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I can’t find my way. Why?

I can’t find my way. Why?

For the past two years I’ve been trying to create new content for TROM and I failed. I don’t have to do it, but I want to. Else I feel lost and I will explain why.

I have never been trapped in such a suffocating situation before.

I remember people telling me how they envy my drive and how I am like a “rock” in a storm, I keep on being the same, create stuff, engage, be active. That was my “activism” activity online. So many projects, websites, books, videos, I was a machine really.

Even I was thinking how good that my only problem is money and not some mental struggle. Because if I have money I know what to do.

Now I still don’t have much money, but money is also not an issue currently. I don’t think much about it because this is my home:

I am typing this article from inside this little thing we call Tortuga (Tortoise). Because it is slow but resilient :). But living in this way allowed me to live with a lot less. 5-600 Euros a month is enough for me to live, travel, eat and pay for internet. Half of what I needed before.

When I started my “activism” my immediate environment sucked. Living with my parents, we were all poor, stressed, my family was slaving to a job in Spain. I had no money and no way to take care of myself. Everyone I knew was a total zombie, trapped robot citizens, mushed brains, livestock meat. I HATED it! I was and felt alone.

The outside world was the same mess. I was disgusted by it. Buy, work, be trapped, be an idiot. Destroy, lie, deceive. Compete, don’t give a fuck, be a dick.

I felt trapped but I mentally untrapped myself.

I found some hope online. My blog was reaching some people, so I felt like someone is listening. Then came across organizations like TVP/TZM and realized there might be a hope to this bullshit society.

It was a path that I was seeing from my dark place to something. Something…I don’t know what, but something.

And this path gave me hope. This world can be a paradise if we are scientifically minded and understand that the society we live in is a human invention, so to not let this invention stay in our way of creating a better society. Money, social statuses, countries, ownership, all that is fantasy! If only we can make people see that, then we can use our science-brain and solve problems without being stopped by these fantasies.

We have food, let’s feed people. We have cancer treatments, let’s treat people. We want to build a museum, let’s build it. Not via monetary limitations, but volunteer organizations. If we have NOT, then we must at least have NOT enough resources or knowledge. I cannot accept that we have NOT “money”. That is bullshit.

My mission: come with me on this path out of this bullshit human society, and things will emerge. We just need to make people see the world for what it is.

After all if I were to realize that we live in a computer simulation I would FOR SURE react strongly to that and would want to get to the bottom of it!

Imagine if I were to just say: hm yeah, but I still have to eat and survive in this simulation so…is nothing I can do…

I thought now the main focus is to make people realize that we live in a simulation. A human fantasy simulation.

So I was like a machine gun, firing videos, documentaries, projects, blog posts, books, articles, memes. I was managing 8 social networks at once. Post everywhere. Podcasts? Yes! Debates? Yes! A new documentary? Yes! More websites? YESSS!

And I was firing them in my immediate environment and the outside world.

And so I spent the past 15 years! In this intense way.

I started to get donations so my immediate environment became better. Less stress, more comfortable.

The Rupture.

After so much effort I realized some hard truths.

  1. Reaching people with these messages is an infinite struggle and has become almost impossible recently. Everyone is consumed on idiotic platforms. No new content can easily reach them. My machineguns were kinda obsolete. I do not have the energy and motivation to make TikTok videos or click baity content…I cannot. And without this you do not exist.
  2. Even when you reach people their heads are a mush because of so much content online. Too many things people have to deal with. How my message dissolves in these brains is tasteless. They scroll to the next thing.
  3. Even when the content dissolves in some brains in a tasteful way, these people are also trapped with jobs and other issues.
  4. The world has become a tsunami of problems and stupidity. From the COVID pandemic with its mental conspiracies orbiting it, to Russia going at war with Ukraine, Israel mass murdering people in Gaza, Trump being a shitshow clown, people murdered, loud political debates, anger, more idiots, more consumerism….
  5. Organizations and movements like TVP, TZM and the like dissolved.

I realized the outside world is far bigger and more problematic than I thought. And for the past years it expanded infinitely into the stupid, moronic, and violent.

I felt the path leads to nowhere. There is no path. I felt locked into my immediate environment. Friends, family, Tortuga.

I finally have amazing friends and my family is ok. I have a fucking Tortuga! I feel quite safe. I am on my own kinda and can take care of myself. I can go see super nice places out in the world.

I am fine. In that sense. But…

I see no path forward, nothing to look up to. No escape from the outside world. I find it impossible to live in my own nice bubble and ignore it. But I also cannot see a path forward.

And this has destroyed me inside. For the first time in 15 years I feel lost. I do not feel motivated to fire up anything at this world: no more books, content, projects. I don’t feel like it is going to have any impact.

I am still super happy to keep our projects alive and relevant. And I hope to also create new content. But it is hard. Even more so when my new lifestyle forces me to interrupt my work every few days. I need to move move move…get water for the motorhome, buy food, get gas, etc..

On the other hand if I were to stay in one place for longer, I would perhaps get even more depressed since I cannot find much joy and hope into creating new stuff and being actively active in my “activism”.

So maybe when I am forced to go from one place to another, is a way to keep me distracted and to allow me to continue, whatever that “continue” means.

I know this is a depressing post. And I have made several like this in the past. But this is the truth. And the truth also is that for the past 2 years or so I could not find a way out for me. Mentally that is.

So at times I am super happy and relaxed, then next day I can be totally down. I fluctuate a lot. And that is bothering me.

There are good things to look forward in my green bubble. A total solar eclipse this year and for that I will meet up with the rarest of humans, those who are smart, sane and kind. Cannot wait for that. I am also enjoying this Tortuga earthship and I look forward to see where she will take me. It is my little bubble and I still fire up some stuff into the outside world via TROM.tf, VideoNeat or TROMjaro. Maybe more will come. IDK.

But I have tried and I am either demotivated to throw content into a blackhole that this world is, or always get interrupted by life.

For now I will try more. And if nothing works, at least I still have my green bubble and I may accept to be comfortable with only that.

And don’t worry I am fine, is perhaps a normal reaction to a shithole society. Maybe I need to go through a rough road of acceptance that there is nothing there in the outside outside world that is hopeful.

We will see. At least making this post helps me a bit.

I will eat something. Take a nap. And maybe when I wake up I can even “fire up” some content for TROM. Update my never ending drafts that are meant to become books or videos one day. Because I know that I cannot just stay. I need to do something, even if it goes nowhere.

When the problems are inside of your mind, and you need your mind to fix them, it is harder than climbing the tallest mountain. But it is doable.

12 Replies to “I can’t find my way. Why?”

  1. For me a comforting thought is that on the outside outside world there is still a great big universe, and our society is just a fleeting, tiny, blink-of-an-eye part of it, and if it destroys itself (which it probably will) so be it. If not, the sun will eventually explode and destroy the earth and all life on it anyway. I dk if it’s weird that for me this is a comforting thought haha, and for you it may not matter all that much, but if you don’t have the motivation to focus on our failed society anymore, maybe you could focus more on the universe and all its big beauty 🙂
    Though there are many people who still pay attention to your content and can’t wait to see how else you can put society in its place 😀

  2. Yeah, i feel you. I am kind of in the same place… And I wish I could tell you here something motivation and encouraging, but I also don’t see any hope or future for our society, and all of us being trapped into it. You might live comfortably in your tiny bubble but still struggle and feel that life is meaningless if you don’t try to fix something, to dedicate yourself to some larger goals or ideas. On the other hand if you do something meaningful you also struggle since that have no impact, no voice, and just invisible. I don’t know…. Somehow somewhere there should be a balance, or at least all of us should try to find it, maybe a bit of bubble life and a bit of “higher goals”, and then it will keep us somehow afloat. But that’s what I recently was discussing with Mara, that all of the projects and organizations like TVP, TZM and many others all basically vanished. 10-15 years ago they were quite strong, and now nothing. Possibly for the same reasons….
    But somehow somewhere there should be a way to deal with all of this and still keep going.

    1. Yes that balance is the key. Maybe I am in the process of finding it and it is just difficult to adjust. Takes time. Especially since I got so used to be active and suddenly I am not. Same for you maybe, hopefully, all of the struggle is you adjusting to a balance that can keep you afloat. At least I can say that I feel alive being like that. It means I still want to do something important and have not caved it.

      And yah true I feel like there was a lot of activism 10-15 years ago not just TVP/TZM and now I feel like all are quite gone or silent. It is sad…but who knows if there will be another such wave. I doubt but well…

  3. Sorry to hear that friend 🙁 But I think I understand you for 100%.. Trying to keep my own small bubble afloat, fighting a constant bullshit flow coming from the outside world in parallel 😀 I have no recipe how to make this fight efficient, nor have I any suggestions how not to get depressed about messed up world, easy to say than do for sure. What helps me out a lot is to get abstracted out of my presense in this world and to observe it as some sort of an ornitologist, that is trying hard not to be involved into these little “birds'” daily routines but documenting everything what he sees and learn, systemize, share 🙂 This emotional detachment saves tons of energy for to actually stay motivated to observe the “birds” more and learn even more about them and their inhabitat.. Of course, it is easy when you have no direct relations with the “birds” in particular, but this world has a lot of the strings to pull you out of the safe zone and actially drag you into its mess. But in the end, this is one of the ways I found effective to stay on your feet to fight against the odds that keep trying to kick you in the crotch every day with the absolute stupidity and moronity. All in all, I am glad having you in this messy but beautiful nest, you, gourgeous eagle 🙂 I feel like there are more people like you to find out about and to cooperate and build something that may not change this abomination of the society but could make our lives and lives of our important ones a bit more fulfilling 😉 Try to stay positive and always know that I am here for you if you need a hand. Cheers!

    1. Thank you bet friend Roma! Yah funny and relevant idea with the ornithologist worldview. I should try that more :).
      And actually after I made this post I felt a lot better and even managed to write some stuff for TROM, so at least there’s that.
      Maybe something positive will emerge, locally (for me, us), or (more unlikely) globally. So lets see….I will try to focus on creating some content to “let it out”.
      Thank you for everything my friend!

  4. Alright guys, I fell like I need to spread some “hope” or projects that work towards the common good, because I refuse to wake up any morning and not be motivated or inspired to do nothing – what’s the point then?

    Just one night in the local hackerspace in Dresden, a guy came over from a chess club and he asked for help for the website and for some “social media” (of course I’m going to recommend the Fediverse 😉 ), and what I really liked about the idea is that he and the club in general are organizing chess evenings fot all and everybody, and especially they encourage people with a migration background to come there, get to know people and simpley play chess with them.

    They already have a website which is this one: https://fv-schach.de/willkommen/ and if you want to check out some chess tournaments this sommer, you are invited, because they organize some big events (even the german championship). It will take part from 16th of july till 26th of july 2026 in Dresden and on the 2nd of may there’s already something here too.

    Now, I want to highlight that we’re working on a directory which collects all the beautiful and wonderful and amazing trade-free goods & services that we have access today: http://directory.trade-free.org/ – this is a foundation where others can be inspired from, contribute to and benefit from – it is growing and it will become bigger and bigger, the more people get the idea and see the value 🙂

    On that pace, I’m going to share the “Digital Independence Day” (https://di.day/) in germany where A LOT of individual people and organizations are taking over control over their digital life and move away from the BIG TECH monopolies that we have nowaydays. It is EVERY MONTH in hackerspaces ALL OVER GERMANY, AUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND, CROATIA and even in LISSABON (Portugal) – check out this map: https://termine.di.day/
    Renewable Energy is accellerating (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy#/media/File:1990-_Renewable_energy_production,_by_source.svg) and even someone like TRUMP cannot remove this trend. Yes, there are lots of terrible things happening in the moment, but the only way to move out of that is education and setting up an infrastructure and environment that makes people scientific, thoughtful and relaxed, right?

    So let’s see what is going to happen and stir our societies to the right direction 🙂

    As a last note, I had a conversation with someone in a train about USB-C and we were talking about this for more than 2 hours. How it developed, what it is capable of (all kinds of signals and even electricity can be transmitted through that – isn’t that fascinating? it has 2 x 12 PINS and people CANNOT put it the wrong way, because it is mirrored – isn’t that smart? 😉 and the EU said that it is mandatory so that even fucking iPhones need to adopt this 1 standard. “The legislation covers mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld videogame consoles, portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, earbuds and portable navigation devices. Laptops will have to be adapted to the requirements 40 months after the law enters into force..”(https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20220413STO27211/usb-type-c-to-become-eu-s-common-charger-by-end-of-2024) -> MEANS LESS E-WASTE 🙂

    I want to leave this comment with some links to some inspiring videos/presentations/talk from amazing people/projects that are around the Chaos Computer Club which can be found on https://media.ccc.de/

    From a talk which is uncovering one of the biggest dating plattform for racists (https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-the-heartbreak-machine-nazis-in-the-echo-chamber), to a talk from Cory Doctorow (https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-internet) – which I still need to watch fully – there are amzing people who do awesome things and push society forward 🙂

    1. That’s the attitude Aaron! 🙂 Happy to see you that motivated. In Germany it is indeed a different environment in terms of the software movement and you can still find some hope there indeed.

      Of course we all see the world through our own experiences and brains, so for some is hard to see hope. Software is indeed a landscape where change can still happen since it is something you can help with from your own room and computer. Other changes like environmental restoration or giving people a UBI and so on, are quite a challenge since it is hard to get involved with these and have a big impact.

      Thank you for reminding us/me that there is still some hope there, in pockets. And keep on being you my friend! Be the rock 🙂

    2. i quit my job after covid hit, and when we found out we were pregnant, although I’m not sure how much these things affected my decision. it was a very dumb move, very irrational both at the time and now in hindsight.

      i have felt like this, lost, for close to 5 years now. i don’t think i can feel ok going to work for any reason other than some serious threat to my survival. And even then, I’m not sure I’d give it my best attempt.

  5. It seems that is easy to fall into a downward cycle considering the current state of world tension and the clown show, but somehow stubbornly believing that despite the sad state of affairs , small changes can compound over time to make improvements in our subsistence. It seems that the recent wave of the money printer and subsequent inflation since COVID has really squeezed the population thus making living unaffordable for the masses. At it seems that we are reaching the maximum tolerable limit where all the juice has been squeezed. The hope is that at the least in come countries where the labor union and movement have managed to secure some form of foothold would be able to mobile and implement new ways of direct governance where the masses have direct voting capacities. And that could potentially serve as an example for others to follow. But of course all of the change in the political sector is an uphill battle against unlimited resources while being a draining endeavor.

    So it seems its better to try and organize with people working towards the same direction, and developing yourself and your skills so you can contribute towards it. It seems that there is potential for like minded people to pool resources together towards building communities and potentially developing a base where people can cohabit and have access to workshops and resources to produce what they need . And all of these communities can join in a federation and contribute to creating something even larger. Of course easier said than done, it seems challenging to find such a group of people and when you do find them most likely they don’t have access to resources and have no money to pool. And most people dibble and dabble going in and out of the system for their subsistence.

    But again a lot of things are outside of our control and we cant do nothing about them. And in-taking all of the clown show is sure to bring us down and make us feel hopeless. Thus we should not stop dreaming about how it could actually be and working on trying to make it happen, in any shape form that we can manage. And if you’re gonna dream anyway might as well dream big.

    I also think trying to engage as much as possible in analog activities and disconnect is a good way to feel uplifted. And trying to setup an immediate environment as free of negativity as stress to have space to be yourself and relax. Which of course is getting harder and harder to afford. And Lastly of course getting active physically and taking care of yourself nutritionally, sleeping and getting enough rest to make sure that your body is at a proper state to avoid the mental effects due to the lack of these.

    I think you are also being a bit too hard on yourself, but I understand that the project has been and up and down roller coaster for you, but in hind side all the magazines, books, videos and projects that you have published and shared are very resourceful and essentially most of it can be preserved through time. A lot of which has been helpful for me personally to learn, understand new topics and use the tools that your shared. You should be proud of the work that you have done and the impact that it already has. It seems decoupling as much as we can from the system is the way to go but of course it hard to secure the resources needed to achieve that. I hope that you can soon find the stability you are seeking to continue doing what your want.

    1. Thank you for the comment I appreciate it! I still struggle to see what can have a big positive change…maybe if I get back to work on stuff I can at least trick myself into some more positive scenarios. A sort of hope. Will try to find a stability for myself. But it is hard.

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