Timmy Schiller

Experience Equation Mockup

I like to think there are two kinds of mistakes. The things we regret doing, and the things we regret not doing. Not a new concept, but an important one.

Doing and not succeeding is not “mistake”, it is failure, but it is not mistake.

Here is the biggest difference between the two. The things I regret doing were mistakes but there is nothing I can do to fix them, I can only not repeat them. And then there are the things I regret not doing, here are some examples: not engaging in school to the extent I could have, not continuing hockey when I moved to florida, not pushing relationships to a certain depth, not giving every sprint I’ve ever ran every ounce of my energy, not ever trying to be good at preparing for things…etc. It goes on.

The purpose of the list is for a few concrete examples. And I’m sure in reading it similar examples came to mind.

Recognizing patterns and creating new patterns is an important aspect to growth. So here is what I think all this means.

Things go {A = A - B = C} Dreams = Dreams minus reality = Outcome. Obviously this equation is much more complex, but I’ve already spent an hour re-arranging letters and fractions in the way I think most closely represents the process of experience. The equation of experience.

I’ve always tried to change B. Reality, or B, always is the effort and attempt that goes into life. The freaking thing is though, the stupid minus sign. Humans are flawed so it will always be minus. No matter what. Our best effort is still less than A, no matter what. But for some reason I always try to make B = 0 so that A = C. I have this vague notion that if reality does not effect my dreams, dreams will become my outcome.

Naturally, when people realize B will always be less than A, they lower A in order for A and C, dreams and outcome, to be closely aligned. The thought process is “Since I can not do this well, I will expect less. Sure, my outcome will be less, but it will be closer to A.” EXCEPT, Exponential decrease, meaning when your dreams regress your reality regresses. This means you thought you were lowering C by only -A, but really you are lowering C by (-A + -B)

Lets start fresh {A = A - B = C} {Dream = Dream - Reality = Outcome}

We think we have most control over B. Why? I don’t know. We do have some control over it, but it will always be hindered by the minus sign. A, however, is not hindered by the minus, it is hindered by nothing! For some reason we think that since B always takes away from A, we don’t control A. But that is not true! Nothing stops us from dreaming bigger dreams, having bigger goals! If “exponential decrease” applies then so does “exponential increase.” When we dream bigger we reality bigger!

Let’s change A. I’m sick of always trying to change B and it never working. I am going to dream bigger. Change A.

Beef settled 2.0

You already know though, you only live once thats the motto. It really is a great line. Until a recent conversation I had with a friend about that specific line, I hadn’t realized how many conversations I have actually had, about that specific line. 

Here’s the controversy, as you may of guessed. Christians bash it. I’ve heard it brought it up in multiple sermons, small gatherings, one-on-one conversations. To Christians YOLO is used to sort of prove “this is how bad society really is” type of thing. The main argument among christians, which don’t be fooled, it is an argument, is that people are using it as an excuse for their actions.

The other side of it, the day to day of YOLO, is that it’s a joke. My friends love saying it, not to justify, but to laugh at. “Normal gummy worms, or sour?” “Sour, YOLO.” Is a pretty accurate example of the many oddly timed uses of YOLO in a High Schoolers day to day. That’s the reality of it. It’s a joke. Remember that.

So this is my argument, it is only to fellow Christians who aren’t cool with the wonderful world of YOLO. We believe before Christ you were dead, right? So if you were dead, if you were born into death, you were not living. Thus, Jesus supplied life, and from then on you have life, for eternity. So, point being, you only live once. Now, this is where it gets pretty tricky. The next said thing is “well to be born into death you had to be alive first” with that I agree. You can not die unless you were alive. So we are stuck with you can only be dead if you were alive, but you were always dead because you were born into sin, but then you found life in Jesus, so were you ever alive before that, well you had to be if you died, but you weren’t alive because you were dead, but still you had to be alive if you were ever dead. So the real question is, do babies go to heaven?

This is how denominations are started.

Thanks Drake.

Converse Richter Scale

The new way of measuring a conversations success; sum of blog posts resulting from. This is not meant as a means of restriction to your conversations, but if they aren’t creating blogposts, they probably aren’t good convo’s. Only kidding, of course. But just partially.

Anyway, I recently had a conversation with a friend that sparked two topics. 

1. Tech in 3 Phases 

2. YOLO debate / Do we or do we not live once.

This is merely preparation for what is to come. Get stoked. 

Lore is Mess

I started on this topic because I realized I’m very bad at this. Nonetheless, I see it’s importance and am passionate about honing in on it.

Focus is not a method of productivity, it is productivity. How efficiently we get work done is completely dependent upon where our focus lies, and how well we know how to focus. I don’t think more efficient work is about focusing “harder” or even focusing “less hard” to reach the truly optimized, all gears firing, level of focus. I think it is about focusing simpler. Our brain is a wonderful thing. But we always have a gazillion different inputs coming from a gazillion different places producing a gazillion different outputs. For example while we try to focus on a given project we are fighting the desire to think about a number of given things. Like what we are having for lunch, or the girl we really want to ask out, or sometimes more drastic things, like a recent family members death or a recent diagnosis from the doc. This is life.

What you can do though, is focus on what you can do

I like to think about it this way. More brain input equals less brain output. Less brain input equals more brain output. I.e. the more specific and concentrated our focus is the greater amount of work we will yield. 

Simpler focus allows for greater imagination. The more one idea or one thought or one task is dialed in on, the more it allows us to imagine about it. When we have sole focus we can pull from a variety of sources to enrich our focus. 

I found some quotes to see if anyone agrees with me

1. “My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on a few things.” — Bill Gates
2. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” — Bruce Lee
3. “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” — Mark Twain

Sir William Wallace

I’ve been learning. Definitely, definitely, learning. If i wrote about all the literal stuff I’ve been learning, this entry would end very fast. So instead I’ll focus on what learning has taught me about learning. I’m not going to teach about learning. I’m just going to learn about teaching about learning while i’m teaching learning. If you made it here, that was called comedic discourse, it wasn’t supposed to make sense. I made up that term. 

Old dogs die easy

This is true. Old wimpy, miserable, washed out, useless dogs die easily. However, only physically. Every owner is struck with a very tough decision at the end of any dogs life.. if you don’t believe me watch this… https://vimeo.com/8191217 … tough, right. Here’s the decision. The dog is no longer healthy, as matter of fact it is miserable, in truth killing it is putting the dog out of its misery. So, whether you barrel to skull it and have to pull the trigger, or you ask your local friendly vet to give it a kind friendly loving poke of death, you still have to kill it. That is your first choice. Your second choice is to let it die slowly. Let the pain build and build and build and build until your dog finally dies. Here’s the thing, I don’t care about dogs at all.

I’m talking about habits

I more so than ever have been learning about the habits I have. Specifically the ones that are limping around, worthless, and miserable. They are hard to kill. There was a time when they were full of youthful exuberance, when they could get by as long as I had a smile and a wink to kindly play off my rash self centered decisions. That is not to say they were ever healthy, but in the understanding of a teenager they were wonderful things. But they are old now, they are at the end of there lives and for many many reasons they need to be put to death. Specifically for productivity sake, but I don’t want to limit how we think of this by my specifics. Nonetheless, on the number line of a dogs happiness and reason to stay alive versus its misery and desire to die, they are most near -4. Desiring death. My habits, not an actual dog.

This is getting confusing

When it comes to learning I have bad habits. It takes a lot for me to find focus, and it takes a lot for me to get past the grit and hard stuff to the wonder and beauty of mastery. I think a lot of us experience this. If there is one thing our public educational system taught me it could be summed up into something like this: kids who knew hard work reaped benefit (good grades) eventually enjoyed hard work, kids who thought laziness outweighed good grades chose laziness over discipline. Both created habits. I fell in the latter.

William Wallace

His call for freedom on his death bed was magnificent. We all need that. Not once but every single day. Today this is mine. My choice is to bury my old dog or even old dogs, and create new habits. It starts buy pulling that trigger, more so, by that moment of release where the decision is made and in response our fingers twitch backwards and go ka-boom. There is not one thing stopping us from letting go of old habit. So desire one thing like Sir Wallace did, freedom, and like he, fight to the death for it. 

Diving Boards

Here’s the word. I’m new to this. By this I mean tumblr, but I also mean other things. And by other things I mean, interesting enough, the web.

Let me explain

Lately, people have been all up in my grill asking “timmy, what you gonna study in college?” My response usually is something like “I’m pretty interested in design, specifically web design.” or “I want to be a developer.” or “I’d like to study entrepreneurship, then develop things, and probably design some stuff.”

I don’t have a clue. Really. I don’t even know what all the mush I just assembled into an incredibly vague reply means. The only thing I do know about it all..

I like it

Maybe because it is young, like me. Maybe it’s because there are a lot of people around me who are pretty nifty, and they like it too. Or maybe, just maybe, there’s really no reason at all. I just do.

To the point

I remember texting my brother Robb, near a year ago, my text resembled “I feel like I’m on a diving board at the top of the Design/Development/Entrepreneurship pool, I want to dive in head first.”

I had a layover in Pittsburgh, or Baltimore I think. Actually it may have been Beijing. It was one of the three. I had spent the day reading various Magazines on those topics, and I was gun loaded, off the mother loving wall, amped.

That was a year ago

And when it comes to the web. Web on this computer, Web on my iPhone, iPad. Whatever it may be. I’m still on that board, a year later. I could give you a few reasons why. But, like I remember my brother quoting, maybe even misquoting as I’m about to, “the reason for anything is complete BS.”

I would argue I know a bit more about code, design, and development than my grandma, a lot of my peers, and even my peers grandmas. But first off, who cares. And second off, I probably have a few “closet hacker” buddies that i don’t even realize can hack.

So yeah, my dry feet can still feel the slip resistant epoxy resin on top of that, dumb, dreaded, springy board of pooh. Home to the talkers and not the doers.

Thats the bottom line. THE END. But, in actual ending, CHEERS.

My knees have been bent by fates hand of opportunity, my arms are sticking behind me parallel to that dreaded board of idleness, and my calves are flexing, flexing harder then they ever have in preparation for, well..

blast off