Updates: TROM II, moving, making money, etc

I am very active on the fediverse but when it comes to more important posts I will still use my blog for that.

Because I do not have money I will have to pause the work on TROM II and try to make some money.

So.

TROM II is going very well. I made 2 parts already, a bit over 2h long combined. But I will have to add some 20 minutes to each + very likely make 2 more parts. Everything is setup and ready to go.

This is the first part in the editing program:

What is in red I have to add to it still. First part is about us and how the environment shaped us as humans. It explains the role of culture, movies, music, school, and so forth. But also the scientific evolution of the universe and the creatures on this planet.

Second part:

Again that red thing needs to be added to the documentary. Here we talk about the evolution of human societies and with the focus on trade. We talk about our personal situations with university, money, jobs, and so forth. It is what introduces the viewers to what trade is and how it is the core of our society.

Third and fourth parts (in the making):

Left is the third part, right is the forth. They are kinda done in terms of the storyline. I had to cu through around 30-35 hours of footage and bring it down to this. The third part is about detailing what problems we have in the world today, from biodiversity loss to climate change or waste. And how trade is to blame for that. Fourth part is about solutions and a new way of looking at all of these. How to move beyond this awful society.

Now I’d say there will be 4 parts, each around 1 hour 20 minutes long. So….it will still be a long documentary. It is a different approach that I am taking with this one. I am making it more personal, but it is still packed with facts and hard science.

I think it will take me some 2-3 weeks to merge the leftovers into the first 2 parts so I am fully done with them. However to finish the 3rd and 4th parts it can take me some 3-4 months. Maybe less idk.

This being said.

Here is the current situation. I have around 1.800 Euros. All of my money. The monthly donations for TROM are at about 350 or so Euros a month. I and Sasha live with my parents and my sister in spain, in a rented house. Our spendings here are around 900-1.000 euros a month in bills and rent. I and Sasha spend some 300 euros or less on food a month, and contribute some 200 euros to the monthly expenses. We can’t contribute more. I also pay some 60 euros a month for the servers and backups. In total we try to survive with 500 euros a month, 2 people.

My parents worked in Spain for some 15 years now and this year they are forced to retire. My mother gets some 300 euros a month in retirement money, my father needs to see….but he worked with shitty contracts in spain (being forced to do so), and his 15 years of work only count as 6 for example…both of them try to save and then in November go back to Romania for good and try to survive there if they can.

My sister is going to move to another rented apartment here in the same town.

I and Sasha?

That’s the dilemma. We cannot support ourselves right now. We would need at least 1.000 Euros a month to survive on our own.

My parents and my sister will have to do a lot of gymnastics when they move because of stuff…and we also have stuff, tho not as much. We will also help them move to Romania so either way we will go there in the winter.

So what to do?

We won’t be homeless of course since we can go to Romania and live with my parents. I have a small room there. But for me to finish the documentary I need to be relaxed and focused on it. Romania is not that sort of environment for me. We also have some stuff so where can we put that!?

It is very tricky and the following months will be very busy for us.

My plan.

Finish with the 1st and 2nd parts of TROM II. Add those leftover bits. After that is done (hopefully not more than 2-3 weeks) pause the documentary. I hate this, and I want to work on it and finish it, but I have no better alternative.

As soon as I finish with those 2 parts, I will start the “MAKE MONEY” operation. I need to. There is no way around this. People’s donations are amazing and super helpful but nowhere near enough to support myself. Donations are not working unfortunately. With the money we have now I hope to be able to support us for 4 or so more months. Until August. If there will be more donations that would be amazing, but I can not rely on this at all.

So I will focus on making money. I was never good at this but I need to try. I have some ideas. We will also try to sell our stuff, whatever we have. We have a TROMjaro tablet, a heater, a not-very-functional electric scooter 😀 and so forth.

So from at least June on, we are focused on making money. If a miracle happens and we have enough money by October, then we can rent a place here and move and I can continue the work on TROM II. But likely that won’t happen, not so fast at least. So likely we will end up in Romania and try to make money somehow. Maybe I can still work on TROM II this year, but we shall see.

I will try to work in cleaning this summer, also will release a website for my webdesign-money-making plan, so I can try and make websites; a TROM friend may also help me find a job in some IT company….not that excited about that tbh :D.

No worries, TROM and TROM II are happening and being supported.

TROM II will be finished. But I want to make it very well and not rush with it. The info there is relevant for the many years to come, maybe centuries. As for our websites and projects they will continue uninterrupted. New TROMjaro releases and a few improvements and fixes as usual, trom.tf services will be maintained; VideoNeat will be updated; we may even do some TROMcasts if I have the time. And so on.

It is unfortunate but this post is not about complaining. I did a lot of that and now I need to take care of myself in order to take care of these projects. It is me and a few wonderful people who support these projects financially or volunteering their time. It is very hard. But if it wasn’t, then we might have been wrong about bitching how bad this society is. This is, in fact, a proof of how fucked up this society is, where you can’t even focus on doing good things. You have to trade yourself all the time.

We are the pioneers.

We are doing trade-free projects and try to make humans aware of how fucked up this society is, while doing so from inside the monster itself. We face a lot of hurdles. We struggle. But whoever is against this society, has to face those. Big changes come on a horse called “Suffering”. And this horse has a long journey ahead. And it gets tired, and depressed, and scared at times. But we need this horse to go where we want to reach.

Not long ago we met with this human who was perhaps quite normal. But because “we”, the ones who have this (let’s say) TROM mentality were outnumbering the human, the human started to see what we talked about as normal. We were the normality. I felt like the world flipped. Suddenly the other side was smaller, and ours was bigger. And of course we agreed that is fucked up to force people to slave for even their basic needs, all of their lives; of course we need to provide trade-free stuff for people. Of course trade-free makes sense and is such an important approach. Of course. But we had to bleed to reach that point, that situation. If there will be more of us talking about these things, and doing the things we do at TROM, then that could become normality, at least in pockets and groups. And that has a tremendous power because what we talk about is backed up by facts, so when it becomes normal, it also becomes stronger and stronger.

Don’t worry. Really.

I will feel a lot better if I could build and manage some 10-15 websites and get paid monthly and make enough to have a good life on this planet and support TROM, than seeing a handful of people trying so hard to support TROM and me financially. And having to complain that I have no money all the time. I’d feel so good if I could sustain myself and TROM financially. I have some plans as I said and I will put them into practice very soon. We will see how this goes.

Of course it would be amazing if I would get enough support for the tons of work I am doing on these projects. I am busy enough with these. And it worked for a few years and who knows in the future, if TROM becomes more known, may work again. But for now I am beating a dead horse and the poor horse can’t go anywhere, if I were to try and rely fully on donations.

I keep everyone posted on the Fediverse and of course, if anyone wants to still donate this is the place to do so https://www.tromsite.com/donate/ but don’t sweat over it. In the long term I have to anyway make money somehow. Because projects like TROM may never get enough donations anyway. We are too odd of a project for that :).

Ok friends. Will try to finish the first two parts of the documentary. And as soon as I can get back to work on it I will. We could even release this year, if not for sure the next year.

Cheers!