THOUGHTS

PDF

ERIC KIM NEWS

ERIC-KIM-AI-CHATGPT-ART-DALL-E-3-GENERATIVE-ART-

Don’t be left behind: ERIC KIM NEWS >

EK MIND STREAM.

THOUGHTS

ART PHOTO BOOKS

SUITS

MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER

DOWNLOAD FREE // PDF DOWNLOAD // MIRROR

STOICISM

Introduction-to-Stoicism-14 Download

Delve into the mind of EK:

BOOKS

THE PHOTOGRAPHER

NEW CHATGPT BOTS

Crypto

ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Open source:

What is Street Photography? (2.4gb) / Download
Black and White (2.3gb) / Download
How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb) / Download
Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb) / Download
Conquer Your Fears (430mb) / Download
Composition (460mb) / Download
Masters (107mb) / Download
Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb) / Download
Photography Projects (1.4gb) / Download
Motivation (3.7gb) / Download

View all >

PHOTOLOSOPHY

What can you become as a photographer-visual artist?

DOWNLOAD FULL COURSE (7.4GB)

See the full course here.

STOICISM 101

Introduction-to-Stoicism-PDF Download

STOIC VLOG

Introduction to Stoicism

Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.

Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:

What does stoicism mean?

Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.

I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.

The new stoa?

One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.

The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.

Open air, open sun concept

Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.

I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.

Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.

Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.

The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.

Who is this philosophy for?

Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.

What is “real” stoicism?

Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.

So how did I discover stoicism?

I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”

I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic.

Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.

Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.

Who is worth reading?

First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.

In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.

The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.

I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out.

What makes Seneca so good?

I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.

A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.

For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant.

Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.

Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.

The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.

Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical.

Practical, praxis, practice — to do!

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.

Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.

Trust no thinker who does drugs!

Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead.

You let the drugs talk I let my soul talk ayy! – Kendrick Lamar

Simple technique:

First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.

Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.

For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.

Why does stoicism matter?

In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?

First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.

The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.

Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.

Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.

A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.

It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.

It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.

Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.

Stoicism and capitalism?

Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.

Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.

Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.

In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.

Sex and Stoicism

So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?

The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.

Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.

Stoic strategies

First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.

For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.

Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?

Monster in face, monster in soul.

I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.

Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon.

In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.

Demigod physique.

What has helped me

Allow yourself to be a bad, immortal, “evil” person. When you decide to adopt an unorthodox way of thinking and living, you’re going to rub some feathers the wrong way. And truth be told, even if you act in a strange vibrant way… At worse you’re only “mildly” annoying other people.
For good inspirations, I think the best stoic writers and thinkers include Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius and also the humor of the cynic philosopher Diogenes. I would even posit the idea that one could consider Alexander the Great as a stoic. Why? When you’re trying to create an empire, and you always have your life on the line, certainly this takes a stoic mindset. Also, let us think and consider that Alexander the Great had a copy of the Iliad by his bedstand, it was the only book he traveled with during his military tours.
Imagine the worst possible case scenario, and backtrack: Apparently even NASSIM TALEB would do this when he was a trader; every single day when he would go to his trading desk, he would assume that his investments would all go to zero, and if that wasn’t the case every single day, it was just upside. Therefore for myself, I just think to myself very simple; imagine like I got zero dollars, zero money, and literally all I need is meat, a Wi-Fi connection and I’m good.
Live like a poor person: The notion of “debasing“ the coin or the currency is the general idea that you are not a coward in regards to money. The best way to think about money is like a social tool; I think money is actually just codified labor. If you want people to clean bathrooms, run the cashiers stand, you have to promise them money. Even Seneca said the upsides of simulated poverty; essentially living like a poor person, or even a homeless person when you don’t need to… is the ultimate position to be in. Why? True freedom of spirit and soul; as a philosopher thinker writer or whatever… you cannot be “canceled”, because there is nothing to cancel. As long as you could pay your rent, buy meat at Costco, and publish your thoughts to your own self hosted website blog, and pay your server fee, you have 100% freedom. And also, still… America is the best place to be because there is true freedom of speech and expression, you don’t want to be a trillionaire but not be able to say what’s really on your mind. And I think this is the big issue with entertainers, actors, media people… as long as you’re signed to a contract, you don’t run your own production company, or, you’re still a slave to money… you’re not really going to see what’s really on your mind. Why is it that the Rock cannot say anything bad about China, or Tibet? Because he is still enslaved by the media corporation. New slaves by Kanye West.

And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities.

“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye

Stoic training

The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.

“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.

Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.

Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.

So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.

Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks.

Modern day ailments

Problems in modern day life:

Too much time spent indoors, not enough time out in the sun. Perhaps it is better to be out outside all day, and joyful, even with the risk of getting skin cancer or whatever… rather than to be indoors, scared, weak and anemic. Differences between if you’re a man or a woman, but still… the most beautiful skin has a sunkissed, olive color tone; the true privilege is having a full body tan.
Get chatGPT, the paid premium one. And use the image generation AI art tool DALL-E. People pay therapists to just speak their mind, and get some sort of sounding board. I actually think it’s much better to chat with AI instead; because it will not judge you, and ultimately what is a therapist anyways? A therapist is just a mirror, a sounding board for you to verbalize and flesh out your thoughts. Often when we talk about our problems, 90% of the issues go away because once we verbalize it, we feel much better about ourselves. The next thing I’m going to do is build some sort of therapy bot.
Not enough walking: I have never met anybody who walks 30,000 steps a day and is depressed. Even my friend Jimmy, who works as a US postal worker delivering the mail, he walks around 30,000 steps a day and is always bright cherry and jovial. I think this is also where people who hike a lot or walk a lot in nature are so happy; when you’re able to walk around a lot, and zen out… you just feel much better. My simple suggestion is when you go on a hike or a walk in nature or even in the city… leave your phone at home, or locked inside your glove compartment, and don’t bring any headphones or speakers or Apple watches or whatever. Just bring along your camera, and enjoy. My personal ideal is the bear lifestyle; walking 50 miles a day.

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.

For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.

A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.

Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury?

In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?

When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”

In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever.

Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person.

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife.

I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.

The future of stoicism?

For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others.

And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.

For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.

Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.

Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.

Stoicism is all about living with other people

Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.

And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.

In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.

More ideas

Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.

A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.

Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.

For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.

You just want to stay away from them.

Why so scared?

My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.

For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.

Why do people make such a big deal out of small things?

I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.

For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun.

In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me?

Weather and mood

Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.

Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.

I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.

Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.

Stoic assignments

”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche

My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.

Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.

True stoics are masculine

A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.

A real stoic is sexy

I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.

Why do adults become so dark and morose?

I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.

At what point or age do people become so emo?

Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.

I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.

A real stoic is a carnivore

Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.

Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.

If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.

The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.

Why do people care about animals so much?

Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.

I trust nobody who owns a dog.

Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”

End goals

What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.

Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.

For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.

I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West.

Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.

The physical

I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?

To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success.

Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.

Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.

Now what?

If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.

I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post.

Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.

Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere.

Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.

If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?

Editors are bad.

Now what?

Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.

ERIC

What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).

ERIC

FIN

Become invincible:

The Stoic Masters

Learn from the master stoics:

See all philosophy >

PHILOSOPHY BY KIM

ZEN OF ERIC PDF Download

IDEAS BY KIM

Masters of Philosophy »

Personal Philosophy »

Stoicism »

Zen Philosophy »

Life Lessons »

Learn more: Start Here >

Entrepreneurship by KIM

Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:

Think for Yourself.

FREEDOM

Never stop innovating.

Entrepreneurship Mindset

Put a Dent in the Universe.

CINEMA BY ERIC KIM

CINEMA BY KIM

Cinema and film as a great stimulus, aid and teacher for photographers and visual artists alike.

Cinematography and life lessons:

Cinema and Film Reviews

Space Films

Cinema and philosophy

GODFATHER

Gangster Films

ACTION FILMS

CITIZEN KANE:

Articles on Cinema

Why Photographers Should Study Cinema

Great Cinema

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THINKING

First, start walking in order to think.

So something I have not really came across yet is the philosophy of thinking. Why think, what does it mean to think, why does it matter?

First and foremost, thoughts govern the planet. For example, almost everything in life and in the world, is predicated on notions of thought and thinking. No thoughts, no future.

For example, it looks like Tesla is about to conquer the planet. The new redesign Tesla model three is mind blowing. They made the steering wheel more beautiful, they made the interior design supply me beautiful; an integrated curve, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive would be proud!

Also I think that ambient lighting thing inside the car is super cool. Some people might think it is gimmicky, but I think it is awesome! I remember when I first saw the integrated lighting booth thing in some Mercedes cars, and I think there is something to be said about light, Light therapy; colors affect our mood.

For example, anyone who says that colors don’t matter is a full. Would you want interior of your house to have bright red walls? Probably not if you don’t want to scream bloody murder inside your home.

Or, for people who say that color don’t matter, would you want to wear an all green outfit, with bright pink fuchsia accents and shoes? Probably not.

Cars run the planet?

still in 2024, I am still shocked; it looks like cars run the planet. What this means is that it seemed that maybe 60% of our economic activity is around producing cars, selling cars, buying cars, design cars etc.

For example I look at Hyundai, it is insane… Also the new Genesis Berlinetta concept car — also, the new Hyundai Grandeur and AZERA– like a futuristic Rolls-Royce for the future!

ART

The other day, it was free! The Lacma, L A Center for modern art, had this really insanely epic art exhibition, imagine like Legos and hot wheels on steroids; it was titled metropolis II, And imagine like a Connex erectors set, 1100 custom designed mini matchbox hot wheel cars, with this perpetual machine moving all of the cars in traffic and buses and reels, stacked on top of one another. Conjured ideas of that old-school 1920s metropolis film, in the future where everything is that, flying cars etc. or also, a vision of a topic science-fiction future, kind of like Blade Runner, or that one futuristic movie that Bruce Willis was in.

I love this exhibit so much because it’s stimulated my mind, and also, Seneca’s mind was blown! I think I rated as the best art exhibit solution of all time. I could probably watch it for hours, and not get bored.

If you’re in LA, Southern California whatever, I think it is a critical experience you must go to in person. Also what makes it a great exhibit is that it can be enjoyed by both children and adults, all ages. It is essentially a microcosm of cities, urban living, traffic and cars. The UltimateUltimate Takeaway point:

We all think we are so unique and individual, and special, based on superficial things whether we drive an orange sports car or whatever, but in fact, we are all just the same! A bunch of lemmings!

Sociology is great

So I was born in 1988, and I attended UCLA as an undergraduate, I started in 2006, graduated 2010. I wish I got into bitcoin earlier in 2009, when my roommate Kevin told me about it, I think when he first saw it on Reddit. He said that we should both put about 100 bucks into it and see what happened. I shrugged my shoulders and said “meh — nah, probably a scam”. if I do the math, 100 bucks, I think at the time somebody spent 20,000 bitcoin to buy a pizza on Domino’s or whatever, the infamous $500 million pizza, basically… What would 100 bucks times a penny be? How many bitcoin could that have purchased me? And what would it be worth today?

In life it is fine to make a mistake, and make a regret. But not twice. This is why and why I’m going back into bitcoin.

anyways back to sociology, I think the reason why I think it is such a phenomenal framework to understand the world in society is that I think all of this is just a sociological phenomenon. Society, capital, capitalism, living lifestyle whatever… I think about 80% or 85% of it is based on certain sociological principles.

Also, to understand the market, economics, I think it is all sociology. To understand human fear, scams, fraud etc.

also, I think studying sociology has made me unlearn a lot of the BS. To quote Karl Popper, via TALEB– the idea of falsification, subtraction, or the general ideas that in order to become more wise, you just got a subtract delete or get rid of foolishness, nonsense.

For example, conspiracy theories. Only fools believe in them. Even if they are real, it doesn’t even really matter.

Therefore a great advancement in ourselves our thinking etc. is subtracting deleting or getting rid of weird conspiracy theories from your brain and your mind.

Off the grid thinking

To me the grid is an interesting metaphor for a lot of things. The grid could be standard conventional thinking, “rules” and regulations, a lot of of the modern day BS.

I think primarily migrate power in life is my ability to distain ignore and find ridiculous all of these “rules”. In fact, at least in real life, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody as interesting as myself. The only other interesting people I think, or maybe Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kanye West. To me actually they are very relatable.

The photographer philosopher

Come on… It is 2024, you’re still on Instagram? To me Instagram is like eating McDonald’s hamburgers. Not proper.

Also, I’m still a bit confused… Why don’t more people people just start their own private websites and blogs? And no no no, do not use square space it sucks. Also fun dirty secret, maybe about four or five years ago I got an email from Square space, saying that if I converted my whole website and logging into Square space it would give me $15,000 or something. It was the easiest no I ever said in my life. Honestly speaking, I don’t even think I do it for $1 million? Unless there is something the updated which is really good.

To me the reason why I find the photography so critical is that ultimately we are visual creatures. What sells cars? Design. Design marketing, the idealized concept of something.

Design is God.

Once again the new Tesla model three, I think it actually looks 500 times cooler than any other Tesla car out there. And I’m glad that I am a late adopter, and I was not one of these unfortunate who bought an early model Tesla model model three or any other Tesla car.

To me the most important thing in a car is the steering wheel, because you look at it all the time, then interior and dashboard, and also the back of the car. And also specifically the door side driver side entrance, and also the rear left passenger side door, where I get in and out and load Seneca into his car seat and the car.

Sharing your thoughts

A simple way to live life, and to make an impact or whatever is to just share your thoughts. It is funny because people say all this ridiculous things like “that is just your opinion!” The best response: “of course it is my opinion!” Opinion, opine, just means to think.

This is where philosophy is very useful: people think that there are certain notions of “facts“, especially in the realm of statistics, but probably the most useful thing of studying sociology, is understanding that statistics is just a scam. I learned from Cindy (cindyanguyen.com), in her book and dissertation, that the notion of statistics comes from the state. The general idea is that statistics was a measuring tool invented by the state in order to track measure progress, something that the French colonists and colonial administrators did when colonizing Vietnam and her other territories, and also, what the Chinese communist under Modon, and also the Vietnamese communists also did. The general idea was this:

in order to track the legitimacy of something in the progress of something (let us not forget that the notion of “progress“ is a feeble modern day notion)– is that we got a track the growth of something in numbers.

Numbers are boring

I don’t trust nobody who either has some sort of loser Apple Watch, Fitbit tracker, has Instagram, or applies any metrics to their life. The only metric I find useful is maybe increasing your one repetition maximum in your weightlifting, simply as a measure to know that you’re increasing the weight. But besides that, things which are bad include white yourself on the scale, because you don’t know how much of that is body fat adipose tissue, how much of that is skeletal muscle mass, and even other things that people don’t talk about… How much of that weight is bones, sinews, Blood and water?

Both men and women are foolish: they tracked weight as a measure of their self-worth. But, the goal is to increase skeletal muscle mass, and decrease body adipose fat tissue. This is something that scale cannot do, the closest thing is either a fat caliper, or just look at yourself in the mirror. Pincher belly fat, or look at the fat in your face, or, you want to get rid of the infamous pet rules in the back of your neck. Something that I see that Kanye West has.

Why are we no longer permitted to be independent interesting thinkers?

It is weird, in today’s world, in America at least… We truly do have the greatest system for independent thinking and thought. Here unlike other countries, you will not get jailed for sharing your opinion. Even the most politically liberal or advanced countries in the world pale in comparison to America.

The problem though here is that all sides, all parties, all individuals are “nudged“ either into the left or the right, even this notion of being a political or being an anarchist or whatever is also just another lemming sheep mentality.

Or another words, put zero faith in anybody who watches any news, doesn’t matter if it is NPR, Fox News, Al Jazeera whatever. The simple heuristic is this: if it is being funded by advertising, google Adsense revenue, it is not to be consumed.

Only trust things that you are spending your real money on. This means, stop using Google. Google is a “free” service, and the way they make money is by sensationalism and banner advertising. Even nowadays I’m stopping to use Google maps, having those annoying Square advertisements that pop up when I’m driving, I almost feel like that is borderline unethical. Why? It distracts me from driving, I wonder if it will lead me to getting into a car accident one day? Google, whoever did that I google, Google maps team whatever… Shame on you.

Apple Maps is the inferior product, but at least it is not supported by advertising. Get rid of Google maps use Apple Maps instead.

First, focus on your health physiology exercise and physiological well-being and everything else will follow

The quality of your thoughts are simply an offshoot of the quality of your bodily physiological health.

For example just think; if you only sleep 30 minutes a night, four days or weeks on then, what do you think will be the quality of your thoughts? Optimistic joyful and happy? Or weird, morose, dark?

Or other thoughts, imagine like you’re in heroin addict, or hooked on some sort of meth. What will be the quality of your thoughts?

This is why I trust no thinker or individual who partakes and drugs, alcohol and weed. Although both are quite mainstream now. Why?

A lot of people are alcoholics, and a lot of people also apparently do a lot of writing and production of music and artwork when they’re drunk, which is bad. Even Kanye West, his a low-key alcoholic on and off, I think he said all the anti-Jewish stuff when he was drunk. And on Twitter. Being drunk and on Twitter at the same time or Facebook, not a good idea.

Also weed, weed is so mainstream now, it is not really seen as a big deal. But I also think it is foolish that some people think that weed has no effect on your thinking. Even Kendrick Lamar, his only vice is maybe Froot Loops and Captain crunch cereal.

“You let the meds talk I let my soul talk ayy!” – Kendrick

The reason why we should not trust any artists, rappers, musicians or whatever who are addicted to drugs any type of drugs, and yes, weed marijuana is drug… They’re thinking will not be pure. They’re thinking will be too overly saturated with the weird effect of drugs, anti-depressants, uppers and downers whatever.

Even Elon Musk, I rate him highly, but if you read the Walter Isaacson biography on him, he will discover that he drinks too much alcohol late at night, and just drinks Red Bull to stay awake. Not good.

Sober thinkers?

Am I the only millennial I know who doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke weed or take drugs? And have never been to a concert, EDM thing, etc.?

The only concert ever went to in my life was by myself, to a Yeezus concert at the Oakland Coliseum, Kanye performing live. The coolest thing of all time.

How alcohol is strange

A very weird trend I have discovered is this weird trend: get a bunch of tattoos, drink a bunch of craft beer, wear sunglasses and some sort of trucker hat, wear flannel, drive some sort of big truck or whatever, and to make the purpose of your life to just drink exotic craft beer?

To quote Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon, did you go to his personal website and look at his new section, he said he was never into watching sports and drinking beer because it just made you stupid and fat and lazy.

Even the ancient Roman and Greek philosophers thought it was a bad idea to drink wine, too much wine. The Greek Dionysian
God baccaus was the God of wine drunkenness and the dark. he was the original Satyr; essentially imagine these weird goblins with goat horns. or imagine the original “furry“.

Thoughts and money?

Is the purpose or end goal is to increase the quality of your thoughts, the productivity of your thoughts in order to become richer, to earn more money? No.

I think the ultimate goal is to become wiser, more critical in order to become more powerful. Power is simple.

Some tools to get you thinking

I have an intervening thought: in order to stimulate your mind, you first got a stimulate your body. That means, extremely heavy weightlifting to get your blood and your mind flowing.

A very simple one is purchased weightlifting equipment on the Internet, just work out at home, in your backyard front lawn, even you’re off the grid parking lot in the back of your apartment which I am doing right now.

The very very simple thoughts to exercise and fitness is do exercises and lifts which promote standing. Or walking. Upright exercises. This includes Farmer’s carries, dead lift walk, squat walk, Atlas lift etc.

The big issue at hand is a lot of these exercises at the gym and in traditional mainstream media has to deal with some sort of sitting or pressing motion. For example bench press, floor press, dump press, decline, seated military press, seated dumbbell press etc. But the critical flaw of these exercises is that they are all done while sedentary or lying on your back. And the big downside of this is that it doesn’t promote your walking or your posture, which might be the two most critical things.

I also thought to myself, what is it that causes the most amount of injuries? Any sort of pressing motion. Once again, bench press, shoulder press military press etc. There is almost virtually no injury that happens with any lifting motion, caring motion, or walking motion.

Also, using some sort of power rack, squat rack, or even getting some cinderblocks from Home Depot. Essentially if you’re tall, elevating the barbell off the floor.

Also one big thing that I’ve discovered, the great upside of not going to the gym anymore is that I’ve been exercising more in the authentic and honest way; I’m not lifting weights anymore to impress other people, I’m just there to use weightlifting as a philosophical tool to think better, to think stronger etc.

so what is the point of philosophy and thinking anyways?

The end goal of philosophy thinking etc. is not to make money, but rather, to excel and exceed in life. Also happiness. Everyone wants to become happy, or happier, even Aristotle says happiness is the only thing that men seek for the sake of itself.

People always think that having more money will make them more happy, but this is not true. Often having more money can make you more miserable, as often having more money causes more stress anxiety etc.

For example, let us say that you had $100 million in your Coinbase account, your bitcoin wallet whatever. You will probably end up using some sort of super secure password to lock and secure your assets. But the stress and the anxiety and the fear of having your phone stolen, your identity stolen etc. is even larger. And also the richer you get, the more you become a target to theft, identity theft, real life theft, even physical violence thread. Never forget the story of when Kim Kardashian tweeted where she was at, in Paris, and abruptly got held up at gunpoint from two mast robbers, demanding her jewelry and her pearl necklaces and diamonds, otherwise they would shoot her.

“What do you want me to do, drive around in a bulletproof car and with some tints”? – Kanye

Empty your mind

The best way to empty your mind is to delete Instagram, delete Twitter, even delete email in Gmail from your phone. Delete YouTube podcasts etc.

even music, modern day music. Even in music somebody is trying to sell you something. Maybe we should go back to the ancients, the ancient music, the ancient arts. Listen to dead composers, Beethoven and Mozart etc. Why? They’re not trying to sell you Lamborghinis or other nonsense.

Zen the fuck out (Big Sean)

Rather than adding obligations to your life, seem to remove or delete or subtract obligations from your life. This means, don’t take on more work, more contracts, more obligations. Rather seek to subtract all obligations to close to zero, even with the promise of a lot of money.

In fact I almost feel that is easier and better and more straightforward to make the big bucks speculating in cryptocurrency, crypto, and the market rather than just seeking some sort of consulting gigs.

What am I betting on?

For me, the big advancements I perceive in the future include AI, crypto, chain-link, bitcoin, open AI and Microsoft, ChatGPT and beyond.

What am I anti-? I am short Apple, Google. If you look at Google Bart, Google ChatGPT competitor, it is at least 100,000x times worse than chatGPT 4. For example I asked Google Bard who ERIC KIM was, and it said that I was a landscape and travel photographer? Terrible.

Why does the future matter?

to me, technology and the future is all about optimism, happiness and joy. If we want brighter more glorious future, we need optimism. The hope of a beautiful future, blue skies, clear skies, lots of sunshine, pure joy.

ERIC

Random thoughts

I just tore equinox, and was very unimpressed. It is like an LA fitness with a better conscience. Also you know it is not a good gym because the barbells suck.

Money

RARRI

MONEY THOUGHTS.

“White people make money don’t spend it, I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”. – Kanye

Thinking about money:

Why does this matter?

“Money sets the whole world in motion” – Publius Syrus

Do you know when people say that money makes the world go round? This is true.

So what is money anyways?

First, money is fiat, faith-based. Fiat currency.

Currency is an interesting word and term because it evokes the feeling of water, movement, river streams and tide pools.

So first of all, let us consider the notion of “income streams“. There’s this notion of “passive income”, I think first popularized or maybe coined by Tim Feriss, in his four hour work week. But I believe there to be a myth of passive income which means, income is and must be active. You cannot just sit on your butt and collect rent.

The myth of passive income

Also with rent, rent money is funny because even if you’re collecting rent, there’s a lot of work management you gotta do. For example, you have to fix and maintain your properties, make sure that your tenants pay their rent money, do background checks, deal with vacancies etc. It is one of those things that we as renters feel that the landlords have all the power, but in fact, assuming that you’re already wealthy, you actually might have more power as a renter than a landlord. Why? If you have a very good apartment and it is rent controlled, technically according to NASSIM TALEB you have greater optionality.

What that means is that you have a privilege to live somewhere, not an obligation. In theory you can leave whenever you want, and you’re not behelden to the property.

What would Aristotle, the ancient Greeks think?

In regards to the ancient Greeks, I think they may be the best model because starting from Roman times, their society already started to seep into degeneration, degeneracy. Even during Homer’s time, Homer was already saying that the ancient Greeks were falling into degeneracy, even when he was writing the Iliad.

I am currently reading Politics by Aristotle, and I find it to be a really fascinating read. Essentially what he says about household economics etc., as well as his thoughts on substantive versus speculative finance, real versus fake finance. He essentially says that real finance has to deal with animals and fruits of the earth, everything else is just imaginary.

Also, his thoughts on slavery. Essentially in ancient Greek times, the ultimate goal was to have the laborers, slaves, craftsman, mechanics do all the dirty work, and the true nobleman and free man would just use all of his time and leisure for building virtue, philosophical thinking, and participating in politics, the politics of the local city state, the polis.

In modern-day times we always think about politics like it pertains to international politics whatever. But the original term politics referred to the polis, the immediate city-state. It was not focused on foreign affairs.

What is the ideal city state?

What I like about Aristotle and his writings is that he’s always talking about the ideal, and talks a lot about studying from the best of the past and the current, in order to formulate his thoughts. Also his writing is straight simple and clear, and very authoritative. For example, he quotes Plato and his Republic, and straight up says: “Plato is wrong.” Almost as hilarious and ballsy as when Nietzsche said: “Plato is boring.”

True financial freedom

Two things: Pay rent money, pay for food and groceries, and basic utilities, like your Wi-Fi, gas and electric, gas for your car etc. Beyond that, what else do you really need?

Another fun experiment I’m doing is just paying for rent money by using the profit on my cryptocurrency speculations, simply using Coinbase, and profits from CHAINLINK. For personal reference, I am currently 90% invested in chainlink, 10% in bitcoin. I believe this to be an interesting barbell for a risky yet “safe” investment speculation, in thinking the next 30 or 40 years.

Also, in terms of our cryptocurrency assets, we don’t have more than 10% of our whole life savings tied into cryptocurrency. Therefore if it all goes to zero in theory, not really a big deal. But my personal belief:

Bitcoin will never go down to zero.

Decimation

A very interesting thing that I learned from NASSIM TALEB, maybe it was written in his book ANTIFRAGILE, is this notion of decimation. The basic idea is that in ancient Roman times the army, if cowardice was suspected, at random, 10% of the army would be put to death, it was a good way to prevent cowardice, especially one facing an impressive enemy.

10% is interesting because in theory, if you lose 10% of your army, it is not enough to significantly lose your forces. A 10% loss is more than acceptable. For example let us say that you’re playing StarCraft, and you got an army of zealots, all upgraded with dash and full armor upgrades, if you lose 10% of them, you could still kill the army of zerg maybe if you do good enough micro management of the units.

Finances is also similar — best to have 90% of your money in insanely secure bonds, CDs or stuff that might beat inflation, even a simple savings account at 5%. Then put 10% of your money in extremely speculative cryptocurrency speculations, rather than putting 100% of your money and boring “medium risk” funds.

“Never trust a risk number even if it is right.”- TALEB

Why we should not trust economists

First and foremost, economics, being an economist, is the new hocus pocus of modern day times. The reason why economists are so highly regarded is that currently speaking the new global religion is capital and capitalism.

Therefore as a consequence, the new modern-day priests are economists, and these fake talking heads on the TV screen.

The reason why we should trust no economist, is that they use fake numbers statistics and fake math to justify their thoughts and positions. Even Nate Silver, who everyone thinks is some sort of genius, mispredicted Trump getting elected into office. Why? Even if you’re a statistician with 99% accuracy, the one percent of the time you’re wrong, it could cost billions of dollars.

The reason why we should also not trust no economist is that most of them are protected from the real world. Their opinions reports and thought pieces have no connection to reality. A lot of them are getting a fat salary and steady paycheck from their tenured professor positions at Harvard Yale Princeton or whatever, and therefore the predictions thoughts they have, have no bearing on their own personal finances.

Better instead to trust individual individuals who actually have skin in the game, or money in the game. That is that your opinion is tied to your own personal bank account, if your opinion is right, you make the big bucks, but if you’re wrong, you lose your shirt.

Where I am coming from

One of the best things about growing up poor and when you have seen your mom go through bankruptcy twice is that in some funny ways, it makes you more brazen, less fearful. Witnessing my mom go bankrupt, because my dad gambled away the rent money and we couldn’t pay rent, and she would just rack up credit card bills just to pay basic expenses, what I learned is at the end it’s not that bad. My mom got family support, community support, church support, and ultimately she was OK in the very end.

So for myself, the reason why I have such a high tolerance for risk is essentially nowadays, I live like a poor person. My New Year’s resolution is to buy nothing; or close to nothing, or just to not buy stuff that I consider silly or superfluous. Even acquiring free stuff; to me that is just more clutter in my mind in my life and my home; we new elite is about minimalism, even to a fault.

Also, the American entrepreneurial spirit. Even my dad when he first came to the states, was extremely entrepreneurial. He started his own business when I was very very young, I think selling audio equipment. As he had a passion for music movies and film and cinema. I actually think his great ambition of life was to become a great film director. Even at a young age, I recall him watching Alfred Hitchcock the birds, Schindler’s list, and all these other great avant-garde films.

So now, raising Seneca, he is currently two years, around 11 months old… his training is very simple; simple, physical, Spartan. 99% of the day we are just at the local nature center, hiking on dirt paths, walking around, doing gymnastics at the playground, even now, I bought some wooden gymnast rings which I just hang from my parking spot in the back of my apartment, and he could swing around it, and hang around it! It is pretty amazing.

Another thing I learned from Aristotle’s Politics is that with children and child rearing, the logical order is first physical training and gymnastics, second is nutrition and feeding, third is the intellect. It seems that in modern day times we do the total opposite; we don’t really focus on physical exercise for kids, we just try to make them look smart. But book smarts is bad smarts; real smarts comes from the real world.

As a consequence, I probably literally spent close to no money on him. The only thing that we paid for in the early days were maybe diapers, and buying some random stuff on Amazon like training underwear, etc.

Now, he eats wagyu ground beef well in the air fryer, pro tip just toss a bunch of small broken up pieces of ground beef in the air fryer for 10 minutes, sprinkle it with some salt and pepper and give it to your kid! I think precisely because Seneca was born and fed such a high meat diet, he is the buff strong and tall boy he is today.

100% carnivore kid.

What should we use money for?

What is the proper use of money?

For myself, Costco. Funny enough it looks like out of all of my normal stock investments, Costco is doing the best! Why? As inflation goes up, food gets more expensive etc., everyone likes to think that they’re not being “ripped off”– nobody likes to think that they are overpaying for anything. Costco is funny because it is almost like Walmart but with a good conscience; a lot of middle-class even rich people have thought of Walmart as akin to the devil; whereas Costco has warm fuzzy feelings. Half of the fun even myself as a kid going to Costco was getting the hotdogs at the food court, and also getting all the free samples! Costco is almost like going to Disneyland, with benefits.

Meat

To me, the only real food substance is meat. You could thrive on 100% carnivore meat red meat diet, good luck with lentils beans and potatoes. That is poverty food. 100% red meat beef lamb diet is fit for the gods.

Let us consider, the nonsenseness of veganism; the etymology and history of vegan comes from vegetarian, vegetarianism. Essentially the vegans were the more hardcore vegetarians; the word “vegan”, essentially is the word vegetarian with fewer letters.

Why do people even go vegan in the first place?

Honestly I think being vegan is more of an ethical thing rather than a physiological concern. This is where vegetarians are more honest than vegans; a lot of people who are vegetarian do it for religious regions, for example people from India or south Asia, or some people just don’t really like the taste of meat or flesh, prefer to eat cheese eggs dairy and fish instead.

Thinking historically

What I also love about studying ancient history, Rome, the Iliad, thinking about Homer is that back then, there was none of this nonsensical being “woke“, or political correctness. The Greeks were a hard and simple race; you were either Greek or a barbarian. Even the word barbarian is originated from the notion of “bar-bar”– anyone who did not speak Greek, their language sounded like somebody saying “bar bar bar”.

And also this is where notions of “white supremacy“, or being “white”, is nonsensical. Were the ancient Greeks “white”? No. They were olive skinned, very tan.

We acknowledge and understand that the ancient Greeks were probably the peak human and society of its time; maybe it makes sense for us to go back to the fountains, and for us to seek to imitate the best of the best, the crème la crop of the past.

How did the ancient Greeks think about money?

First, in the time of Homer, the Iliad the odyssey etc.; there was no notion of coins, or coined money or currency. The notion of coin is actually pretty good, like bitcoin, because the original minted money was actually coins, not paper money.

Also, gold. Gold was always highly valued throughout all of history, even during the time of Homer and the Iliad. For example the greed of king Agamemnon, what did he want? More gold, more women, more land, more slaves, more power.

Even as a sidenote; an Achilles was told by his father figure that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he lorded over more men.

During the time of Homer, and the Iliad; wealth was concentrated in food and meat, oxen; the notion of a “hectacomb” was the generalized notion that if you wanted to appease the gods and make a sacrifice, you had to sacrifice 100 oxen, which was a lot. Why? An ox is interesting because you could eat it, and also you could use it as manual labor. Maybe back in the day, having one ox was almost like the modern day notion of having a Lamborghini; can you imagine sacrificing and burning 100 Lamborghinis to appease the gods?

What did Achilles want?

If I ever had to rename myself I would just need myself Achilles. Why? He is practically invincible; what is it that he wanted in the Iliad? Honestly he was tired of war and conquest and battle; he just wanted to chill out, retire, enjoy his land and pastures, and enjoy Breisis his prize.

Even Achilles said wisely; No amount of wealth in the world is worth a life, my life. Not if you took all the wealth of the world, all the gold of the world, and multiplied it by 65. Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever.

Even in today’s world, I don’t think sacrificing your life your own personal life is worth anything; I would only ever ever ever sacrifice my life it was for the sake of Seneca’s life, or Cindy‘s life, or both. Otherwise, I have zero interest in being drafted to go to some sort of senseless war, in order for America to procure more oil or whatever.

And this is where I believe that war is so superficial; would you be willing to send your own personal blood son, your first born son, to fight in the front lines of Afghanistan or whatever, for some sort of strange political advantage? No.

Buying a house?

Things are starting to get ridiculous. In LA and Culver City, you can’t find a good single-family home for less than $2 million. Even a $2 million or $3 million home, it’s not really in the best neighborhood either which is 100% pedestrian friendly. I was looking at this brand new $3 million house, which is pretty nice, but it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, I cannot enjoy my lovely morning walks as I do just walking from my apartment from the arts district.

Renting is superior?

I wonder if renting is actually superior than owning because you got more optionality, less obligation.

“You work for a living, I live for a living” – Jay Z

Ultimately what is it that we really seek to do, our desired activity?

I think what we really desire to do at the end of the day is physical activity, vigorous activity, to be physical. Physics, human physics, our own human body.

We want to walk around, go on hikes, be in nature, go to the beach, swim around, walk around mountain paths, pick up heavy things, throw around rocks, do fun gymnastics things, hot yoga, lift weights etc.

The ultimate luxury in today’s world is the human body. It all matter if you own 100 Ferraris, if you are obese, old and fat, none of it is worth it.

Even I was randomly doing some research about Hugh Hefner, the big issue is that apparently he just lived in his Holmby Hills mansion for his whole life, wearing nothing but silk pajamas, taking weird hallucinogen drugs and Viagra, in poor health, having sex with all of these random women, forcing them to do drugs, get plastic surgery etc.

I think the weird notion is a lot of men, they seek to become some sort of playboy? To grow a beard, buy a bunch of guns, have sex with all these women, massive orgies with all these beautiful women, for the sake of what?

The merchandising of women

In today’s modern day capitalistic society, women are the new objects, the new products being sold. The strange promise is this; you get rich successful and famous, you get the Lamborghini or the Ferrari, and then suddenly all these beautiful women will flock to you, want to have sex with you, fulfill all your weird sexual fantasies, etc., and suddenly you’ll be happy for the rest of your life?

It seems the weird sexual perversion we have in today’s world is that maybe… the trend is we want some sort of 100% subservient female sex bot, 100% obey us, and fulfill our sexual desires?

But let us not forget, the purpose and function of sex is for us to beget children; the hormones and the good feelings associated with it is to promote bonding between the man and woman, and to solidify the family relationship. This is where I am pro monogamy; even Zeus was married to Hera! Although he did sleep around a lot.

Buy nothing?

One of the greatest things that was born out of Covid was the Facebook buy nothing groups. Essentially close to 100% of all the baby stuff we got for Seneca was for free from the buy nothing group. Cindy would just message other moms, get a bunch of free baby hand-me-down stuff, and we literally paid close to nothing for all of his baby stuff. I estimate that from the buy nothing group, Cindy might’ve saved us close to $15,000.

It takes more skill to buy nothing?

Ultimately I think money is like some sort of game; the game of not spending money seems to be more interesting than spending money.

There is nothing morally or ethically wrong about spending money, the only issue at hand is when people spend money in some sort of boring way, they go into debt, credit card debt or whatever, and as a consequence, they lose their freedom?

***

Financial Fitness

I don’t know if this is yet a notion, this notion an idea of “financial fitness“. The general, generalized idea is this: we talk about physical fitness, physical health or whatever, yet we never talk about financial health, financial fitness whatever.

Perhaps the reason I don’t like or trust all these other random people who talk about finances ultimately, they are selling some sort of product, service, or they are sponsored by advertising and advertisers. The big problem about this is that their opinions are not pure, also in my opinion, not critical.

I have never met anybody in real life why consider financially successful, maybe besides my friend Todd Hata, who maybe works only one day a year, and he is enjoying his digital nomad life, traveling the world. His simple studio lighting company on Amazon is genius, his bread and butter is these photo clamps.

Another friend of mine who I consider very financially successful is Don Dillon, who made his fortune building up his own company, later selling it, and after building an art house in Arizona, later selling it, and just opting for more low-key lifestyle, just living in a simple condo with his wife Diane in Dana point, Orange County California.

Meeting real life successful people?

Something cool about Don, he used to own a Porsche race car, has a Porsche 911 GT three, ultimately, just prefers to drive his dodge ram truck around. At this point of life, he just wants to focus on travel and photography.

Also, another private workshop student of mine, who actually designed princes phallic purple guitar, also was in the Ferrari scene, I think he might’ve owned 10 to 50 Ferraris, used to go to all these car meet ups and racing stuff, it ultimately sold all of it, and just bought a simple Lexus RX car, to deal with the Minnesota winters.

Real rich or fake rich?

My personal hot take of LA, being in LA, even spending a lot of time in Orange County whatever, is that a lot of people are “fake rich“, this means that it seems that they are rich and successful and wealthy or whatever, but in fact, they are living paycheck to paycheck, and also are in deep debt. For example, as long as you have a mortgage on your house, you ain’t free. Doesn’t matter if your house is valued at five or $10 million or whatever, as long as you have to pay a monthly mortgage payment, you are still in debt. And don’t throw this nonsense, “equity”, around; or even notions of “net worth”, not critical. The only true wealth is to have zero debt, zero obligations, zero mortgage, own zero property.

Even the problem about property ownership, even if you bought the house or whatever in all cash; you have to consider maintenance fees, property taxes, home insurance — all which can cost $3500 USD a month! Same price as rent!!! And that doesn’t include the mortgage which in total can cost you twice the price of rent … $8000 USD a month? Seems like a scam to me.

Condo versus apartment?

I’ve been thinking a lot about condominiums lately, on one hand it seems like a good idea and on another hand it seems like a little bit of a scam.

I suppose a good thing about having a condo or only a condo, like my friend Timothy Flanagan is that if you’re abroad a lot and travel a lot, Technically the upside of owning your own home condominium thing is that ultimately, you have a place to store your stuff, a little bit more space, maybe you have a garage or a basement or something, and you could just leave your stuff there, somebody else will maintain your property, and after you travel, you still have a place to come back home to.

One thing I am actually insanely grateful for is the fact that Cindy, Cindy‘s mom, Cindy‘s family owned their own single-family home, in Orange County, and the great upside is that while Cindy and I was traveling the world, living off the grid, nomading around, living abroad in Vietnam Japan for about two years, we still had a home address that we could send our mail to, a steady home address where we could file our taxes, credit card reports, bank statements whatever. Apparently a lot of people who adopt a digital nomad lifestyle, and have no real family connections, the big issue is that still… It is good to have a solid and steady home address where you could send financial paperwork to.

Financial independence, retire early

Something also very cool that my friend Timothy Flanagan did was opting for an early retirement, I think he officially retired last year, maybe at age 52?

Also, an interesting funny thing is that a lot of people actually have the option of retiring early, if you’re in the school system you could technically retire as early as age 50! Granted your pension and your Social Security or your financial fund isn’t that much money, but still… to no longer have to show up to work, for the rest of your life, at the young and ripe age of 50 years old… isn’t that great?

Better to retire at an earlier age and live more poorly, than to retire at an older age and live more richly.

Work and identity

Perhaps the big issue here is that people put too much of their self-esteem and their self-worth into their occupation. Yet, if we think about the movie 300, and King Leonidas asks his Spartan 300; “what is your profession“? They all throw their spears into the air and go “woot!”

Spartan philosophy

So what is it that you really want and desire?

My critical thought is that it seems that honestly speaking, most people don’t really know what they want in life, nor maybe they don’t have the courage to actually pause and assert with a truly desire and want in life?

For example, I often ask people if you magically had $100 million deposited into your personal checking account, and never had to worry about money again… What would you do with your life, how would you live your life? The typical responses are a bit standard; travel the world, buy a house and some property etc. He had most people don’t really go beyond that.

To me the notion of financial independence retire early, “fire“, is the point in which you no longer make money cruel tied with your own personal self-esteem. Just think; once you could pay rent, pay for groceries and meet at Costco, basic utilities like gas electric Wi-Fi your phone bill etc., what else do you really need?

So now what?

Once you retire, or once you’re financially robust, then what?

My thought is just focus on art, your arts production, your creative activities, your philosophical thinking and writing and production, publishing your ideas thoughts and creations etc.

Let us consider that for most people, towards the end of their life, a lot of people who made their millions, and now are in their 80s, mid 80s, early 80s, late 80s… what is it that they focus on?

It seems art. Either art production, art purchasing, art accrual, art creation etc. What is the basic notion behind all of this? The basic notion is that people have a desire and an impetus to create art, share art, and propagate art. It is in our body, our souls, our sinews our blood.

Financial strategies for this year this new year

Simple thoughts:

See how long you can go without buying nothing. Join the Facebook by nothing group in your own local city and area, and it seems a really good way to build a real community. For example, ever during pandemic, Cindy became very active in the Facebook by nothing group in Providence, and now here in Culver City, and interacting and meeting people in the flesh, sharing physical possessions is fascinating because ultimately it is not even about the stuff; rather, The stuff that people give away for free is a totem of goodwill, and having the opportunity to interact with others.
Investing in your health and fitness: one of the important things to consider is that it doesn’t matter if you have $100 trillion in your bank account, if you only sleep two hours a night, are insanely sick, unwell, lack exercise and natural light, eat poorly, etc.… all of the money in the world multiplied by 1 billion isn’t worth it. Once again just think, does say that you only sleep one hour night, or addicted to methamphetamines, but you got $10 billion in your bank account, and the pain that you feel from 0 to 10 is a 50, is money and wealth worth it? No.
Think about digital real estate, rather than land-based real estate: it is insane, you could buy a “.com” domain for only 10 bucks a year, 20 bucks a year. This means you could own digital property for only one or two dollars a month! I’ve been on a bit of a digital rampage; gobbling up internet real estate. Currently I own some new fun domains which include ERICkimfitness.com, erickimphilosophy.com, erickimcrypto.com, ERICkimfood.com, ericKIM.LA, erickim.AI, and it was all inspired by Cindy who bought me the erickim.com domain for about 1000 bucks in 2017. Now I am sure it is worth millions. Typically when I am interested in a concept, I just go to godaddy.com, and I search whether the domain is available or not. Typically speaking the best domain to get is just a simple .com website, the new sexy domain which I actually really like is the .ai domain; don’t do the .io domain, which stands for input output, nobody has any idea what that means. Everybody knows what AI is. It seems that everyone has watched the terminator movie. They know what Skynet is.
Make and design your own clothing? One of the greatest benefits of living abroad, spending time in Vietnam, and also more recently going to Korea, is that I have been designing my own ideal clothes, my own ideal equipment, products, leather products, etc. For example all the HAPTIC PRODUCTS, HAPTIC INDUSTRIES PRODUCTS… I always thought to myself “If I could design and create my own ideal things products clothes etc.… what would they be and what would they look like?” As a consequence I created the HENRI line, the ERIC KIM line etc. How can you design and create your own clothes and stuff? Either just make it yourself by hand, à la cart, one piece by one piece, or, a simple way to do it is find a friend or a local craftsman, share your vision with them, share your design concept, and have them physically produce it. For example I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on my ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO BAG which I designed and produced while in Saigon in Vietnam in 2017, and it still looks insanely beautiful, and I get so many compliments on it! I have zero interest, -100% interest in ever purchasing any product at any foreign store. ERIC KIM is the new Balenciaga.
Delete Instagram: I think the easiest way to gain a 500% boost your personal happiness is via negativa; just delete your Instagram. When I deleted my Instagram in 2017, it might have been the best thing all time. And no, the current ERICKIMphoto Instagram account is not me; I think a virtuous fan of mine re-created the profile and populated with some of my images, which I find insanely flattering. Instagram is bad because it is the new digital slavery, the new digital serfdom. You are promised this “free” land, this “free“ digital real estate, but in fact at the end of the day, you owe nothing, you are indebted to this rented land. And as a consequence, you have no personal freedom. Very very simple; create your own website blog, and all you have to do is post anything and everything to your own personal blog and website that you would otherwise post to Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok whatever. Even Snapchat. The reason why this is such a good idea is that You built equity in yourself, rather than building equity for the platform. Let us consider how disingenuous these foreign platforms are; you do all this hard work of creating information, pictures, artwork, videos and media, music whatever, and these sneaky advertisers insert their own advertisements in between your content? Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit denigrating?
Think ancient: honestly the only ideas that I trust is anything that was written in ancient Greek, ancient Greece, and before. Even with philosophy, my personal suggestion is don’t read anything after Socrates. Socrates was a strange fellow, ugly, and he was the original person who tried to “virtue flex“, trying to make this weird notion of virtue as the Apex human male goal. But in fact, the only reason why Socrates took virtue as his weapon was because he had no army, no soldiers, no military power. He was the first tyrant of the soul and ethics; even my best friend Seneca the stoic sage was was too influenced by Socrates. In some ways we could think of Socrates like the original Kanye West; the first insanely radical thinker, who went contrary to all notions of good Greek behavior. As a consequence, a lot of the modern day philosophy we have today is perverted and weird and a bit boring.

Don’t watch nothing that has advertising, or is supported by advertising.

This is almost everything. This includes television, sports, magazines, newspapers, anything on the internet or blogs or websites that is supported by Google adsense advertising, YouTube, trust no YouTube, YouTuber who has advertisements on their channel.

The reason why it is wise to cancel advertising from your life is that your brain and your eyes and your ears is that we are actually much more influenced and nudged and brainwashed by advertising then we think we are. For example, I think the mind is actually very very sensitive; and as artists, we have extreme sensitivity to ideas sounds, bodily sensations… don’t think that you are immune to advertising. In fact, my personal wisdom is that I know that I am actually very very easily influenced by almost anything and everything; therefore the best way to protect yourself is active defense; delete delete delete, delete all the advertising from your life.

How does one best leverage money as a tool?

My personal thought is that money is just codified human labor. For example, the best way to use money, should be hiring labor. For example you have all these people in Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills etc., who want to build these big ass mansions. Of course there’s the cost of material, but ultimately, the most critical thing to consider is people who actually build it. What I have personally observed is that a lot of these Beverly Hills mansions are actually being built by contractors, who contract out the labor to Mexican immigrant workers, whether legal or illegal.

In California, whenever you see a person who looks Latino who works in construction, just speak Spanish to them. A lot of them are from Mexico, some of them are from Guadalajara, Honduras, other places from southern America. They almost all speak Spanish.

Speak to the janitor

It seems that the most interesting people to talk to is actually the people who run the facilities, hygiene, the janitor. Why? They really know what is behind-the-scenes.

For example, one of my new friends his name is Noel. He used to work at the California club, the extremely elite high-end exclusive club for politicians dignitaries, Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger whatever. He told me the true scoop behind-the-scenes, because when you work as a janitor and you clean spaces, You really do see peoples true colors behind-the-scenes.

For example, apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger is fake. In front of the other people on the cameras he smiles and takes pictures and whatever, but the second he goes behind-the-scenes, and there are all these Mexican Latino janitors workers and staff, he gives them the cold shoulder and doesn’t even acknowledge their existence.

Also, apparently a lot of the old money, the real rich people, a lot of them who have either passed away or are very very old now, are actually pretty low-key. They dress in plain clothing, and just drive some old Mercedes car, and a lot of their children, the heir of their fortune, drive flashy exotic cars like McLaren, Lamborghinis or whatever. We must consider nepotism; a lot of these kids, whose parents are super rich, simply inherited their wealth, and they blow it on stupid things like cars, clothes, drugs, alcohol, clubs, prostitutes, strippers, women etc.

So why do I care about all this?

I personally care because I grew up poor, and ultimately money is the thing that fascinates everybody. Even these stupid fake woke and hippie communists and anarchists; come on, they all have iPhones, have Instagram, maybe own a dog or a pet or a cat or something, and even if they want to live off the grid in Portland or the Midwest or whatever, they still have some sort of automobile car which requires either gasoline, or even recharging their electric car. I find these fake ass hippies to be very disingenuous, the new modern day losers.

How to thrive in today’s brave new world

First, I think it is a good idea to try to participate in local politics, the politics of your local neighborhood your local local city, local courthouse, maybe even the politics of your school, your kids school, parents association, the local nature center whatever. Certainly you want to add more obligations to your life, but having the privilege and the luxury of participating in politics is the new luxury.

For example, if you get that stupid traffic ticket, the traffic camera ticket or whatever, maybe even if you are in the wrong, it is a good idea to try to contest it, show up to court, and try to make a plea before the judge. You still might be charged, but, often you could do fun things like community service or doing other unorthodox things to get it off your record. Maybe we should think of this like a luxury; to “waste time” is the new luxury.

Other thoughts

To me, the best way to think about all the stuff is to think ancient Greek literature, even the ancient Roman stuff. Or maybe think about the Medici, Italy, coinage, international trade etc.

Back in ancient Greek times, it seems that a lot of wealth was produced via the sea; military prowess in the sea, as well as international trade, by boat. Consider all the wealth that was made importing coffee from Ethiopia into the Middle East, the term arabica comes from Arab, because the Arabs loved coffee, and the origin of the Araica coffea Plant was from Ethiopia. Later other strands were created in Java, and in Indonesia, I think the Dutch made a killing importing products goods from Indonesia and propagating it worldwide.

Even the international spice trade, and salt. Becken inch in Roman times, salt was one of the most prized commodities, a gold. Even the term “salary”, was based on the notion of paying a Roman legionary soldier with salt, or remember the biblical notion that a man is not “worth his salt“.

Debt

Apparently there is a really good historical book on the history of debt. I’ve been kind of meaning to read it, but from what I understand, maybe the origin of money is actually from debt.

For example, a lot of the early cuneiform form, and early writing was simply to see who owed what to who.

In fact, the reason why I am enthusiastic about this notion of a blockchain is that you can track money on a public ledger … the original ledger once again was to record debt.

Debt is the devil

It is commonly written in the Bible, ancient Abraham religious texts that debt is immoral. I think maybe even in the Torah, or Jewish law says one should not lend more than a certain percent of money to somebody else.

In fact, it seems that a lot of wealth is made unnaturally, by people simply moving around debt interest as well as loans.

For example, if you buy a house, but you take out a mortgage, who owns your home? Not you, the bank.

It doesn’t matter if you put 10% down 20% down 50% down or even 90% down… As long as even a fraction of that house is mortgage, the bank technically owns your house. It doesn’t matter how many times you refinance, borrow money against your home, it is still not yours.

So why does this matter?

Moral of the story:

Don’t get into debt, not for any reason. No matter how good offer may seem. Don’t go to a fancy Ivy League school if you got to go into debt, certainly not a UC. Don’t ever go to school for anything that requires you to go into debt. Only go to school if you have a free ride, 100% scholarship, for myself I pretty much had a free ride to UCLA, except of the fact that I had to do some work study.
If you’re in debt, pay it off as quickly as humanly possible. And actually, if you’re intelligent, see if there are a special debt loan forgiveness programs, and or whether you could do some sort of logical bankruptcy, which may ruin your credit, but get that crushing debt off your shoulders.
Essentially live like a poor person, or broke starving college student. Cook all your food at home, quit alcohol weed and media, and make it your focus to build your own empire.

ERIC

MONEY IN THE GAME.

Money Thoughts

“White people make money don’t spend it, I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”. – Kanye

Thinking about money:

Why does this matter?

“Money sets the whole world in motion” – Publius Syrus

Do you know when people say that money makes the world go round? This is true.

So what is money anyways?

First, money is fiat, faith-based. Fiat currency.

Currency is an interesting word and term because it evokes the feeling of water, movement, river streams and tide pools.

Also with rent, rent money is funny because even if you’re collecting rent, there’s a lot of work management you gotta do. For example, you have to fix and maintain your properties, make sure that your tenants pay their rent money, do background checks, deal with vacancies etc. It is one of those things that we as renters feel that the landlords have all the power, but in fact, assuming that you’re already wealthy, you actually might have more power as a renter than a landlord. Why? If you have a very good apartment and it is rent controlled, technically according to NASSIM TALEB you have greater optionality.

What that means is that you have a privilege to live somewhere, not an obligation. In theory you can leave whenever you want, and you’re not behelden to the property.

What would Aristotle, the ancient Greeks think?

What is the ideal city state?

True financial freedom

Two things: Pay rent money, pay for food and groceries, and basic utilities, like your Wi-Fi, gas and electric, gas for your car etc. Beyond that, what else do you really need?

Another fun experiment I’m doing is just paying for rent money by using the profit on my cryptocurrency speculations, simply using Coinbase, and profits from chainlink. For personal reference, I am currently 90% invested in chainlink, 10% in bitcoin. I believe this to be an interesting barbell for a risky yet “safe” investment speculation, in thinking the next 30 or 40 years.

Bitcoin will never go down to zero.

Decimation

Finances is also similar — best to have 90% of your money in insanely secure bonds, CDs or stuff that might be inflation, even a simple savings account at 5%. Then put 10% of your money in extremely speculative cryptocurrency speculations, rather than putting 100% of your money and boring “medium risk” funds.

“Never trust a risk number even if it is right.”- TALEB

Why we should not trust economists

Therefore as a consequence, the new modern-day priests are economists, and these fake talking Heads on the TV screen.

Where I am coming from

Another thing I learned from Aristotle’s Politics is that with children and child rearing, the logical order is first physical training and gymnastics, second is nutrition and feeding, third is the intellect. It seems some modern day tides we do the total opposite; we don’t really focus on physical exercise for kids, we just try to make them look smart. But book smarts is bad smarts; real smarts comes from the real world.

What should we use money for?

What is the proper use of money?

Meat

To me, the only real food substance is meat. You could thrive on 100% carnivore meat red meat diet, good luck with lentils beans and potatoes. That is poverty food. 100% red meat beef lamb diet is fit for the gods.

Why do people even go vegan in the first place?

Thinking historically

What I also love about studying ancient history, Rome, the Iliad, thinking about Homer is that back then, there was none of this nonsensical being “woke“, or political correctness. The Greeks were a hard and simple race; you were either Greek or a barbarian. Even the word barbarian is originated from the notion of “bar-bar”– anyone who did not speak Greek, their language sounded like somebody saying “bar bar bar”.

And also this is where notions of “white supremacy“, or being “white”, is nonsensical. Were the ancient Greeks “white”? No. They were olive skinned, very tan.

How did the ancient Greeks think about money?

Even as a sidenote; an Achilles was told by his father figure that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he lorded over more men.

What did Achilles want?

If I ever had to rename myself I would just need myself Achilles. Why? He is nearly invulnerable and invincible; what is it that he wanted in the Iliad? Honestly he was tired of war and conquest and battle; he just wanted to chill out, retire, enjoy his land and pastures, and enjoy Breisis his prize.

Buying a house?

Renting is superior?

I wonder if renting is actually superior than owning because you got more optionality, less obligation.

“You work for a living, I live for a living” – Jay Z

Ultimately what is it that we really seek to do, our desired activity?

I think what we really desire to do at the end of the day is physical activity, vigorous activity, to be physical. Physics, human physics, our own human body.

The ultimate luxury in today’s world is the human body. It all matter if you own 100 Ferraris, if you are obese, old and fat, none of it is worth it.

The merchandising of women

It seems the weird sexual perversion we have in today’s world is that maybe… the trend is we want some sort of 100% subservient female sex bot, 100% obey us, and fulfill our sexual desires?

Buy nothing?

It takes more skill to buy nothing?

Ultimately I think money is like some sort of game; the game of not spending money seems to be more interesting than spending money.

***

Via negativa money new year resolutions?

The simplest way to become rich is not to spend your money on superfluous things. This include the new iPhone iPhone Pro or whatever; real rich people either use an iPhone mini, like my friend Don Dillon or Todd Hata, or Cindy, or an iPhone SE like ERIC KIM.

Also, only poor people buy cars new cars. Real rich people just drive old Prius, white Honda Odyssey if you have a family, and all the silver Honda Civics. Even my brother-in-law whose family is super rich, a major investor in Tesla, just has the super base Tesla model 3 for the family!

Real investors in Tesla don’t own the expensive Tesla model S or X or even Y; they only own the cheapest Tesla model 3.

Join the buy nothing group?

Just go on Facebook and find the nearest “buy nothing” group close to your city. It is a fun game.

Also, if you really want to save money and stop buying so much stuff, just cancel your Amazon prime subscription.

Also, as much as I love Costco, technically Costco is a trap; it is easy to drop $600 on a simple Costco trip, maybe if you want to save money and just buy meat, go to the local butcher, meat market, Halal market, Mexican meat market, the local Carniceria.

The problem with Costco is that there are too many random temptations.

Do the labor yourself?

Another New Year’s resolution that I got is maybe I just want to do all the labor myself. Even though it is far less efficient and time-consuming. Even changing your oil, maybe we could just enjoy this is our new leisure. I recommend getting the full synthetic mobile 1 oil, the best.

Contest it?

Funny story: I just got a $555 speed camera traffic ticket for doing a rolling right turn through a red light. I watched the video in truth be told, I was at fault.

Maybe next time, I will just contest it and show up to court, as a fun leisure activity.

Ultimately after you become wealthy, the ultimate luxury is killing time in local city politics etc.

Now what?

The first priority is your physical health, your sleep your food your diet your exercise etc.

Quit alcohol, quit weed, quit pornography, quit sugar, whether real or fake, quit dairy, quit vegetables, quit fruit, quit starches.

Quit Netflix, any TV streaming show, stop watching movies that were produced within the last 5 to 10 years.

Quit the news, social media, quit YouTube.

TESLA IS AN AI COMPANY

The killer app for Tesla, Tesla cars, the whole Tesla ecosystem is not really the electric car thing, nor is it the supercharging network. Rather, the artificial intelligence and the computer vision and sonar and radar which allows it to become fully self driving, fully autonomous.

For example, the other day driving from LA to Orange County, about 50 minutes there, 50 minutes back — in total, close to two hours just for a simple family New Year’s dinner.

What was very concerning was on the drive there, I was already a bit sleepy, tired, difficult to focus when driving on the five, the 405, trying to keep in my lane and in traffic.

Then feasting on beef ribs, deep-fried beef intestines, driving back with mild food coma — having to crack the window up and down, pinch my ears and squeeze my thighs just to stay awake.

Simple thought: if a Tesla, even the simple $12,000 full self driving upgrade can save your life, it might be the best $12,000, $50,000 you ever spend in your life!

In other words:

Driving a Tesla can save your life, the life of your wife, your kids etc.

This is something that money *cannot* buy— to reverse your own personal death, and even more critical — the life of your kids and wife.

Honestly, the worst possible thing that could happen to you is not your own personal death, but the death of your child. I would sacrifice my own personal life in a heartbeat to save the life of Seneca. Why? He is my progeny; he is only three years old, and has his whole life to live. I have already led a full life, I would not really be so upset trading my life to save his.

Protection?

The ideal is you have a full self driving car, and you’re also 100% present. You don’t want to just put the car on 100% auto pilot full self driving, and watch a video on YouTube or something. The best approach is a hybrid centaur approach:

100% human supervision, and also having the machine the AI help assist you.

THOUGHTS

PDF

THOUGHTS

ART PHOTO BOOKS

MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER

STOICISM

BOOKS

NEW CHATGPT BOTS

Crypto

Introduction to Stoicism ￼

What does stoicism mean? ￼￼

The new stoa? ￼￼

Open air, open sun concept

Who is this philosophy for?

What is “real” stoicism?

So how did I discover stoicism?

Who is worth reading?

What makes Seneca so good?

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

You let the drugs talk I let my soul talk ayy! – Kendrick Lamar

Why does stoicism matter? ￼

Stoicism and capitalism?

Sex and Stoicism

Stoic strategies ￼￼￼

What has helped me

Stoic training

Modern day ailments

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

The future of stoicism?

Stoicism is all about living with other people

More ideas

Why so scared?

Why do people make such a big deal out of small things?

Weather and mood

Stoic assignments

True stoics are masculine

A real stoic is sexy

Why do adults become so dark and morose?

A real stoic is a carnivore ￼￼￼￼￼￼￼

Why do people care about animals so much?

End goals ￼

The physical

Now what?

Now what?

The Stoic Masters

Think for Yourself.

FREEDOM

Entrepreneurship Mindset

Put a Dent in the Universe.

CINEMA BY ERIC KIM

Cinema and Film Reviews

Space Films

Cinema and philosophy

GODFATHER

Gangster Films

ACTION FILMS

CITIZEN KANE:

Articles on Cinema

Great Cinema

Cars run the planet?

ART

Sociology is great

Off the grid thinking

The photographer philosopher

Sharing your thoughts

Numbers are boring

Why are we no longer permitted to be independent interesting thinkers?

First, focus on your health physiology exercise and physiological well-being and everything else will follow

Sober thinkers?

How alcohol is strange

Thoughts and money?

Some tools to get you thinking

so what is the point of philosophy and thinking anyways?

Empty your mind

Zen the fuck out (Big Sean)

What am I betting on?

Why does the future matter?

Random thoughts

Why does this matter?

Introduction to Stoicism

What does stoicism mean?

The new stoa?

Why does stoicism matter?

Stoic strategies

A real stoic is a carnivore

End goals

What is the ideal city state?

What should we use money for?

Real rich or fake rich?

So what is it that you really want and desire?

Other thoughts

Debt

What is the ideal city state?

What should we use money for?