NEW BLOG POST: A book years in the making
Read it on my website (recommended):
tiotrom.com/2024/04/a-book-yea…
Or read it here:
This is @[url=https://fosstodon.org/users/sasha]Alexander[/url] and her most valuable project to date:
A book. But a book is not simply a lot of words or a pile of paper. It is memories, emotions, worldviews, and a lot of work to put them all together. Her book is a story that spans over 15 years. But these years are hardly what most people experience on this planet.
She was born in Russia but at age 8 had to move to the United States and deal with a new world. New language, new culture, new people; her mom, her bother, and some pets. Her father went back to Russia, and that affected her a lot.
A mountain of changes to absorb as a kid which led her to a world of drugs and anger.
She details these struggles which at times feel like hard to believe stories – a 17 year old girl selling drugs in New York, crazy mushroom trips and adventurous thefts.
But she managed to pull herself together and change her life for the better. She was not impressed by the imaginary borders humans create and call countries, so she went on flying like a free bird :). From Canada to Mexico, Australia to Europe, Russia to Thailand. 15 years of adventures with almost no money. Because money won’t stop Small Sasha :).
A way to discover the world and yourself.
When you get to experience so many cultures and places, you can understand much better what humans are, and what makes them who the are.
The places she saw and the people she met are extraordinarily described in the book, in a way that you feel like you are there. No photos needed. You’ll laugh, wonder, or feel uncomfortable reading some of her uncensored experiences.
It is a galaxy of stories that she had to put together using notes from the past, photos, and her own memories stored in the mushy pile of cells we call the brain.
She managed to compile this massive story in a way that it is super fun to follow, but also to get a feeling of how she grew a mind in all of these years.
That mental growth and her experiences, made her realize how fucked up this society is and how much we are destroying this environment and the creatures in it.
She started to volunteer for some organizations over the years, eventually getting closer to the project I made, TROM. And so here we are, a book later, spending our lives together.
I cannot describe how wonderful this book is, how emotional and funny. So much fun, but also a lot of reality check for many people who are going to have their values challenged.
She crafted this book so much, that at times you feel like Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and George Carlin contributed to the book :).
A wonderful read! A massive CONGRATULATIONS to Sasha for the immense work she put into this. I know too well how for the past 4 years she worked so much on this book that it almost put our relationship under a big question mark. I never saw anyone putting so much effort into anything. It was too intense!
But now it is OVER. Finally! I thought I will never see this happen. Wow!
After so many years of work, and almost no money, she is putting the book for free on her website bigworldsmallsasha.com/ in digital format, despite us not having much money to make a life for ourselves on this planet. But of course, if you want to support her (us) you can buy the physical copy too. Or donate if you can.
I helped design the entire cover and I am quite proud of it :).
Go read it! I know I will read it again. This time the physical copy, in a hammock somewhere in nature.
Sasha you fucking did ti!
PS: The book was made with trade-free software. LibreOffice, Krita, Inkscape.
#nature #traveling #society #capitalism #trade #book #bookrelease #foss
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022-2024 2007 Freed from slavery (finished high school). Drove across North America 3 times. Lived in Whistler, Canada. 2008 Lived in Canada and California.
Big World | Small Sasha
Sasha
in reply to Tio • •Thank you so much Tio, that was such a nice review that I don't even know what to say 😊 I'm so happy that you enjoyed my book and that you found something important in it. I'm so happy that you could feel my growth as a human- that was something I hoped to achieve in this book, but was difficult because there are so many stories, people, and so many things happening. Thank you for all your kind words and for the huge amount of support you've given to me and this book over many many years.
Sorry if I made you feel like you lived in a cave 😬 But you were actually doing much more important things than me in that "cave". You were growing your brain and making the important and inspiring content that brought me to you 😊 And this in turn grew my brain and the brains of many others 🙂
Thank you for your contribution to this book- the design, the emotional support, and even the content. Without you, this book would not have been the same (and neither would I 😉) 🙂
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Rokosun
in reply to Sasha • • •I already feel like living in a cave, lol 😄 Maybe reading your book will inspire me to go out more often 😁
> But you were actually doing much more important things than me in that "cave". You were growing your brain and making the important and inspiring content that brought me to you 😊 And this in turn grew my brain and the brains of many others 🙂
This is so true, Tio might be physically in a cave but he travels around the whole damn universe with his mind, haha 😂
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Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •hhahahaha thank you that made me feel a little bit better :)
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Sasha
in reply to Rokosun • •like this
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •like this
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Rokosun
in reply to Rokosun • • •BTW, noticed a few typos in your post, just letting you know:
> because it is inane in a few years time
I think you meant to say "insane" here.
> the begging bun (prologue) that
Did you meant to say "beginning bun" here?
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •