The moment I chose to stop drifting and start building my path
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Traditionally speaking, “Hello World” is a way of showcasing the base structure of a programming language. Usually that’s the first thing shown when you start learning it. I have done it a couple of times. The first ever time with HTML (side note: I do not consider it a programming language anymore). Lately with Cpp and GDScript. Today I wanted to do it a bit differently. More personal. I wanted to do a “Hello World” episode about me. About my language of creativity.
So hello, hey you! It is good to have you here. My name is Kamil Słaby. I am an artist. I produce music. I make artworks. I am an audio engineer. I founded my creative company called Superior. We do audio services. Mainly film sound and mixing and mastering for music records.
Being honest with you, I am doing this for money, but not for showoff luxury money. I am doing this to provide for my family and to gain the resources and leverage needed to turn those risky creative ideas into reality. I have plenty of great ideas in my mind. They have been waiting for I do not know what? But I have been dreaming about those since I was a little kid. They cannot go to waste. I want to accomplish them. I want to do all of this without compromising my values, my morals, my faith. I want to build a great business. Something I can be proud of when I am old and my kids will ask me what my body of work is. I want to build something that will be future-proof and have great ROI with the information I possess currently. If I could do that, that would draw a baseline for being satisfied.
If any of this resonates with you, I would love to invite you to join me on this journey by following along on the platform of your choosing. The main headquarters for all of this will be my personal page (kamilslaby.com). I will be documenting what I do. For myself. For it to show that it is possible to do. For empowering those that are on a similar path. For future opportunities and leverage.
Right now, you might be asking yourself: Who is this guy? Why should I listen to this young gentleman? I do not know him. He has done nothing special.
And that is true. You should listen to me for that exact reason.
What I am doing right now is creating a point of reference for the future. I am planting a flag. It’s a small step for me today that in the future will turn into the starting point of a milestone. The achievement will be distance, the path, the difficulties I will overcome.
If you are here before the year 2030, this might not make much sense yet, but I promise it will. If you are here before 2027, consider yourself early. You are among the pioneers of the “Superior Path”, and I want to give you my most personal welcome.
And if you are visiting from the future, welcome as well. This is exactly what this is for. Now you can see the bigger picture. You can grasp the whole thing more clearly. I am grateful that you are here with me. And I hope this had became a long-term relationship between you and me.
So it makes sense that we get to know each other a bit. In the upcoming entries, I will expand with stories that fit the discussed topics. For today’s episode, I will keep it short and sweet and give you a backstory.
I was born in the past millennium in Warsaw, Poland. From a young age, I was drawn to computers, technology, audio equipment, music, poetry, drawing, art, and architecture. This year I will be 29. I feel old. I feel that I have wasted many of my years. This puts some pressure on me to be more committed to every aspect of life.
For the past 12, maybe 14 years I have been interested in music. I have been playing around with it a bit. It started with piano lessons as a small kid. Then I was doing sound in my local church. Then for fun I have been putting together hip hop beats, since that was an easy point of entry into the music production world for me. But nothing major, nothing big. After that I went more and more into music production, mixing, mastering, film music.
Around 6 years ago I decided to take a leap of faith. I dropped out of college, was doing computer science. Quit my comfortable IT corporate job. That was a bold move at that time, and now after all that time I think it was an even bigger decision than I initially realized. I went all in with nothing. No network, no portfolio, and no real idea of what it meant to be an artist. I had no knowledge or experience in how to run a creative business or any business at all. There was no mentor, no one to point the way. As a result, I have been hitting my head against the wall like a battering ram for the past 6 years, fighting for my breakthrough.
Right now I am living out of doing audio engineering gigs. Mainly film sound. I am so grateful that I am getting paid for doing something I love. But I am financially broke at this moment. Little profit to no profit. I am not saying this to complain, I know people have it harder, I have been born free in a post-soviet country. Some people have it harder, some have it easier. Godspeed to all of us. I am sharing all of this to show the reality of my life and what it is to follow your passion and have this for future reference. One day I will tell the story of how I went from here to there. Today, I am nowhere close to my ambitions. But we will get there.
For the past 4-5 years I have done well over 100 projects. Mixing music, working on short films and a couple of feature films. Not the major league just yet.
In addition to that I have been producing my own music. Did around 80 tracks spanning over 4 albums. None of that is up right now. I took it down because the quality is not there. After taking music more seriously in the last 2 years, I have refined my skill and taste. Now I am ready. Finally at the stage where my music has decent quality. Good enough to build a career in that. Now I will release music and not be ashamed of it. If you are not sure what I am talking about, this is the issue with people with perfectionism and self-aware traits. Maybe one day I will expand on it.
Right now no one knows me. I have no Spotify or Apple Music page, no monthly listeners. I am sitting right now at 85 subscribers on YouTube, 554 followers on Instagram, 215 on TikTok. Most of those people are old friends from church, school, and work. They do not care about what I do. They just watch the stories, no engagement. I haven’t spoken in years with most of those people. No hate, just stating the facts to get some perspective on what we are working with.
But there is more to it. During those same couple of years, I married the love of my life. She is beautiful and supportive. I have 2 amazing kids. I became a stay at home dad while building the business. During that time, out of necessity, I took different jobs to support my family.
Along the way, I picked up many skills not directly connected to my main thing, which is music. I collected a variety of experiences that expanded my worldview.
Steve Jobs famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” So I am glad for all the detours, because they are forging my unique advantage. Those seemingly disconnected experiences help me discover my inner creative generalist. I believe it is an elevated version of being a jack of all trades. The rest of that saying is often omitted but important: “Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than master of one”. At least that’s what I am telling myself for encouragement. .
So, in retrospect, if I had to do everything I did again, I would do it, but faster. Obviously, who wouldn’t? At the same time, I am not sure I would do it at all, now knowing how much harder it is to get to this moment. And I am only starting to realize how much more work and sacrifice it is in greatness.
We can look around at what is going on in the world right now. You do not have to be a political expert to notice the constant news about distressing events and rising economic tension. The future of the housing market has become a bonding theme for the younger generation. It is our universal struggle. And that was part of a conversation I just had with my wife on the second day of Christmas.
We talked about the next year’s plans for our family. It was a realistic conversation. And me having those specific character traits, which are futuristic and visionary. It is difficult for me to have such a discussion, if you know what I am saying. So whenever we go into a “down to earth talk”, it challenges me, it challenges my perspective. It’s not easy for me, but I appreciate it when my wife refreshes my point of view from time to time. Creatives need to touch the grass.
That conversation became the last straw for my growing feeling of discontent. This inner disgust with myself and how much unfulfilled potential I have in me. At that moment, I was filled with resentment, followed by the pain of regret. It was a long postponed realization that my actions do not match the scale of my ambition, nor the size of my dreams.
It is not that I am misaligned with my goals. I am on a more or less correct path, at least with all the available information I have right now. Right? I am putting in the effort. I learn about music production, mixing, and running a business. But I “know thyself”, and I know I could do better. In fact, so much better. It is a cognitive dissonance. That pisses me off. I mean, I am staying positive, but angry.
As a quote attributed to Sun Tzu goes, “In the midst of disorder, there is also opportunity.” Gaining awareness is the first step to transformation.
So I made a promise. I promised myself to do something about it. To break the cycle of being average and step onto the superior path. We have one life. We are living on this hardcore permadeath server called earth. What better day to change than 20 years ago. Only one option left. Today. 2026 is my year. It is my time.
Here it is, the main point of this entry.
This is the starting point. It is not a tabula rasa, rather a coming to senses in the deep forest of life. “Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark For the straightforward pathway had been lost.” I love how well this fits the opening of Divine Comedy. Most often than not, the season of wandering in the desert is a prerequisite to reaching a new chapter. We see it time and time again in many examples. In my situation, I am the one pointing the way to paradise.
Ok. Get it together. The extended honeymoon phase is over. Real work is here. This is not a season for distraction. This is the moment to push forward and follow a narrow superior path like my life depends on it, because it does. I made a promise to myself to surprise God with how much more capable I am. How much more I can achieve. He will have to add extra blessings planned for me and pour more into my cup until it overflows, I will expand that cup. I am excited for what is to come. I feel like it has already come to pass. The future stack of proof of what I have overcome will be undeniable. By the grace of God, I did this.
I am not sure how many people will get this. So if you do, please let me know. If even one person besides myself gets this, then it was worth it.
I am on my superior path. It will be a great run. I will document along the way. Not sure about the style yet. It might be weird. It might be cringe, but it will be authentic and real. I believe vulnerability is the currency of human connection.
See you around, all glory to God, Kamil Słaby