Alexander Kluge

January 29, 2023

climbing to the TOP of a mountain until summer 2023 {Sunday Truth 108}

My goal is to produce Original Stories through suse.la and publish them on my suse YouTube channel. That’s my way of saying, “I’m building my dream company.”

(and with that newly-found clarity, I made a logo that expresses this clarity: featuring pitch black and bloody red but also white hope 🖤❤️🤍, because suse Original Stories touch us, make us feel something, go where it’s painful (bloody) and dark but also offer a way out (hope) to some degree; yet, suse is mostly a descend into darkness, the darkness of our humanity, that’s what “us” in “suse” stands for: suse is about original stories about us.)

2023-01-27-suse-Logo-2-35-1-Cinemascope-Anamorphic.jpg


The execution of realizing stories, so people can consume them, is the end goal, monetary bottom line or profit is not. Producing stories is my goal, making money is not my goal.


The end goal is clear.

The paths to reach the end goal are manifold and infinite.

And the creative disciplines that comprise the end goal are manifold too, but not infinite.

There are 6 creative disciplines that make up suse Original Stories:

  1. text
  2. voice
  3. music
  4. sfx
  5. artwork
  6. animation

Text is everything that’s written.

Voice is voice-acting and for that matter screen-acting as well.

Music is the soundtrack for each piece.

SFX is about ambience, sound design, and the little snippets here and there that complete a scene.

Artwork is related to visuals and comprises photography as well.

Animation is everything that can’t be performed by a human alone.

Execution is the goal is the execution is the goal


Reaching my end goal is like reaching the top of the mountain while climbing it up at the same time: it’s recursive, as in computer programming, where a recursive function calls itself and becomes the seed for its own execution. Or, when making kombucha tea, where the SCOBY and the kombucha residuals of your current batch become the seed for your new batch of kombucha.

In other words, the execution towards my end goal becomes the fulfillment of my end goal, which means the execution is the goal, and the goal is the execution. It’s recursive, as I said.

If this is all confusing, here’s something more tangible.

But before that…

(to be continued after a short break)

🫁

It was 23:58 here in Berlin’s former Russian sector when I started writing the {Sunday Truth 108} to you. 

On January 29, 2023 with 1.3 degree Celsius (+7.3 centigrade warmer compared to Jan 15th ago, which was the last time when I documented the temperature, and I was still in Syracuse, NY at the time)

My goal is to produce Original Stories through suse and publish them on my suse YouTube channel. That’s my way of saying, “I’m building my dream company.” The execution of realizing stories, so people can consume them, is the end goal, monetary bottom line or profit is not. Producing stories is my goal, making money is not my goal. A company is a gathering of people with a common direction and companionship, a company is not a for-profit machine, at least in my version of a dream company.

Along the way, I’m trying to be a Stoic fortress without turning into a cold, heartless stone but rather trying to have 🥥 coconut fun uga uga 🐒 and slowly making my way to Singapore 🇸🇬.

💛

(back again)

Climbing a mountain from two sides simultaneously


You can climb a mountain from two sides, at least. You can pick one side to climb up and descend on the other side.

The limitations of the physical world don’t apply in the post-physical world though, which is the world of thoughts, strategies, metaphors, metaphysics, and the non-tangible but existent matter and objects: the digital world, or Idea World.

In Idea World, the entrepreneur can climb a mountain from two sides at the same time and reach the goal faster, and that’s my go-to execution strategy to climb that sucker.

The 2 complementary paths to climb a mountain


When I produce stories, which is my end goal, and it’s like climbing a mountain from two sides at the same time, I have two approaches:

  1. I have the skills myself
  2. I buy the skills from others

I can write and voice-act, I have those skills.

But I don’t know how to draw and animate, or make music and sound design, so I buy these skills.

For my latest suse Original Story, Lucky Leo 🍀🦁 (to be published soon, thank you Mar from Maru Exposito for the nudge 😌), I wrote and voice-acted the script, then hired a Spanish musician, for music, ambience, and sound effects, and a Japanese animation studio to hand-draw and animate amazing backgrounds and the protagonist.

So this is the skills aspect.

Here is the money aspect.

In an ideal world, I would continue working as a Freelancer and make enough bucks to finance suse Original Stories. But our world is messy and far from ideal, but good enough though.

Freelance Income finances suse.
That’s what I would prefer.

But the problem is: my current flagship freelance service, which is voice-acting, hasn’t generated any money for me in the past 5 months (after I left the social media agency client in September 2022). Making no money is unsustainable and bad.

That’s why the monetary aspect of climbing the mountain has two complementary approaches, too:

  1. Freelance Income finances suse
  2. Day Job Income finances suse

With enough money, I can buy the skills I need to realize suse Original Stories. Where the money comes from is irrelevant, albeit it coming from me being a full-time freelancer is what I would prefer.

Enjoying the climb, indulging into the view, but staying sharp on the execution


In conclusion, I need skills and money and time to produce suse Original Stories.

I have time. Until I’ll die, I have time. Check!

I have skills. I don’t have all the skills to produce suse Original Stories in the desired way, but I can buy or rather rent skills from others because it would require a significant investment of my time to reach the level of a professional; so I’d prefer to pay a pro to help me out. But that requires money.

I don’t have money (yet). That’s the biggest roadblock holding me back from realizing suse Original Stories. Currently, €308.17 are on my bank account and €750 are the debt I owe to my mum.

Because of lack of money, the crucial 3rd element in the equation, I’m willing to give up my freedom as a self-employed solopreneur, swallow my pride, and get a day job where I’m being the slave in a master-slave relationship, because realizing suse Original Stories is more important than my freedom.

June 2023, that’s in five months, is when I want to have made a significant financial jump with my freelance income that justifies a continued pursuit of my voiceover path.

If I can’t show proof of income on my bank account by June, I don’t deserve to stay a freelancer.

Therefore,

I double down.

The dire financial situation I’m in right now is a perfect character test and stress test: if I can’t deliver reasonable success as a freelancer voiceover artist in the next 5 months, I might as well swallow my pride and become an employment slave who functions to obey the Corporate Lord because I don’t deserve otherwise.

Before you leave...

To be fair, I wrote the piece above on January 27, 2023, 02:15 a.m., for suse.la, and there’s been a development which renders a crucial part of it obsolete. I’ll tell you about it next Sunday.

Lots of love to you and her 🌸.

Bye bye,
- Alex (all i care about is producing our stories)

p.s. adventure ⛰️ + i’m winning
p.p.s. write drunk, act sober

About Alexander Kluge

I run a voiceover studio (naii.io), document how I produce original stories, while building my dream company (suse.la), and try to survive in a pendulum of existential angst and lust for adventure!