was make or break for me. If we didn’t raise the entire amount, all money would have been returned. I did it this way because I was desperate. I was dragged into a very unpleasant situation living with my family for the past years, mooching on their resources. They were also putting a pressure on me to “do something” – and by that they meant, to have a job; and by that they meant to make some money. So I was like: either I raise all the money and give myself 1 year trial (1k Euros a month for a year), or idk….I’ll just go out and walk until I cannot walk anymore. That’s how I felt. Just go out, walk and walk and walk on this planet until I collapse and I can’t walk anymore. What can I do!?

Side-note: the money for TVP Magazine was for me and Ray who proofread and reviewed all issues, that’s why it was just enough for myself to live for one year with 1k Euros a month.

Ok. So.

2013, the magic year. I finally made it. Had a good ‘salary’ for at least 1 year. Go Tio! Go! And I went! From 2013 to 2016 I managed to get financial support enough to have a good life. I was paying for my own shit. No more dependence on my family. Damn it felt so good. All of that stress was out of the window. From 2014 to 2016 I even managed to live in my own apartment (rented of course), and it felt so cozy and relaxing. I was working like nuts for TVP Magazine and we released one big issue every month. I kept my promise.

Then it declined.

From 2016 on, the donations went down and down. It coincided with me and TVP splitting apart and the discontinuation of the TVP Magazine. But somehow I still had enough to pay for my own shit. In 2016 I moved back with my parents because I was making less than I could afford to live on my own. But since I could still contribute financially to the house’s spendings, I was all fine. I was getting less and less financial support to the point of making it difficult to even contribute to those spendings. But at least I had some money to do so.

Then it was better, but it still declined.

In 2019 we had that TROM meeting and a bunch of people came here to meet me, and meet with each other. We ended up moving together (Me, Sasha, and Aaron). Together we could pay for a nice apartment in the same town. It was fun, relaxing, great. Aaron left after one year, but he kept on supporting me and Sasha like crazy. Honestly the guy is too nice to exist in this society. But me and Sasha were unable to keep ourselves afloat.

Rent: 450 Euros. Electricity over 100. Water + Waste, 30. Internet 75. Servers 50. That’s some 700+ Euros on bills. Then we have to eat. We managed to eat with around 250 Euros a month, which I consider reasonable. We don’t buy much, and nothing fancy. Of course no eating out – that’s stupid, wasteful, super expensive, and stressful. We make some really great pizzas at home for like 5 times less the costs. 1k Euros for 2 people to live in Spain is super low. It’s way bellow the poverty line. But we don’t have a car or other such things – we have no debt and no consumerist values. We just need our basic needs: a comfy shelter with a basic cooking facility, toilet, bed and all that. Basic. An internet connection and hot water. And we can buy some fruits, vegetables, and some meet for myself 😀 (sorry), and that’s all. But it was a very shaky situation. We were sure we will go broke last year, but Roma, Aaron, Shas, and some other close TROM friends saved our asses with big donations.

We knew it was over.

We can’t have several Aarons or Romas or Sebs or Shass or others who helped so much, working their asses off, slaving themselves, to then donate thousands of euros to us. This is insane and unsustainable. So I told Aaron and others to fuck-off 😀 and not donate anymore. Keep the money for themselves. They need that to survive and TROM also needs them. And Aaron is insane-kind and sacrificed his life I’d say, to pull us out of misery lately. He should stop doing that and take care of himself and if possible keep on TROMing because he is so amazing at what he is doing for TROM.

US saved us for a few months. Funny enough. US sent some “stimulus” money because of this COVID situation, to its tribe members, and since Sasha is one of them, we got some 2k Euros from them. It allowed us to prolong the suffering haha.

We. Are. Busy. With. Relevant. Stuff.

You see, both I and Sasha work on some long projects that suck all of our time. Sasha is writing a book about her life that is also tied with these TROM things we talk about – from what I’ve read so far here and there, the book will be super awesome. It may have the potential to reach many new minds. She traveled around the world for the past 13+ years and her stories and what she learned from all of this, coalesce into a great and awesome pie of information. So she needs a lot of time to write it, to compile all of those years and more (she also writes about her childhood). And then is I. I work on a second part of TROM documentary. Like a 10 year celebration. At least that’s what I tried to do. I made a campaign to see if I can get enough support to work on it for the entire 2021, but I only raised some 30% and that’ mainly because of Aaron’s and Roma’s donations….

So yah, both I and Sasha were busy as fuck with these things, not to mention that I am also managing a lot of other projects and in the meantime I released a new one that requires a lot of my attention.

I never stopped working.

If you could look at the donations that TROM received since 2013 to now, they go up till 2016, then go down and down and down, sharply. Right now I may get around 100-200 Euros (maybe) overall, a month. Which is barely enough to buy some food. But if you look for the same period of time at my work and even other people’s work (involvement) for TROM, you will see a rise. A continuous rise. Podcasts, new books, new videos, new amazing tools….all that had no correlations to the support we were getting.

Anyways.

Bottom line is, I am here now, broke. Finally. My nightmare came true. I always feared this will happen and it is here. What am I gonna do now? I have no idea. I cannot see myself having a job. I simply cannot. I put so much effort into TROM and had so many plans….to make the TROM II documentary, to write several amazing and important books about the human behavior, about what science is, about technology and more. To create more trade-free tools….To…

So if I am forced to have a job to make money, it would mean to cut 90% of my work on TROM and by that I also mean to cut 90% of my brain. And I will end up either killing myself or killing someone else at my work place since I am 100% sure you’ll get enslaved in any job out there. I know how to make super detailed books about complex subjects, I know how to make podcasts, I know how to make videos and documentaries, I know how to make a plethora of projects and manage them, I know how to maintain a Linux distribution….I know how to make websites that are (I think) unique and interesting. I know a bunch of things and I do a lot. But I do not know how to make money since I was never interested in that. And that means, I do not know how to survive in this society unfortunately for my own sake. What would have happened if my family or the few people who have donated so far, didn’t exist? I perhaps would have decided to either steal money to support my work (which is ironic thinking about what TROM is), or killed myself. I know this sounds too dramatic, but I’ve always had that in my head: you can always choose not to play this stupid game anymore, by ending your own life. That’s the only escape it seems. Think about how harsh this sounds, and how true it is.

Keep this in mind:

I, a human being on this planet, am super curious how this society works, where are the problems coming from, what are the solutions to these. I am also super curious about how the world works: humans, atoms, whales, computers, and so forth. And I spent 15+ years trying to educate myself about these, and to inform others about them. But I could only do this because a few people helped me stay afloat in this society. Else, I had 0 chances. The society helps you not at all to be an informed human being. It only wants you to work work work. Mostly mindless jobs. Now I am broke so normally I will have to get a job to survive in this society. Like to work in say marketing, sell stuff, be a charlatan and the like. What “good” jobs are out there? Doctors that only “save” people who pay? Mechanics who only repair the broken stuff of those who can afford to fix them? Scientists who are poorly paid and work mostly for for-profit companies, helping them destroy lives and the environment? Honestly, think about it, if I were to say “Ok Tio, we accept a job now! Shut the fuck up and do it!” – then what jobs can I do? Probably some that are pushing this trade based society further. So making things worse in this society.

So:

I am basically forced now to not care about this society and stop be curious, and stop informing others and create educational content and tools, and stop create free services for others. STOP! Stop that, and focus on doing something mindless that in turn creates more waste and slavery.

Am I insane, or the rest of the world!?

Even I get this guilt feeling from time to time when I see myself so moneyless – as if I am not worth anything in this society. I am a lazy, not deserving to live, human being. One that does nothing! But then I look at the stuff I’ve been doing and the stuff I am doing, and the stuff I want to do. And it is a TON. There are people who “make it” in this world by doing just one of the things I am doing, like say a podcast, or write books, or provide services to others like trom.tf does…. The difference between them and myself, is that myself says “All that I do is free for everyone”, and them say “All that we do is not free, so pay you fucking cunt!”. Who is the good human being here!? manyfacepalms.

Should I still play this game?

This is a serious question. It is always going to be a struggle to keep myself afloat while trying to focus on this TROM project. In other words: to keep myself a human being who does important (in my view) projects, I would have to put up with this fucked up trade society till the day I’ll get old and die, to trade myself somehow to it, to keep myself a human. But that trade is going to destroy me. So what should I do? I don’t know. There is one hope and one comforting thought.

The hope:

Sasha. Sasha always found ways to trade herself in this society in a way that maximizes your time as a human on this planet. Trade a little, to be able to free yourself from this shithole. She may come up with a plan about how we can make it in this society. At least I am not alone now. I fight with Sasha and she fights with me. We also have a little hope in the book she will publish, to both attract new minds towards projects like TROM (and who knows, maybe new financial help), but she will also sell the hard copy of the book (the digital will be free), and what if we get lucky and it sells very well and we can support ourselves out of that? This is like the lottery, at least I can dream about that haha. The book is important as it is, and if it sells is not important. But of course, would be fantastic if that would pull us out of this misery. So lets see….with Sasha by my side I feel less concerned about making it in this society.

The thought:

In a weird way, but understandable, my fucked up situation makes me more relaxed at times since it is the perfect proof that this society is the way I have described it. I need no statistics, documentaries or documents, group of scientists or whatever to prove to me that this society is 100% fucked up. Like seriously retarded. The fact that I, Tio the human, who decides to dedicate its life to understand how this society and the world work, and how to fix them, and inform others about all of this, and publish lots of content for free and create lots of other free services, the fact that this Tio human, I, cannot even survive in this society by doing these….it is 100% proof to me that we live in the most fucked up society. And it is funny that so many scream how climate change is fucking us over, corruption destroys our ways of governing, plastic is chocking the planet, destruction, slavery, bla bla bla. Yet the same people support a system that creates mindless humans who have 0 time trying to understand these problems and -0 to do anything about them.

How the fuck can we change any fucking thing in this society if people like me get so raped by this society that it makes it impossible to give a fuck about it in the end.

So perhaps the fact that my life is a living proof to me that this society is indeed as fucked up as I describe it, makes me want to fight it even more. To give it the middle finger and survive despite all the shit it throws at me, and continue (despite the odds) to create awesome and important trade-free stuff: books, services, videos, podcasts, documentaries, and so forth. I also understand why projects like TROM get so little attention, because I can see what gets attention: retarded content. If TROM was popular (and thus more financial support), then I would be concerned….is TROM also retarded!? 😀

Fuck.You.Society.

Last thoughts:

My family is forced to trade in this society, like 3-4 billion other humans who are employed slaves. They are entangled with their jobs and I understand that. If I refuse to trade but stay in their house and cannot contribute to the trades (bills and stuff) it will put them in a very uncomfortable situation and it will create tensions between us. That’s for sure and I’ve experienced that before. I totally understand that. And I do not know what to do about it. So if they want to throw me into the streets, I’ll go and live there, but I will not have a job because that’s a literal death trap to me. They are very helpful and for sure they’ll never do that, but there will be tensions, and we will get stressed. In the end, is the society who fucks all of us in the ass, and we end up screaming at each other. But is little for any of us to do. What can my family do? Say “Yeah is the society’s fault for the situation!”, and then go next morning to their job, trade their time and energy, and through that support me who doesn’t trade!?

Anyways.

I do not have answers right now about what I am going to do. I have many questions tho. We have money for food for like 3 or so months. I will try to go work with my family in cleaning in weekends if they need my help, since that’s the only form of a job I perhaps could do – to do something physical, like cleaning houses, for 2 or so days a week. But even that is perhaps not available for me since there is a scarcity of jobs here.

I will try to not let this society crush me, but I am telling you it is hard. I feel very sad and angry at all of this.

I do not want to become a burden for my family.
But I did not ask to be born in a fucked up society.

UPDATE: I received a 2.000 Euros donation a day after this blog post. This saves our asses for the next few months. I cannot believe… Thank you Tara so much! I do not know you, but donating so much money is simply crazy. Thank you again!