A note from Thamer

If you want to know a little more about who you're helping and why I ended up asking in the first place, this is the longer version.

I'm three years into college now. For a long time, I assumed that if things ever got financially difficult, I would do what everyone tells you to do. Work more. Find another job. Take whatever opportunity is available. Borrow something if I absolutely have to. Keep pushing until things stabilize.

My life does not really work that way.

The rules attached to my situation put real limits on how I can earn money. I can legally work only a limited number of hours each week and only within a narrow range of jobs. I can't simply decide to work full time for a few months because I need the money. A huge amount of ordinary work is not available to me at all.

I also don't have easy access to a lot of the financial tools people use when things get tight. Credit, loans, financing, and even some paid platforms and opportunities can disappear behind requirements I cannot satisfy.

Sometimes I apply and get rejected.

Sometimes I spend time on an application only to reach the end and discover that I was never eligible in the first place.

Sometimes I find something I could absolutely do, but the rules around my situation mean I am not allowed to take it.

That is probably one of the hardest parts to explain. It isn't that I don't want to work.

I would happily work more if I could.

I keep looking anyway. I apply for jobs, paid research and studies, technical projects, small gigs, and whatever legitimate opportunities I can realistically pursue. I have spent an incredible amount of time trying to find ways to make money that actually fit within the boundaries I'm living under.

At the same time, I have never stopped making things.

I build websites and software. I love being able to start with something that exists only as an idea and eventually have something real working in front of me.

I study biology. I spend time doing lab work and learning things that have absolutely nothing to do with filmmaking or web design.

And then I make films.

I'm not even a film major. I do it because I genuinely love it.

I've helped build and run a nonprofit student film organization, and I'm currently helping lead a production involving more than 50 people who volunteer their time to make something together.

There are schedules, locations, equipment, costumes, makeup, visual effects, actors, crew, problems that appear out of nowhere, and a ridiculous number of decisions that somebody has to make before a finished movie ever exists.

Nobody is paying those people to be there. They show up because they care about what we're making.

I care about it too.

Sometimes I think about how strange my life looks from the outside.

I can spend an entire day solving problems for a huge group of people, writing code, organizing a production, working in a lab, designing something, or teaching myself how to do something I couldn't do a week earlier.

Then I go home and worry about money for food.

I worry about rent.

I worry about whether an ordinary expense is going to be the thing that makes the rest of the month impossible.

Even something as simple as seeing someone I love can turn into a calculation over a few hundred dollars that I just cannot justify spending.

That contrast has been difficult for me.

I don't feel like somebody who has given up on himself. I don't feel like somebody waiting for another person to build my life for me.

I have spent years trying to build it myself.

What I don't have right now is enough breathing room.

Money from this page would go toward extremely ordinary things. Food. Housing. Everyday expenses. School-related costs. The things that keep life running while I continue trying to find something sustainable.

A contribution does not magically solve everything.

One dollar does not change my entire life.

But one dollar from enough people becomes groceries. Five dollars becomes part of another expense I don't have to worry about. Ten dollars means there is a little more distance between me and the next problem.

And a little distance matters right now.

I'm not trying to turn this into a career. I don't want asking strangers for money to become the way I support myself.

I want to get back to a point where what I know how to do can support me.

I want to finish college.

I want to keep building software.

I want to keep making films simply because I love making them.

I want to be able to put energy into creating something sustainable instead of constantly calculating how much time I have before the next expense arrives.

And I want ordinary parts of being alive to feel ordinary again.

I've put some of my work and a few pieces of my life around this letter because I know what I'm asking.

You don't know me.

You received an unusual email from a stranger asking for money. I think you deserve to be able to look around, see what I've actually made, and decide for yourself whether there is a real person here that you want to help.

There is no product attached to this.

There is no investment.

There is no reward I am promising you later.

It is simply help from one person to another.

And if you don't want to give anything, that's okay.

You don't owe me money because you read my email. You don't owe me anything because you made it all the way down here.

But if you do decide to help, whether it is $1 or something much larger, I will be genuinely grateful for it.

I still have a lot that I want to make.

I still have a lot that I want to learn.

And I am still trying very hard to build a life that can hold all of it.

Right now, I just need some help getting there.

Thank you for reading this far.

Thamer

P.S. If you want to see some of the things I've made, I've left a few links below.

If you'd like to help after reading all of this, you can return to the payment box above.

Hi again,