Mid April 2015

Hello Mathgirl.  Hello Mathbaby.  My math-girlies. Your math-mommy.

You are my favorite people in the whole wide world.  I hope you already know that, but I'm writing it down for you just in case.

I was asked a question on "ycombinator". I want to share both with you because - I want you to have truth.  Truth is powerful stuff - like rocket fuel.  It is the only way to reach the stars.

Here is the link, though I expect it to eventually die of age as many webpages do.  This is the failure of the great cacophony that is the internet.  In a few years nothing remains.  There is not even paper for archaeologists to dig up.  The link:  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9392780

Here is the question:

Ask HN: When do you know your startup has failed?
	135 points by superpi 3 hours ago | 72 comments
	I'm currently going through a mini depression. We've gone without salary for the last 4 months, abandoned our business model to do pay for hire work in the hopes of trying to raise money to keep the lights on.Honestly I feel like I'm going to be evicted from the house. My rent is already up, and as of now I have < $1 :). My partner is fine actually, he has rich parents and doesn't really depend on the startup for income. Which actually gives my friends and family the illusion that we're both killing it. We have almost 0 chance of raising more money, it's much harder to get money it seems if you're in a poor country. So, if you've had a failed startup, how did you know? Did you run out of money and call it quits? If you succeeded, did you have a patch so rough that you were evicted? I'm 25, I feel like I'm losing at life already. It was okay to be broke earlier, because it's expected. It's not anymore, when almost none of your peers are. Also, I'm not in a developed country, where being broke means living on ~$1k a month. I've been living on ~$200 a month. Anyway, I just want any input from you guys. Like anything, I just wanted to get this off my chest. Not even sure I've really expressed what I wanted to express (English isn't my first language).

Here is my answer:

You are not a failure. You are not a success. Where you are is about the world around you, who you are is not. Who you are is about your character, your person, your choices, and your integrity. The only way the outer world changes your inner person is when you allow it. Its ability to change you stops the minute you decide to stop helping it to do so. Nobody is broken, some people quit.  

It is good that you feel like a worthless failure. You are likely too young and ignorant to realize how valuable this is.  

Great results come from great decisions and great work. Great decisions and great work come from the mind and will, and are learned by experience. Experience comes from making decisions and actions and learning from them. If you have nothing, then you have learned something. If you have learned something then you have nothing.  

You can choose to think through where you are and what you are doing and learn the most, to understand the most, to get fuel for the engine of your willpower, or you can let it pass by like an invisible and silent locomotive an inch away from your face. What happens now is the consequences of your actions now. Your actions now are the consequence of your choices. You are not a product of your past. You are not the squeezings of your circumstances.  

If you want to be successful in business, then understand what value is, and return it to the customer. If you always return more value to the customer than they lose through the sales price, then you will always have customers.  

The world, though it looks like it is solid and complete, is like a sponge, like enormous swiss cheese - it is dense with holes. Each hole is a place where value can be returned. Find one. Fill it.  

Money isn't the goal. It isn't the goal of capitalists or plutocrats. It is paper - it burns. It has no fundamental value. All the engines of industry and finance in the world are an expression of human failure to handle value healthily in the context of community. Unlike you they are not broken - so they can never learn and never change what they are doing. They are too poor to have that wisdom.  

Never blindly walk down the road. Take good wisdom based on good vision, and walk down that road. If you are going to make a startup - 90% fail in the first year. Go into it knowing that it will fail. The second startup success rate is better than 50%. The third startup is upwards of 80%. Find the best value you can create and create it for people. Even if you fail once or twice, you fail doing something noble, something worth having done it. Even in "failure", in "defeat" in having done something great you get not only the learning, but the having done something worth doing. The defeat gives you two of the most meaningful measures of victory.  

Read wisdom. Epictetus. Marcus Aurelius. How to live on 24 hours a day. Make a log of your time and be brutally honest. Know your budget of time - where it goes. Truth allows you to allocate it in improved ways. Watch Randy Pausch - the last lecture. Live life well. You only get a few days till it is done, and in death every victory that can be taken away is. The ones you keep in your heart and soul - those are not taken away because that part of the person is immortal.

Darn near march 2015

It has been months since I posted and so much has happened.

We have enjoyed the Indiana/Ohio/New Jersey winter.  We have hiked many frozen nature trails and looked at waterfalls.  Ice sculpting, Mathgirl, you loved it.  You and the mathbaby have taken to sweets.  We had Christmas at your grandma Tema's house and it was wonderful.  Not too much snow,  but gosh can it get cold here.

In Dec 2013 I had the worst Christmas of my life, (thank you Jon and all) and I have to say that Christmas 2014 was stunningly better.

You are such a reader.  You loved the book Radio Rescue (link) about a young ham operator in the 1920's who helps people and carries messages for sailors to their families.  You want to become a ham.  The world doesn't have much use for noble spirited people like you - but you don't do it because the world needs.  You will, like me, have to do it because of who you are.  If the king of the moles requires you to give up light and warmth in exchange for being "queen" the you, like Thumbelina, will be compelled to say no.

You love sledding and snow.  You have fun with the neighbor boys sliding down hills at the golf course.  You are growing your courage.

We may have found a church with life in it.  There are many churches in this part of the country - a building on every corner - but does Jesus walk down the halls?  That is the question.  Where does he love to hang out?  I think that the Pharisees with their deep-culture were offensive to him.  Those inside the organization do not have the ability to measure the cost of entry.  If the cost is higher to the lost, the one that Jesus came to rescue - then I don't think he would rejoice to send folks there to be helped.  I think a place that is good to the lost is good to him.  We may have found that - or at least that for us.  We will test to be sure.

It is nice to hear you and mommy sharing pages as you two read through Little House on the Prairie books.  You look at Pa and Ma and the various girls and you see .. us.  And the idea of who Pa is in the books comes through and is imputed to me.  And that is good and bad.  I get a benefit of a good name - but it isn't exactly my name.  In some ways it is worth aspiring to - but I am never going to make it.  In some ways it tells you who I am in ways you would not know.

I have been thinking about you and about "outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.  It is an unintentional roadmap for parents to chart world-class success, as a team, and avoiding a few of the big world-class-failure-makers, for their kids.  It says that 10,000 hours (or so) gives world class mastery in a topic.  The right kind of vision for the topic and the right kind of fit of the topic and kid are what make the magic.  I am trying to make what I see as a good breakthrough, perhaps even some defining work, of the next 20 years to be yours.  Mommy is helping.  It is grace - our current job and location allow it.  Hint: (the animal morphology and biology you love, deep belief/Q networks (link, link), and the idea that there are no service jobs after about 2025 - the minimum wage increases are going to strongly drive move to highly automated "productivity".  We expect it to take a couple of years to work out some of the kinks.  If we are moving to a second aristocracy then I don't want you being a serf.  I don't want to do it but the politicians in charge of the US are just obliterating the middle class - and the current middle class is both to dumb to realize it, to blind to look for it, and to powerless to do anything about it.

I love the painting that you gave me.  I put it on my wall.  Thank you.

I have to go.. I may be waiting for "compiling" but I have to work nonetheless.

EDIT (26-Feb-2015):
Slashdot gives an article that says that 47% of total US jobs could be automated by 2033.  (main-link, paper , link, link).  I guess we are going to see either a second rise of the unions, or the current sold-out unions are going to betray on a grand scale the people they are meant to protect and serve.  Which one of those sounds like "politics as usual".

Jobs that are going to be computerized, according to the paper, major in "administrative support and secretarial", "sales and sale related", and "service".  It is the death of the McJob.  Also adjacent are "construction and extraction", "production", "transportation" and "installation, maintenance, and repair".  The jobs less likely to be computerized include "management, business, financial", "education, legal, community service, arts and media", "STEM", and "Healthcare practitioners".   I guess they don't believe in Baymax.

I did it again - doh! Nov 2014

Sigh.

Girls, I did not make a post in October.  One-liners do not count.  There should be pictures, and depth.  That is sad.  I need to have more .. of the things that are good for you.

In Ohio football trumps halloween.  On thursday there were kids trick-or-treating and I asked why and they said "tomorrow there is football game, so we do it tonight".

We liked "Big Hero 6".  It was good.

Lots and lots and lots of unpacking.  Winterizing.  It is -5 out there with windchill.  Micro has a very adverse biot number so she doesn't like cold much.  Mini loves it - she runs and plays and makes snowballs.

We now have internet at our home.  Yay!  Netflix again.

Sigh.

Early September 2014

I just inspected a candidate new home. I hope it works out and is good for you. I think it might do well. It costs substantially less than our Phoenix home and will give you, mommy and me a place to make a home. 

I think that a good first step will be a fence. It will be pretty and should help you and micro to know the bounds of the yard. In retrospect having a place that is set aside as "my own" is something I never had until I was an adult.

You have had, your math mom and I have worked hard and intentional to give you, a hundred good things in your childhood that we did not get in ours. Exposure to violence, experiencing hunger, parental abandonment, the intelligence poison of "modern" public education, being bullied, robbed - these were kept away from you as a good gift. 

Late July 2014

Hello Big Girl.  Big girls now.  My girlies.

I am re-reading "Letters from Dad" - it inspired me in this blogging endeavor.  Rereading it helps me think through the reasons why I do this and it helps to evaluate the message.

If you were to get three wishes from a Genie in a bottle would you waste them?  I wish I knew whether this was a wish.  In a way this blog is a wish.  It is, likely, to last longer than I do.  It is a message in a bottle.  I can speak now into it, and be assured that at some point, if you want, if you know, if you want to listen - you can hear ... or at least read.  It gives me a sense of connection.  In that miracle - that instant of connection across the years it would be a waste to say words that are less than all I mean.  To the degree that I can help myself not make that error, I want to give you an intentional and non-random or accidental message.

You are my delight.  You are strong and smart - courageous and funny.  You are all that every person should aspire to be.  My brain asserts itself and says you have flaws.  In the eyes of my love for you - you are transformed.  There is a self that is you that I can access through that vision, and that you can't access.  If you can't access it - is it really you.  It could be.  If you want it to, if you are open to it, if you receive it, then it might.

Mini - I want you to work hard.  You can never work harder than you can, but if you are willing to push yourself then you will learn the lesson that every great person knows: you can work much harder than you think you can.  Basketball and ballet, business and productivity - they are all about mental toughness.  You have an amazing mind but it will not bloom unless you work it hard.  You were using sign-language at 6 weeks old and pictures of it are in this blog.  I think you might have a bent for biology, morphology, and nomenclature - a natural doctor or vet from when you were less than 1 year old.  You don't have to be that.  You could be any number of great things.  I think might be one of several things that are aligned with your natural strengths.

Mikro - I know that you are strong.  You are very kinesthetic.  You stood on your own strength at six weeks.  It took that long because I was afraid to hurt you by allowing you to try it the day you were born.  You are strong in body.  I hunger for you to get a posture of balance.  Imbalance is to become all of one thing and none of another.  You have a capability for hard work, but it needs to be balanced with direction.  Oh I want you to succeed.  I can't begin to tell you how I long for you to have great things.

I pray for you two nearly every day.  Nearly every day.  God keep you.  God fill you with light and life.  God give you a good future, a good hope.  God keep you.

Late August 2014

Hello mathgirls.

It is late in August and I am 1800 miles away.  You are (in theory) going camping up on the rim.  There was a traffic issue so I don't know anything about timing or how it is all working.  I hope that it is amazing.  Would you notice?  I would like to think that I would and that you would, but we miss it.  Sometimes when you are a kid, or adult ... basically a human ...  .  Sometimes when you are a human you miss it.  Sometimes you get it.  Missing it feels exactly like it is not there, when it actually is.  If you ponder a little bit, think on the days you have had, not just remembering or replay them, but asking them good hard questions, then sometimes you can learn where you missed.  It is an imperfect science ... or art.

I wanted to tell you something, something important.  I forgot what it was.  The snarky person might call it senilty or suggest that it must not have been important.  The emotion behind the words I wrote in the preceding paragraph distracted the attention of my memory and I misplaced what I wanted to tell you.  I was remembering times that I thought were booring or empty as a kid, and realizing that they had some serious magic that I missed out on.  Regret is strong when you get older or ... middle aged.

I ate dinner at Cracker Barrel.  They had a waitress there, a kid.  Slightly older than you.  I don't know her name.  She mentioned her boyfriend.  I asked how they work in conflict resolution - a critical part of any relationship.  Unless you have serious ptsd or damage - nearly anyone can survive when it is peaceful, and easy.  It is the hard things - the winters - that must be endured.  The challenge then, with the weather and with relationships, is to be able to live well enough in the good times, but also to know what it takes and be adequately staged for success in the hard times.  How you fight as a married couple can make or break the relationship.  She just withdraws.  The waitress said she shuts up, and suppresses.

So I want to tell you about it.  Are you ready.  One of the very dumb (dumb dumb dumb) things that your gender in our current society does is lionize sucking it up and suppressing.  That stages women for so much failure.  I wanted to tell the waitress - take a class in negotiation.  Learn to both advocate for yourself and communicate your desires.  Instead of screaming, or self-strangling, why not a balanced and sustainable approach that leads to success in life.  Why binge then starve - an emotionalistic anorexia - when a balanced diet and healthy emotional state can give you a stunningly more rewarding life?  I wanted to tell her that debate might do it, but negotiation is responsible for her gender making substantially less than men for the same job.  It isn't all the gap, but it is a good chunk.  It is accessible.  Why not learn it, right?

I remember now, what I want to tell you.  Given time and the natural decay of the burst of emotional fog the librarian of the mind comes back online and functions again.  I like it here at night.  It takes so long for the sun to set, so I missed until this day the experience.  When I drive around this place there are so many trees it feels like it is an inhuman jungle.  You might get that at first.  It feels so far divorced from the community of humans - but it isnt.  At night the lights show through.  You can see the houses and roads through the greenery and you realize that this is a town bigger than Payson.  Heh.  Did you see that.  You are likely going to be camping on the other side of Payson this weekend and I brought it up.  It is nice to know that humans live here - somewhere.

I read an article today that says give your best everywhere, but don't make your work the best of you, because when your work is over, you lose too large a piece of your self.  I don't want that.  Not for me.  Not for you.  Not even for your kids.

I love what I do.  I need to get working now while I can.  There are things that you are going to need that if I work now they get provided.

I love you.  I wish you were here with me, and I know that will come in time.  In my heart I am comforted by what I think is a whisper from Providence saying that things are in bigger hands than mine.  It is both scary and comforting.

Good night.  I love you and miss you.  You are my favorite little persons - both of you - my favorite little people in the whole wide world.

Mid August, 2014

What is the proper way to say hello and I love you to the two most excellent kiddos in the world? When I say hello kiddos it seems to lack the sense of affection.  I love you. 

I'm in an airport in Ohio waiting for a plane. Eating a burger and waiting to be in air-travel for the next 7 hours.

Plane is here. Gotta go.