In short, I need and want to finish the TROM II documentary before our TROM Meeting in May next year. And I need 0 distractions.

In long....

2019.

I remember brainstorming with @Aaron about this documentary some 3 years ago.

The idea was that we have so many materials for TROM (think about the latest book, The Origin of Most Problems that is over one thousand pages long) that we definitely need a documentary of some sort to introduce people to these ideas. Maybe a 1h long documentary or so. And make it quick. I was kinda convinced I can do it in like half a year....

2020-2021

A year or so later I started to work on it. I said, let's do it! But I needed financial support. I made a donation campaign for 13k euros to allow me to work for a full year on the documentary. I only raised 2-3k. So I didn't have the money. I thus delayed it...

I even made a sort of video-campaign for it....

My idea was to make a script, to write it, but I ended up writing more and more....then I thought "Fuck it, I cannot make a short documentary....I wont limit myself. I will make it as long as it will be.". So I wrote more and I was starting to incorporate our books into the documentary. Lots of scientific papers, lots of science, lots of facts....and I started to realize that this will become a huge documentary and perhaps boring...also....wtf do we still need "proof" that this society is fucked-up? And to explain "trade as the origin of most problems" (the core of the documentary) we should not need "facts" as much as a way to make people rethink that the problems we see today are a result of trade. Many voice it by accusing "money", corruption, capitalism and so forth.

Anyhow, after talking with others I kinda got convinced that I should ditch the script and do a more personal one. A documentary that's easy to follow and makes sense for most people. So I decided to interview a few of my TROM-friends. Also, I would be a talking head too.

That was easy to do. Sit down and record. Of course I had a sort of script/notes for it all. We started to record in June 2020.

And finished in May 2021...

Took almost a year to finish the recordings...which I would have considered insane if you told me when I started it. But you know the Covid19 pandemic started and we got busy with that, mentally (following the news) and physically - a bit restrained by the restrictions.

It was also when I had to deal with some serious stuff for TROMjaro and took me a lot of time to deal with...

On top of that I released a new massive project: https://trom.tf/ and we were adding new services to it.

We moved all of our videos and social presence to alternative platforms that were trade-free. This was a massive amount of work but something I am extremely happy I did. We also moved the many websites we had to a new, unmanaged server since it was far cheaper and far more powerful....this was very new to me. I had to learn how to manage a server. Took at least a month or two to get used to it.

We were also TROM-casting.....and we were suffering tremendously money-wise. I was quite depressed about all of it. Felt really down because I didn't know how to continue the work.

So that period of time was quite busy and stressful for me. In July 2021 I started to edit the documentary. Luckily I got some financial support and that allowed me to work on it.

I had over 40h of recordings....with 2 cameras. Was a lot more difficult than I expected. I did a of of work.

The rest of 2021 I spent trying to work on the documentary but also stressing about the financial situation...plus a ton of work on trom.tf - from technical to moderation and everything in between. Oh, and we moved TROMjaro from Gnome to XFCE...for those who understand what these are they get it that it was very difficult.

Took several months to work on and off and make it stable. At times I worked everyday for weeks on end. I had to postpone the documentary work several times because of this.

Between dealing with TB of backups, moving servers, creating new projects, trom-casting, tromjaro (remember I was also testing hundreds of apps for our tromjaro library), moving our materials to alternative platforms and such....I tried to work on the documentary too.

2022

This year I worked a lot on TROM II. By June I was able to finish some 2h of it. See. But then I had to stop again because we were financially fucked again. I launched WebApe, a webdesign project to help me make some money. That took some time to create and then to try and find some websites to make. Thanks to @Alexio I managed to get 3 projects. That was not financially sufficient. It was still stressful.

Luckily our financial situation greatly improved. Thanks to @Guillaume , @Roma @Aaron and a few others who donated big amounts of money, and especially to @Sasha who managed to make some money too. Now we were fine. Now we are fine!

I managed to add 30 more minutes to those 2h in July/August. Then cut the rest of the 20h into the last remaining 3h of the documentary. I tried to start working on these 3h but I could not much....busy with tromjaro, trom.tf, videoneat and the rest. TROM-Cast no more either....

NOW

You see I am busy with more things than what I just explained. Since the start of the documentary I did a lot of new projects and a lot of work in many ways. I also spend time replying to emails or having long discussions on the TROM Discussions chat. I do many things....no wonder that I could not finish this documentary yet.

Now it is October 2022. And things seem perfect for me. We have enough money till next year, same time. So I should not worry about money for at least a year or so. That's absolutely FABULOUS. I've never been better financially actually. But let's not celebrate yet since my calculations only take into account our basic needs. Who knows what else may intervene. Also, what do we do after 1 year?.... Therefore any donations are immensely important to prolong this work. And I am always transparent with whatever money we get for TROM.

Anyway, I have money now. And it is quiet here (summer is gone). Things should be calm and relaxing. Now it is the perfect timing to work and finish the documentary. Unless some weird things may happen, like a World World 3, or the hosting company kicking me out, or who knows...

All of the trains work great: tromjaro.com, videoneat.com, trom.tf, tromsite.com, tromnews.com.....my websites. All!

Therefore I will have to force myself to get back to TROM II.

I will mute the TROM Discussions chat for now, so that I am not distracted. I am really sorry that I have to do this. There are over 100 people in that chat. But I truly need to focus on TROM II and I will 100% get distracted if I leave the chat on. People will comment there and I cannot help but check it and respond...it is great to see more and more people there, and no worries, as soon as TROM II is released or close to be released. the chat will be available for all to comment again! I am 1 human and I can't do everything, please understand that I need some quiet time to finish this.

And won't even open my email until later on in the day or something like that. I need to isolate myself. Let's see how it goes...

Trust me it starts to annoy me this documentary....I do not want to work on it for so long...I want to do new things. New videos, books, talks, debates....etc. So let me finish it :D.

TROM Meeting in May

Next year, in May, we will organize a meeting- Similar to this -

And I definitely want the documentary to be done by then. Things look exciting again! Cannot wait! 6-7 months Tio boy! FINISH IT!