8: There is hope for my future
Today’s essay is like every direct-to-video Nollywood film produced between the 1990s and early 2000s, it comes to you in 2 parts.
Part 1: My Future
I think the earliest feeling came in September of 2021, after a long and difficult year of freelancing. This was the month that Jamit had offered me a position as a producer. We had spoken a bit about my production goals and their company goals and how they might align. We ended up not going forward of course but there was encouragement in being wanted by someone. An opportunity that fit what was starting to feel like an obscure employment choice.
Then Ebiye reached out to me on behalf of Midas Radio(now defunct). I knew Midas Radio. I had learnt about them when I said what I said was still under their name. At the time when I first learnt of them, they had maybe 10 podcasts under their network and were easily the main podcasting company name in this part of the world. So that was nice. To have popped onto that radar.
The same week, I went into Radio now to hang out with my friend SI. I ended up meeting Kadaria Ahmed, who I should say might be one of the coolest people I have ever met. We talked about work and what I wanted to do. I played the project I was working on at the time. And then the idea of me working at Radio Now was tossed into the air. We talked about what kind of work I wanted to do. I was still pretty big on working freelance because I wanted to be able to do work and tell stories in as many different ways and for as many different platforms. The conversation ended up being put on hold.
So this is when it felt like there was some hope for me. This was the first time my future kind of had a picture. Not a distinct and clear one but an oil painting of colours fading into each other.
Incase you are new here: My name is Mo Isu. I am an audio producer based in Lagos, Nigeria. I am currently attempting to build a career in audio journalism. I have taught myself everything I know so far. You are reading issue 8 of my newsletter detailing this segment of my journey.
In 2021, I made an audio story called ‘Do I have a future.’ With that audio story, I was confronting multiple anxieties I had.
My voice. In the first season of my podcast, Inside a bubble, I had been completely invisible producing stories behind the scene. At the end of that season, I was feeling like there was some handicap to not being able to report stories myself. I didn’t want to because I hated my voice but I was learning that you have to tell stories in your voice. Some stories are just too personal to be told any other way. I started making a short audio series to get comfortable with the idea of being the one in front of the microphone and this was the third episode
My future. I just quit my job and was plunging into the freelance puddle. At the time, I didn’t even exactly know what that meant. I thought I had some skillset, I knew I wanted to tell stories, I knew I had to do something with audio storytelling, but I didn’t know what any of that meant. I was doing all of this in Nigeria where the industry for the kind of work I wanted to do basically did not exist. And I was scared about my future. I was growing older, everyone was moving forward and I was not moving. I was making podcasts.
Even now, when people ask what work I do and I say I make podcasts, there is a small silence of wonderment. You make podcasts? Podcasts are hobbies. They are things a couple of friends do together because they like talking. They are some form of vanity project. They are things popular people do not for an extra revenue source but just for a new way to connect with an audience.
You make podcasts for a living?
They ask
Well I am not making much of a living
I say
I have a 5-year deadline to make this work. It’s in my notion workspace somewhere. I sat down and asked myself what age did I have to stop? At what age could I no longer make impulsive decisions, the age where risk just felt all the riskier. The number I landed on was 28. In 2025, is when my timer runs out. If I hadn’t figured out how to make audio stories and make a living at 28, then I would return to tech completely. We have 3 and a half more years.
In July of 2020, I was feeling really dissatisfied. I had travelled to France that month and coming back really made clear how unhappy I was with my version of existence. I also had been working on three projects at the same time. Only one had to do with podcasting. I had taken a break from inside a bubble because I just did not have the bandwidth. In August, my contract for the podcast I was working on ended and I quit my writing job so I could spend time working on a podcast episode Idea I had two months earlier. I ended up not making any money for the rest of 2021.
But in September, I spoke with Jamit and then I spoke with Kadaria and I spoke with Ebiye (who I ended up joining to start Voix Collective)
In February of 2022, I resumed work on I like girls. I did a series of interviews for Africa XR which led to me meeting a bunch of other people working in audio across the continent. One of those people was Mike Rahfaldt, Mike introduced me to Lesedi Mogoathle who I ended up doing a story with. At the same time, my friend Mnena, who I had met on Twitter in 2021 (through the most random of scenarios, more on this in a later issue) linked me to Bukky Fadipe who was doing a story for BBC sporting Witness and needed a tape sync. That became my second gig.
I have had a slow year. On some days, it feels like I am taking things slowly and on other days, it feels like I am being sluggish. I mean I am here now. Here is different from where I was when I made ‘do I have a future?’
A couple of days ago, I got paid for a random writing gig I had done. I told them how much I wanted to be paid and they paid it and that sort of shook me. I had expected some pushback. I sent them what I wrote and they liked it and that shook me. I had expected some feedback. Then the person asked if I might be available to do some more writing and that's when I felt hope.
Optimistic hope. For the first time in two years. Like maybe, maybe I will have a future. Maybe I could tell stories the stories I am interested in for a living.
My future, it is uncertain but in that picture, I can make out something, is that? is that what I think it is?
Part 2: Fatigue
I woke up at 5 am two days in a row this week.
I woke up, I prayed and I started working.
Waking up early is something I don’t know how to do. Except in situations where I literally don’t have a choice, I cannot will myself to wake up early. What happens instead is that I go to bed the previous with the intention to wake up early but in the morning just end up sleeping in and ignoring all my alarms.
On the surface level here, it feels like perhaps I finally hacked it. I finally hacked waking up early. In reality, this is just a bi-product of my current anxieties.
Money is one of them. Four issues ago, I wrote about being caught between moving into my own place and travelling. Since that issue came out about a month ago, these two things have taken up larger chunks of my mind to the extent that I am essentially obsessing over them. Every morning when I wake up, the first thought into my mind is this
I need to move out
I need to move out
What happened these past two days is that my obsessing over this thought just connected to me feeling the need to do some work. I need to make money to move out.
I have been feeling money fatigue. I guess I am lucky that I don’t perpetually obsess over how I don’t make enough money. It just comes and goes in intervals. My money fatigue has come as the expenses I can't keep up with have stacked up. I have had a few expensive months in a row, I recently started doing the maths to get a place and was really sad that I wasn’t that much closer than I was when the year started. I made a domestic expense at home and was sad that I wasn’t yet contributing more to my family. And I just turned 25. I don’t think that was a factor but maybe it was. Because I was questioning why at my age I was still here. So Money fatigue. I am tired of not making enough money
Work has felt slow. I haven’t produced a lot of original stories this year. By this time last year, I had already made about 8 original podcast episodes and published them. This year, 2.
I really like making things and I haven’t had the opportunity to do that. At Voix, we have been trying to make company choices, doing work to make sure we could continue to be a company. So, I have done some not audio storytelling work. A lot of the work I did in June was very boring work. Not at all the kind of stimulating work I want to do. Another thing that bothers me about work is that I keep trying to take on new things that will give me money in lieu of doing things I enjoy. I haven’t felt like I have been doing driven work in the past 2 months. I have lost the ability to focus. To get through this article, I set 10-minute timers and tried to get as much work done before the timer runs out. I can only focus for 10 minutes. That’s horrible.
Life fatigue. I am just tired. A lot. Inspiration and motivation have sipped out of my body in many ways.
I am just tired.
My focus timer just ran out, I am going to go eat now and then I am going to put the finishing touches on my pitch and send it.
Thank you for reading today
Posts
I decided I want to have some running practices for this newsletter just to make sure I am giving out more than just these essays about my life. So I am starting with a series on the things I am currently listening to. This week, I am currently listening to
This week, I am currently listening to:
Podcast: No stupid Questions
I found this podcast a couple of weeks ago. In it, the hosts, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss just about everything. Most episodes start with a listener-submitted question and the hosts very unpatronisingly discuss the conflict presented in the question. One of the things that made me love podcasts is how there was so much to learn from them and this podcast has been serving me some gems as I go through old episodes.
Album: Alt-J The Dream
Alt-J just put out a new album that I have been falling into this week. My favourite son at the moment is U&ME.
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