Seeking Adventure

Byjack

I’ve been feeling really unhappy that I haven’t been traveling or going on adventures lately. I meditated on it a long time today to try to figure it out. The more that I thought about it, the more I realized that I feel stuck in almost every area of my life. Specifically, I don’t feel like I’m making much progress in my Valorant Challenge, and a video that I am working on I feel like I’ve hit a dead end. Today I had a dance lesson and I felt like I couldn’t grasp the techniques quick enough, and I feel so distant from the girl I love sometimes.

However, anything that came to me didn’t feel right. I thought about how I could take risks, drive somewhere, fix the feeling that I had somehow. I came to an important realization. I’m not unhappy with anything in my life. I’m at a stage where there is a degree of uncertainty I’m worried that something will go wrong, that my hopes and dreams will fall away. However, that’s not the case at all. Sometimes, all you need to do is keep going, accept and feel the feelings of uncertainty and have the courage to be curious as to see what the future will hold.

In almost every area of my life that I feel stuck, there is a promise of something really truly special. An amazing challenge on a computer game. A wonderful artistic fun video for an event I’m holding. Being able to truly express me and feel confident in my body with dance. and last but not least, a love story that will change my life. All I need to do is be brave enough to wait to see what will happen next.

Perhaps it’s not the risk or adventure that I miss when traveling. It is the feeling of taking each day, one step at a time. Always being in the moment. Allowing life to happen and unfold in front of you. Trusting my gut and intuition.

Figuring out the How To Video Type: Meditation Video

Byjack

I want to figure out how to make the how-to-video type.

The first video I want to make is how to meditate.

Who I’m making it for: A friend at work who asked me about it

Why it matters:

  • Meditation has many benefits:
    • Calmness
    • Clear mind
    • Faster thinking
    • More energy

    • Deeper breathing

When to do it:

  • Tired, overwhelmed, stressed, procrastinating, upset

What you need:

  • Quiet place
  • Ideally, place to lie down
  • A good soundtrack to focus on
  • At least 30 minutes for beginners, at least 5 minutes for advanced meditators

Fundamentals for mastery:

  • Let go of any plan
  • Be patient
  • Wait for the answers, the feelings, the thoughts come to you
  • Focus on the sounds or the sounds of your breathing if you start to feel uncomfortable or restless

Video Type Footage and Elements

Byjack

I realized that I have made every single video type that I said in the last blog post (Video Poem, How To Video, Challenge Video, Conversation Video) except the How To Video.

I think the reason why, is that I tend to restrict myself with only shooting myself, when in How To Videos I would actually have a lot more fun shooting it with many more elements such as animation, and stop motion.

Going on that theme, I’m going through every video type and breaking down the types of video I’m going to try in each.

Video Poem
  • Lots of beautiful b-roll (mostly from traveling)
  • Some b-roll from video personal diary entries
  • Voice over from a written script
  • Collage of elements, textures, images, text and footage
How-to Video
  • Less is more
  • Animation
  • Stop motion
  • B-roll
  • Talking head (straight on face shot)
  • Text on screen
  • Focus on simplicity and directly to the point
Challenge Video
  • Broll of challenge
  • Diary entries from during the challenge
  • Voice overs
  • Broll for explanations
  • Focus on the journey and try to convey how it felt for real
Conversation Video
  • Little to no editing
  • Natural and interesting conversation

The Four Types of Videos

Byjack
Video Poem
  • Voice over
  • Travel video footage
  • Motivational
  • Life theories
  • Strong feeling, music, sound design
  • FOCUS: Capture emotion, explain something profound
How To
  • Specific technique or method
  • Life hacks, tricks for learning, dealing with stress and emotions
  • Short and to the point
  • FOCUS: Teach something useful for life
Challenge Video
  • Apply life theories to something very difficult
  • Show progress and journey
  • Show how I achieved what I achieved and what I learned
  • FOCUS: Show a journey of pursuing the impossible through real techniques and theories
Conversation/Discussion/Reaction Video
  • Adding to some sort of larger discussion
  • Could be talking to people in the video about an issue, reacting to another video, or just addressing my viewers like in a live stream
  • FOCUS: Discuss and argue ideas and points

How To Succeed At Really Difficult Stuff

Byjack

I was pondering today on the subject of doing anything really really difficult and I came across a realization.

People often go after really difficult stuff in the wrong way. By difficult things I mean anything that has a high degree of complexity and a steep learning curve. This might be mastering a new skill like the piano, playing a difficult game, getting big on youtube, or starting a new business.

People often try to get results too quickly. They immediately try to focus on success instead of having fun and its not productive. They move into what I call the “WORK” phase too fast. The “WORK” phase is characterized by the following:

  1. You are doing something “for real”. This can mean trying to make a business profitable or striking it out for real as a professional YouTuber.
  2. You want to execute a game plan for success. Success is a major focus, and failure is going to cost you something.

 

Instead of jumping into the “WORK” phase, with ANYTHING with a high degree of difficulty, you need to first go through a “LEARNING” phase.

This “LEARNING” phase is characterized by a couple of things:

  1. You have to be completely ok with failing and failing badly and over and over.
  2. You should focus exclusively on finding what you like about the thing you are doing (having fun).
  3. Exploring the thing, feeling out foundations should be the focus.

 

This is because success requires two things:

  1. Solid fundamentals borne from experience and mastery of the fundamentals
  2. Huge amounts of motivation due to the amount of hardship and failure you will experience.

 

The problem is, the “WORK” phase, when you have to perform and get results (make money off of your new business idea, perform on the piano, gain rank in the game) usually is not very fun. It is hard to build a good foundation or get motivation when you are so scared of failing.

The solution is clearly to not skip the “LEARNING” phase. Make sure you REALLY REALLY love the thing first, that you have tons and tons of fun, that you start to succeed without even trying before you start to TRY to perform when you switch over to the “WORK” phase. Maybe this means you start to make money off of the business you started, without even thinking about the business plan, or you start to rise in rank without even trying.

My visualization on the correct path for success.

The key part of the “LEARNING” phase is fun. Finding what you like about something is probably one of the most critical ingredients to success because motivation can pretty much overcome ANY obstacle.

Finding fun is both simple and difficult. Simple because all you need to do, is think about what makes you happy. Difficult because it is sometimes hard to pin down what makes you happy. You have to try many things. For me, letting yourself fail, is critical to having fun. With too much pressure, there is absolutely no room for play. I start every endeavor with the mantra, “I accept failure, it is ok/good to let myself fail”.

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Love and Hate

Byjack
Love and Hate

Sometimes I hate her so much

I want to break everything in my house

Smash it to pieces

Hit her so hard

I can feel some sort of relief

In my heart

So angry

That she refuses to give me

The girl I’m so in love with

Instead

She makes herself hard to love

She thinks she is taking back control

That this is what confident people do

That she will somehow stop the pain

If she ruins everything first

She’s afraid

That she will disappoint me

She doesn’t know

That she was enough

That even in my anger

All I wanted

Was to get her back

That I love her

And I chose her for a reason

She doesn’t know

All her pushing me away

Makes me so angry

Makes me so sad

Scared

Tired

Tired of being forced to ask myself again

If she is worth it

Tired of feeling doubt

When I already know

That she is the one

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Warm Days In The Middle of December

Byjack
Warm Days In the Middle of December

I run on the worn pavement

And it’s warm

So warm it feels like balmy spring

Not the middle of December

It makes wonder

How the fuel in the car

So hot

Can make our world burning up

Those plane flights to those wonderful places

Are the poison that fills the air

A girl who

You want to be with

Likes to hurt other people

For fun

December is sure

A strange month

And all the wonderful paradoxes

Won’t let me get out of my damn head

About it all

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League Challenge Rough Cut

Byjack
Like
  • Love the energy throughout
  • Love the beginning
  • Love the day title cards
Work On?
  • Maybe more music that is different
  • Try to make it more clear that it was the first game
  • Maybe make it more clear what is happened? (I’m the guy with the green highlight, screen turns dark, I’m dead)
  • Maybe explain my strategies in improving in league more? (Practice tool)
  • Maybe explain how league works more? (Explain mini games)
  • Break up the footage or shorten it more, might be slow at times.
  • Maybe explain that it was a two day challenge earlier?
Specifics
  1. 0:05 better grade
  2. 0:19 better grade, harder cutting
  3. 0:32 harder cutting, feels slow
  4. 0:53 timing feels off, out of sync with music
  5. 1:41 great energy but need something to transition better
  6. 8:30 more kinetic editing on final words
  7. 2:48 need to fade sound out from voice to cut off extra words
Thoughts
  • Need to draw inspiration from other league youtubers who post highlights (maybe Professor Akali?)
  • Take a step back, and work on something else for a bit, maybe my business idea. Need some time away to see what I want to do next clearly.
  • Get specific feedback from multiple people.
Gameplan

Overall, I feel like this is an excellent rough cut, great pacing and energy but it lacks polish.

To work on the polish I will:

  • Break down portions I need to work on and split them out to perfect them
  • Work with my brother or someone else by my side in order to make it easier
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Always And Forever

Byjack
Always and Forever

She told me that this was probably our last fight

But if that were true

If one fight was able to erase

All we built together

The world would make no sense

I think

We are meant to fight

A hundred more times

A thousand more times

We are meant to fight each other for the rest of our lives

Until we don’t need to fight anymore

And maybe it’s only then

We might separate

Because

Every time we fight

It feels like the end of the world

But really

It always brings us closer together

Always makes us stronger

I just wish

I was able to be there for her

When we are fighting

To comfort her

Tell her everything was going to be alright

To give her strength to get through it