Living life in a haze .
I may have wasted 5 years of my life trying to do a creative pursuit. I had a good hustle but had to shut it down in 2021. So hapo, my whole outlook in life was getting the money. Get the money first, then kila kitu baadaye. I was still young,, about 25 and I moved back to my parents' house and started doing online gigs.The biz I had was a small shop where I used to sell chicken parts, but I had done for 2 years and I had just done enough when Corona hit. I tried hard to stay afloat, but I had taken some loans and ironically, after adding it all up, the debts and the amount I owed my customers were exactly the same amount. Kenyans and borrowing culture I was new and naivce and had a good heart . That was my biggest undoing , caring too much and people took advantage alot .So I said fuck it,, and I quit and went back to my folks place . I became more creative oriented and I started believing in the arts , mind you this was a whole u turn on my past values of money. So I started with writing short stories and scripts, then finally I started making music, and I just clicked for me. But shida ni most of my music is just youtube beats and my vocals added on top so I can't really commercialize on this yet till I buy the beats. I'm up to 150 songs that I know are good and can actually make me money , problem is time has really passed me by,, and now I'm just about to turn 30 . No source of income, just my music which I do post on Soundcloud regularly and some snippets on Tiktok and even on YouTube, but man the views are really demoralizing.
I know this music thing is something I love but huku Kenya bila pesa huna maana and I can feel the subtle madharau in some situations with my family , I might be misreading it but being the older brother and having no money to help your siblings when they earn significantly more than you is hard.
Sometimes I find myself being envious and then I feel bad about it , but it sucks having nothing to show for myself . I know my music is something but without money who cares ? Plus I can't mooch off my parents forever so I really don't know . The entrepreneurial side of me was totally stabbed in the heart when my biz failed and I had mad depression and I even cut off everyone who knew me then to have a fresh start as I didnt want anyone to see me back on my ass doing nothing.
But now I need the money desperately and my mind is going crazy thinking about how it feels like just last year when I first started this music shit and now its closer to 5 years . Did I just waste my life for nothing?
I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, between hoping my music makes me rich and me getting a well-paying online job , I just want people to listen to my music . Its not really an ego thing, but I know my music is life-changing, but it feels like I'm stuck chasing a ghost dream, and the time is moving quicker for everyone else while it slowed down for me.
Is it time to hang my boots ? Or is the season just getting started...