COSMETICS & VANITY MATTERS 

To the fools who say that cosmetics and vanity doesn’t matter; they are fools. Why? Let us consider; almost everything is cosmetics and vanity when it comes down to it.

For example, our clothes, our cars, our lifestyles, our aesthetics cosmetics etc.

such as

For example, aesthetics are an ethos. What that means is we pride ourselves in the way which something looks, feels, etc.

I’ll give you a simple example; colors. And finishes. 

For example, think about the color of your clothes, your shoes, your pants your shirts, your rims, your hat, your house, your car, etc. This is very important; Because you look at it every single day!

It is my personal belief that there is a strong connection between colors and emotions. Then what that means is be very very critical and very very anal about when you choose the color of something, assuming that you’re going to have to stick with it forever.

The more durable color?

So far, for the most part, I consider black the most durable color. At least with clothing. What is interesting with black as a color option is that black clothing never goes out of style. Assuming that you wear all black to wedding, all black to a formalware, or all black  as your daily outfit, you’re not really going to falter here.  And also a funny new ones I’ve discovered is black clothes, even when it fades to a funny purple color, in my mind is actually quite stylish! 

And also, the great upside of black in regards to clothes and shoes etc. is that it is most resistant to dirt, getting and being dirty. For example I remember as a kid, having all white case with tennis shoes… How much of a pain in the butt it was to keep them clean, and every once in a while I would reapply white Cream paint to it, to repaint it, to make it look new again.

“My vans all back so they don’t get dirty” – The Pack, VANS SONG

With cars, it seems that white is your best bet. In terms of physics, especially living in Los Angeles Southern California and beyond; whether you like it or not, even practically by osmosis, your car is going to attract dirt. Even if you have an enclosed garage or an awning or a covering… simply driving around, all this dirt and pollution the air, is going to stick to your car like a magnet. 

I think once again, the only reason why black has become popular as a car color option is through media. Everyone wants to be John Wick, or Batman, or name your favorite superhero or your favorite action movie star. Or like Vin Diesel with his muscle cars etc.

But the problem here, this is where I think it is wise to get rid of media, TV shows, movies films fantasy from your diet and your soul is that none of it is steeped in reality!

For example, I don’t think that there is any films that glorify children, especially if the main action protagonist is a man!  The only closest example I see or saw was in the movie 300, the scene in which king Leonidas is sparring with his son and practicing,  or the scene in which king Leonidas is with his 300, about to march to their likely death at the hot gates, and the final farewell that he gives his wife and his son. And also, the scene between his commander general and his son, the commander seeing the head of his first born son cut off. And also king Leonidas, before taking his 300 to battle, ensuring that they all had at least one son to leave the family heir.

Maybe this is what makes Zack Snyder such a good Director; I think I actually in the early scenes when you see King Leonidas beating up and punching the other kids, I think the actor the child actor was actually his own blood son?

When you watch films, just observe… Does the Director have children, have a son as well? 

Son club

It is a desire of every single man to birth will have at least one son. I think the ideal is to have your first born child as a son, if not, typically what you see is that a family will keep trying, ad infinitum, until they have at least one son. This is why you often see so many families with two girls, three girls, sometimes even 4 girls. Or the funny bit in I love Lucy, with the expecting father in the waiting room with Ricky Ricardo with six girls? And then him finding out, that his wife just delivered twin girls? 

This is why, if you see families in which the older first child is a boy, and then family decides to have a second kid, it is typically a signal that they just really love kids and children, and wanted to have more. However if the oldest kid is a girl, And then they try for a second, not 100% certain to see whether they’re trying to have a boy or not.

Anyways, I’m only going to talk from the male perspective, and honestly this is something you just throw to the fates, and just be grateful for whatever child you bear. Even if you are a father, with only one girl, two girls or three girls… fret not, hopefully one day that your daughters will have kids, and then one of their kids will be a son. 

And once again, this is where it is wise to subtract mainstream media from your mind your brain and your soul. You do not want to be the childless or the sonless billionaire playboy – traveling the world in your yachts, banging all these beautiful babes etc. Don’t be a fool; the purpose of wanting to have intercourse with any beautiful women to produce beautiful children; the ultimate goal.

Having one son is worth all the wealth in the world multiplied by infinity.


The new manliness

Currently there is all this rhetoric, and all this cultural pressure, which seeks to demasculate men, to castrate them. Whatever that is all fine; but don’t let them F with you.

Walk around with your top off, proud, smile big talk big, be friendly, don’t be one of those emo antisocial losers; walking there adopted rescue dog or whatever.

Also, I am very very distrustful of men who almost become too focused about these progressive women issues; how much of this is virtue signaling versus the real deal what they really believe in? For example, ultimately what it comes down to is whether the man watches porn in private or not, with his VPN on, or in Google incognito, or brave browser, or brave browser with his privacy mode enabled. 


Tattoos?

Another thing that I am very anti-is tattoos. I think in the past, maybe tattoos was only for drug dealers and mafia members. Why? If you have all this illegal money, you can’t just nicely deposited into your bank account, so what do you do with all these hundred dollar bills, being like Pablo Escobar and burning it as firewood to just keep you warm?

 First, I think what a lot of them used to do was too simply get tattoos, because they really had nothing else they could do with their money. You could just hand your local tattoo guy stack $100 bills, and maybe the purpose of a tattoo was to signal your wealth on your body; if you have a full body tattoo, full tattoo body armor, maybe there is a signal that you dropped at least $100,000, $200,000 on tattoo work to your body. I suppose it is almost like covering your body with gold chains or a Rolex etc.

But, you can’t just extract the tattoos off your skin, and traded for any other desirable assets. Wealth and body tattoos is not liquid, you cannot convert it into anything, and when your family is facing dire poverty, you cannot just magically liquidate the tattoos from your body, and then use it to pay for rent. 

The aesthetics & ethics of Bitcoin

If you are apolitical, like myself, perhaps buying and investing in bitcoin may be the most ethical thing that you do. Why?

First, it is not controversial from a political stance. If you purchase American desirable property, in Los Angeles New York etc.… Sooner or later, assuming you’re not a fool, you’re going to have to become involved in politics, because the zoning restrictions will actually affect how you do business, your property values, etc.

So I think the truth of the matter is that the secret to getting really wealthy and real estate, you must be political, you must become involved in politics, etc.

But, if you don’t care for politics, real estate commercial real estate, even family home real estate — not worth it.

Energy efficient

Once again, anybody who says bitcoin is bad for the planet, they are fools. Typically I often hear a lot of women say this, I’m also distressful of men who are too much about climate change, environment, etc., they tend to be a bunch of skinny fat losers with man ponytails, ugly facial hair, Lam sunglasses, they might drive a Subaru, they may have a Hitler mustache, they might adopt dogs, watch porn in private etc.

Technically, bitcoin may be the most energy efficient thing on the planet. Why? You produce something, that has a half-life of forever.

Name anything on the planet in which you put energy to create something, it last forever. Nothing.

You make grass fed pasture raised quinoa, You’re going to have to consume it, and also package it and all this stuff which is bad for the planet.

Technically if you really really wanted to be the super hippie, you would have your own farm, your own pasture, your own cows, grow your own chickens and breed your own eggs, you would subsist on firewood, no electricity, no Internet no Wi-Fi etc. No iPhone, no Facebook, no Al Jazeera news, etc.


Ethics

Once again, ethics ethos, This matters.

First, treat everybody with love and respect, don’t be an antisocial loser or coward. If you may contact with somebody, throw them to peace sign, acknowledge them be friendly! Also, in regards to kids always acknowledge! I think the greatest tragedy of world is the average American just ignore kids. I say, you don’t have to acknowledge the parents, just acknowledge the kids! 

Also, at the age of three years, four months old… Even Seneca knows what bitcoin is. He saw a guy at the local pickle ball court with Boston Red Sox hat, which has B, and he said, bitcoin!

Get your kids to buy bitcoin with you on Coinbase app on your iPhone, and invest in the bitcoin right now, and have them see the value go up until they go and turn 18 years old, or 21 years old.

I have a fond memory in  elementary school, a PS 169 in Bayside Queens New York, in which one of our computer classes, we learned about stocks and investing, and for about a semester or so, there was this fake stock market game, in which all the kids started off with the same amount of fake money, and they had the option of choosing thoughts, and they would see that who would win by the end of the semester. There was some kids who were really smart, who just put 100% of their money into Apple stock, and they won. Note, this was in the mid 90s.

Teaching your kids economics

Teaching your kids economics, first starts with the parents. If you’re bad with money, or if you’re foolish with money, so will your kids.

Ever since Seneca was young, I would let him use my credit card, and check out at Whole Foods etc., teaching him how to grab my credit card and dip the credit card ship forward the correct way. I also then would give him paper money, to put into the automatic self checkout machine, and he would get so excited to get the coins back.

No, a new thing that I do with him is trying to teach him basic arithmetic, like a Trader Joe’s his favorite coat milk is $3.99, and I will hand him a five dollar bill, and then explain to him that he will get about a dollar a penny in change.  Even though he is quite young, three years old and four months… I think the best thing I’ve learned thus far is assume like your kid understands with 100% precision everything.  for example,  ever since he was born, I would just talk to him, more like being cute and whatever, not really seriously considering that he actually understood what I said. Now that he is fully cognizant, and that actually surprisingly, he is more or less fully fluent in Korean, and also English, and also Vietnamese… And also he knows his full alphabet in Spanish, he understands everything! He is his own person and being; and in my mind, I’m going to treat him like he’s a 12-year-old. Why? Of course he is not 12 years old, and certainly there will be a few things which goes beyond his comprehension, but my thought is always treat your child with free to expectations and goals etc., and they will rise to the occasion.

Think culture, not race 

For example , the good thing about Asian culture, is that getting straight A’s is a baseline expectation, not a big deal. Whereas the typical American, the thought is getting an A is an extraordinary feat. In Asian culture, to get an A is not a big deal.

The reason why Asians, Asian Americans excel in school is not that we are naturally good at math or whatever, the simple truth is different cultural expectations.

For example, an Asian Confucian culture, education knowledge reigns supreme. As a consequence, everything in Asian society is optimized and streamlined to being the best in terms of education knowledge etc.

Whereas in America, education is seen as a good thing, but not the most supreme thing. 

I always thought to myself, the best way that America could thrive was if they took all the money they spent on the military, and just put it into schools and education, it would solve a lot of the poverty issues in America. Even 10% of the military budget was done this way, I think this is a good idea.

10% of the military budget into schools; not enough to hurt the military defense budget, but substantive enough to at least reduce the teacher to student ratio sizes in schools. 

And also a simple thought about the 10% ratio; a good incentive to give your employees is a 10% share of the profit; enough that it motivates them to earn more money for you and your business, but not enough to hurt you financially, especially if you already live a frugal life.

Spartan economics

If you consider the economics of Sparta, it was very simple; keep the population small and tight, no need to extend your borders or boundaries, let the helots and the slaves do the dirty work, and the ethos of the Spartan men is to focus instead on more virtuous military training and combat instead.

In fact, I almost wonder if 99% of the focus of being a spartan, a Spartan hop light was in fact to just focus on military combat training, your whole life, and also for the life of your kids etc.

Modern day battle?

Personally speaking, I believe modern day American football to be the most virtuous and manly of all of the American sports. Why? The way it is structured, is like military combat. And it is the only physical sport which allows for physical tackling, which at least in the high school level, injuries are pretty rare. I think only the major injuries happen when you join the collegiate or the NFL, when all these guys are high on cocaine and steroids, and painkillers. 

How to make your kids anti-racist

I think it is obvious that racism is a bad thing. Everyone will agree with this, even the conservatives, Republicans or whatever. I think the main discourse is more about issues of affirmative action etc. But for the most part, being anti-racist is not controversial.

It starts with the father. If you’re a man, and you have a son… The first way you become anti-racist is to start with yourself. You treat everybody with equal respect, regardless of their pigmentation or facial morphology. The children will always mimic the parents.

For example, if the kids end up being racist, almost certainly the parents are racist.

Also one of the best ways to promote anti-racist thinking is to just get your kid into American football! Why? Here, a true sense of brotherhood. Playing football, we had the full rainbow crew; Every ethnicity race etc., almost evenly distributed. And when you are all on the same team, all racial differences evaporate. 

The problem with a lot of sports is that it is class based; for example, on our tennis team, the team was almost 90% Asian, and that the ongoing joke was average GPA of our tennis team was at least 4.2. Why? The truth of the matter is Tennis is a very elite sport because if you really really want to get good at it, at the elite or varsity level, you essentially need a private coach,  because tennis is not natural, and to get really really good at it, you need hours and hours, years and years of practice with a private coach.

And also, typically, tennis courts only exist in neighborhoods. Very rarely will you see tennis courts in the hood.

I think the reason why soccer is probably the ultimate global sport is that it is the most egalitarian. All you need is a ball; or something to kick around! No other equipment necessary.

Even basketball, in America there are basketball courts everywhere, which means even if you’re in the hood, at least you could get really good at basketball! By yourself!

But once again,  I think the primary thing to consider here is if you really want your kid to not be racist, put them into sports with mixed races, all across-the-board!

And also, if you consider yourself a progressive or a liberal and you see that the world is all bad, the solution is simple, don’t bitch and moan on social media, or virtue signal in the real world with bumper stickers. Have kids, and train your kid to be the change which you wish to see manifested in the world. 

And once again, my thought, typically wars unite people. For example, if one day we did go to war with China or whatever… I don’t know maybe we Americans would put aside our petty differences, and all become part of the same team. 

 And this is where I really enjoyed all of these films about aliens invading the planet etc. because all the human race comes together, to fight off the aliens. This is where I like Pacific Rim, also funny note, I think in the second Pacific Rim movie, which was financed by Shanghai mainland Chinese production company, the mainland Chinese in a good way. And once again, if aliens did, all nations, America Russia China etc., we would all sign a peace treaty, and just devote 100% resources to fight off the aliens. 

Did the Spartans see “race”?

If you think about Sparta, ancient Sparta… I think, there was no real notion of race; you were either a Spartan or a foreigner.

America is such a bizarre and funny case because here, obviously people look different. We have different morphological features, our faces our bodies look different, our hair is different, etc. 

But ultimately, if you live here, if you pay your taxes you are American! Simple as that. Even if you immigrated here illegally or whatever, as long as you pay your taxes, respect the old red white and blue. 

And technically, let us consider the first Americans who came here, they were the first rebels, who did “illegal“ things against the British, their original British overlords. 

Changing the world

Here, I encourage everyone to have kids. Even here, a really bad thing I see is it is considered bad manners to ask people whether they have kids or not, when you intend to marry, when you intend to have children, etc. 

For example in Vietnam, one of the first things you ask somebody is whether you have kids or not. In America, people almost feel indignant about it. 

You could have kids — it doesn’t matter what your gender or your sexual orientation is, I think everyone should have kids! 

Assuming you’re not addicted to meth, assuming that you’re rational human being, I think you would be a great parent! Your kids would be awesome! Doesn’t matter if they are your biological kids, foster or adopted whatever… in my eyes, all children are beautiful. 

If you had a traumatic childhood, like I did, the logic is to have a kid, and you raise them how you wish you were raised, not the opposite in which you desire not to have kids, because you don’t want to have another human being experience the same misery you did. 

Also, a sexual difference here; I find a lot of women, who had traumatic childhood, desire to bear children, because they don’t want to bring another human being into the planet which will face misery.

But with men… if you had a traumatic childhood or whatever… very very simple; you create a new society, without the badness you experienced!

The path forward

 I think some level were order of discipline, military discipline is a good idea. For example, it seems the best for raising kids is have them be spare, sports, frugal, Spartan.

Don’t buy them silly toys and diversions, rather, use that time to be 100% engage with them, run around with them, play with them, spar with them, take them to the park, leave your phone in the car at home etc.

Take your kid to the nearby nature center, nature preserve, have them run around in nature, or procure a football and throw around the old pigskin! 

Physical first.

ERIC


IMPOSSIBLE TO DESTROY EVEN IF YOU TRIED?

Or better yet, systems which becomes stronger after you attempt to destroy it? 


My boxer briefs?

So at our current apartment, we have one of these funny all in one washer units, made by LG, in which the value proposition is really fascinating: typically, historically, the apartment unit we are renting, doesn’t have much room for  a washer and dryer, as two separate units. As a consequence, our current landlord had the genius idea of installing these all in one units, which are great because it allows for us to have a washer and dryer in unit, instead of having to use one of those communal laundry things.

In LA, having an in unit washer and dryer might be the most critical thing.

Even one of the grand downsides of a lot of homes, condominium in LA is you still have to use some sort of communal coin laundry, which is a major pain in the ass, especially once you have kids!

 Anyways, the way that this washer and dryer works is fascinating, it first washes it, and then it dries the clothes at extremely high heat. However one of the grand downsides is that it destroys your clothes.

For example, last summer, I made a bunch of clothes, I designed and created two silk tank tops, which have now been destroyed by my all in one washer and dryer, and also the linen tank top that I have created, or also starting to slowly fall apart. And almost all of my merino wool clothes have been torn to shreds.

Often when you purchase certain clothing,  often there is a sign on it that you have to delicately wash them, maybe hand wash them, air dry them, whatever. Or have it dry cleaned at a local dry cleaner.

But when it comes down to it… sooner or later you’re just gonna get lazy and just throw it all on the washing machine. Ain’t nobody have time for delicate washing of your clothes, especially if you’re a man.

Anyways, as a result, I call it the durability test; ain’t no clothes worth having, if you cannot throw it in that washer and dryer 1000 times, without having it fall apart to shreds. 

For example, do not purchase any clothes from tenthousand.cc – I purchased with my own money these “tactical“ shorts, which were supposed to be indestructible, but already, after even a month or so,  there are falling apart at the stitching scene in the waistband! Terrible.

Also, even though outlier.nyc fine merino wool t-shirts might be the best T-shirt on the planet, after all several years about going through about five of them, once again all eventually sooner or later getting destroyed in the washing machine, I no longer recommend them. Why? Once again the durability test; sooner or later it will rip apart to shreds, through typical wear and tear.

Ain’t nobody got time for this! 

I also visited the family home the other day, and currently my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are on vacation, which means that their cars are sitting down in the the driveway for about two weeks, and it looks like my brother-in-law John had the wisdom to keep one of the cars charging, the 4 runner, with one of those electrical outlet battery charging packs, because I think with certain cars, if you don’t turn on the car every once in a while, if you just let a car sit to Dorman for a month or so, the battery dies.

Also I’m not 100% sure, but apparently the same thing happens with electric cars; if your Tesla is at 100% charge, and you go on holiday for six months, and you come back… Your Tesla might be dead?

I’m not 100% sure, but if you had a Prius or hybrid vehicle, you had a full tank of gas, you left the country for a year, would your car still start up? Not sure.

The best vs the most durable  

The other day I was with Seneca, at the local Pickleball court, the mini tennis court, and I was playing and teaching him how to play tennis, and throwing around the football etc., and Seneca wanted to bring over my satchel bag, but I forgot to clip it in, so when he dragged it over, the food container, my Lumix G9 camera, and the key fell out. Seneca said “Uh oh”– and quickly put the things back in, and I realize that he had dropped the LUMIX G9 camera on the hardcourt. I picked it up, it, and realized that it was just fine!

The reason why this is such a big deal is that the thing is built like a tank! I’ve probably dropped it on the floor, even on the concrete from waist level, maybe three or four times, and the thing keeps going! 

Lamborghini came out with the Hurucan Sterrato– which at first I thought was a very bizarre chimera —

Isn’t the point of a Lamborghini to be this sleek, typical road vehicle, all shiny and glossy and stuff?

Then if you look at the Lamborghini Huracan sterrato — in military green, the value proposition is fascinating; they lifted it off the floor a little bit higher, to give it greater ground clearance (I find this very innovative, because it looks like the trend of super sports cars, or even the tuner community is to slam your car as low to the ground as humanly possible, to the point that your butt is dragging), and it looks like they armored it up, kind of like an armored vehicle. Essentially, if a Lamborghini were to go to war, and needed steroids or whatever, it would be the sterrato. 

Evyn about a month or so, in the Culver City arts district I saw a Porsche 911 the car, which is the Abu Dhabi, off Roading desert Porsche 911; which is intended to be taken off Roading. As a consequence, They also did similar modifications to it, making it a bit taller, putting on beef your tires, roof rack etc.

Anyways, I saw driving down the street, and I had all this luggage on top of it, I thought it was super cool!

Lift your Prius?

If life were a video game,  I might do something similar to my Prius. Give it some steroid fender flares, make it look like an armored vehicle. Give it a stainless steel exoskeleton, like a cyber truck, a single blade horizontal tail light, maybe lifted, make it look bulletproof. 

And also, one of my great joys about walking around town with my 60 pound weight fest, is not only does it improve my posture, forces me to stand up taller, and move around more (the interesting thing is when you’re wearing a 60 pound weight, to stand static, to stand and not move, it actually causes you pain)– to keep moving, to keep walking, to keep shifting your weight around, doesn’t cause any pain.

In fact, I think it is actually better for you physiologically to just go on a leisurely paced walk, with your 60 pound weight vest, for a mile, rather than run at a medium high intensity or even a high intensity for 10 miles. 
In fact, the whole value proposition of running is insanely bizarre. I think people do it because they think it is good “exercise”? Or that they want to “burn calories“?

If this is the case, just drop them with a 60 pound weight vest, and see how they will fare?

Walking is sexier and more manly.

Once again, can you imagine the elite Spartan 300, prancing around town like sick gazelle? Nope. Rather, they’re just chilling, in their Spartan bikinis, tall, proud, chest up, with their crimson leather capes, glorious six packs and all.


Bodies are the future

What is the purpose of a human body, of sex, sexual desire? To have children! The reason why I find all this modern day millennial stuff so superficial is that none of it is around getting married having children etc.

If anything, all of these miserable emo losers have started a war against children, against families, against the marriage.

What is the purpose of biological, including the life of a human being? Super simple; having progeny– replicating yourself! Whenever you look at any sort of biological organism on the planet, even algae; or yogurt cultures, the living strategy is simple: consume resources, consume nutrition, and grow bigger, in whatever shape or form or manner which is most conducive to you.

For mammals, that is to have a totally separate child, which is a lot more startup energy, but has greater long-term benefits.

do you want to be old, alone, no children or grandchildren, when you are 80 years old inside a nursing facility?

I think the greatest things about philosophy, studying philosophy thinking about philosophy etc. is very simple; think of the way backwards, memento Mori, about the last stages of your life, looking back.

Nobody who is eight years old, senile, Alzheimer’s, wishes that they earned more money became more famous or bedded more babes. They wished they had kids, grandchildren, something that would outlast them. You cannot leave anything behind to your dog.  

And no, your dog will not outlast you.

 Digital durability

What is the hardest thing on the planet? Bitcoin. No matter how hard you try, you cannot destroy it. Even if you took all of the Amazon web services servers, all the Google servers on the planet, and tried to attack the network, you would fail. Even if you had $100 trillion worth of capital, and you tried to attack the bitcoin network, you still would fail.

Once again you have to think at least 300 years from now. What will last 300 years from now? Your children’s children’s children, your kids kids kids. You want your genealogy your lineage to last in theory indefinitely. I think this is the logic of having lots of kids; even if you have two kids, there might be a chance neither of them ever get married, never have kids, and when you are starting to 70 years old, and they are still not married, almost in their 40s, you start to get a bit concerned. 

For your Instagram your TikTok account be around 300 years from now? Certainly not. Maybe your YouTube account might; has not been taken down by Google.

I am certain that Google will be around 300 years from now, because at this point honestly, Google is the Internet.  also, unfortunately we will still be using e-mail 300 years from now, sending an email to Mars or whatever. And we might still have Gmail.

Maybe the exoskeleton of your cyber truck might still be around 300 years from now, but whether the battery pack or system will still work 300 years from now is a bit dubious;

Will humans still be using fossil fuels 300 years from now? Probably not.

If it ain’t broken, if it hasn’t broke yet… Good sign. 

We humans make the foolish mistake of always wanting to upgrade the newest technology the newest homes etc.  for example, very doubtful that your iPhone Pro will last 300 years from now.

Also, any sort of fashion trend you embrace in regards to clothes or whatever, this will also not last.

I think theoretically, there is a way that your website can last 300 years from now. I think the overall workflow is to have your payment for your website hosting to be linked to your bitcoin wallet, and just have it set up that indefinitely, your Web hosting fee will withdraw automatically from your bitcoin wallet. in theory this is already possible with Coinbase, and the Coinbase debit Visa card; it is my personal ambition for my website and blog to last at least 300 years!


Censorship proof, censorship resistant?

A random note and thought on nations. What is the best nation? The best civilization in nation is the one that has been around the longest! For example, China; China has been around forever; because I suppose the Chinese dynasty is intelligent enough to think thousands of years ahead; and also the way that the society is structured is that Individual doesn’t matter that much; it is all for the glory of the Chinese empire!

America is funny case– we are certainly the Apex nation state on the planet, by at least 10 X, but we thrive on individualism.  But anyways, capitalism isn’t going away anytime soon; certainly there will still be people gambling on the spaceship shuttle casino, on the way to Mars, and there will still be these ridiculous shopping centers on the spaceship, kind of like that space movie with Chris Pratt.

Once again, anybody who is anti-capitalism who owns an iPhone or an iPhone Pro, who uses the Internet, has a Gmail account, has ever watched YouTube, Twitter,  Went on a hike, traveled to Japan, been to Paris, etc.; don’t you fools know that this is all due to the glory of capitalism?

 Or, ever ordered a coffee at a local café, or red books at a book library, purchase organic foods, gone to a farmers market whatever… This is all capitalism.

 Capitalist

I have this notion of Spartan capitalism, in which perhaps the capital, the capital we accumulate and we build is not superficial things, but ourselves, our bodies, our mind etc.

The simple rule here is to think at least 300 years ahead:

  1. Have as many kids as humanly possible
  2. Produce media books literature texts etc. which you think will still be useful 300 years from now
  3. Try to build platforms and things which will last 300 years from now like Amazon, Google, Facebook etc.
  4. Be so insanely frugal that you could live your life to the max without having to “work” for the next 300 years
  5. Don’t invest in or build upon things that won’t be around 300 years from now.

Tesla

I’m pretty bullish that Tesla will be around 300 years from now. Why?  if we colonize Mars, and we set up solar panels, probably we will be able to drive the cyber truck around Mars.

Also, maybe we will still be using petroleum 300 years and now, but I’m pretty bullish and thinking that 300 years from now, the battery technology, the charging technology, as well as solar power technology will be so good, there will be no more need for petroleum. Bad news for the Middle East.

Also, I think 300 years from now… I think this notion of communism will just be swept under the rug. Even nation states like China will become more like oligarchies, in which a few rich powerful individuals, or like the new feudalism, individual rich families will control things.

My personal prediction is 300 years from now, Korea will almost become like the new America for Asia– southeast Asians, Vietnamese people etc., in search of a better life will immigrate to South Korea. And also, I think 300 years from now, North Korea will eventually be usurped by South Korea, kind of like how Ho Chi Minh unified the north and the south of Vietnam. 

Very certain that America will be around 300 years from now. Maybe Israel will be around 300 years from now, I think much of the Middle East will be a mess; Beirut Lebanon will still be around (the Phoenix), turkey or at least Istanbul will still be around, Paris and New York City will still be around.

Maybe will happen is that these great cities will still be around, like Tokyo, but the borders will become more fluid, or different?

 Let us consider, zoning laws are always being changed, either by politicians or companies. Even here in Culver City, there’s this new movement for predicting the next 20 years, and they are proposing new zoning laws. My low-key suspicion is that Apple is trying to create more commercial Real estate, as the new Apple headquarters for media and entertainment is now Culver City.

In fact, I’m sure that Los Angeles will be around 300 years from now, probably a lot hotter, maybe more polluted. People will still be streaming Netflix shows 300 years from now, I think there will still be some sort of iPhone notion around; 300 years from now we will not be walking around with vision pros; even 300 years from now, nobody likes the feeling of anything on their heads, or their eyeballs.

 no virtual reality contact lenses, these are a pain in the butt. And I also think that most people will opt not to do an elective surgery  to implant a Neuro computer chip inside your brains; maybe this will only be done to labor workers, the new peasants, digital serfs etc. 

Maybe 300 years from now, the new digital overlords will all be digital free; still sending their kids to schools with wooden toys, no devices etc., while the rest of these kids in the hood and in south central are still being spoonfed YouTube and Chromebooks?


Last

300 years or nothing baby!
ERIC


The Only “Upgrade” Is a Downgrade?

Lately I have been instituting this new rule I have for myself which is to not use any devices while I am at home. For example, first thing in the morning, rather than just opening on my iPad and scrolling around websites etc.… I just tried to put in my bag, my backpack, stay focused, Start pounding my espresso, and starting to think. And getting ready to head out of the apartment, to go on my ceremonious morning walk with my 60 pound weight vest.

Also more recently, almost naturally… I actually don’t really like to use the phone, or be on the phone. Using the tiny tiny screen on the iPhone, I’m starting to feel more headaches, or feeling dizzy, or just feeling unpleasant using it.

Even the same thing when I am using my iPad at the house, I feel a bit dizzy, unfocused, the overall feeling is unpleasant.

Now I think the critical issue that most people do is that they are always waiting to upgrade their iPhone, waiting for the newest iPhone Pro etc. But what if in fact, the proper approach to things was actually to think:

Perhaps the best upgrade is to just stop using your phone phone and your iPhone altogether?

In fact, if you were a really really successful person, like myself, my ideal would be to just not to have a phone at all; the only reason I have to use the phone nowadays is Google maps and navigation, two factor authentication to log into my financial accounts, and also, to FaceTime and contact Cindy. Besides this… I think the iPhone might be the ultimate productivity killer? Which means,

> Productivity is via negativa.

Which means, if you want to be more productive, throw your iPhone into the trash!  or if you really really want to be present, when you go to a family event, turn off your phone and lock it up in the glove compartment, when you take your kids to the park also put in the glove compartment, or if you go on a dinner date with your partner also just leave it in the car or at home!

Stunned?

I suppose the critical issue here is that I think, if I think of it critically, even when I am on my iPad, scrolling through websites and stuff… It makes me static, not move, too focused that’s staring at something on the screen. 

Also if you think about kids, the natural state of things is to always be moving, to always be dynamic, exploring the world, playing around things etc.

In fact, one of the most disturbing things I discover is that with kids, when they turn on some sort of television program or something, it immediately pacifies them, it becomes so static. I find it insanely disturbing.

Also, if you think about “success” in America… Why does it have to deal with becoming static, sitting on your butt, or being delivered entertainment, pleasure etc. All while sitting on your butt?

For example, watching a show, whether it be a theater performance, a musical performance, etc.

Or, fine dining or a buffet in Vegas; once again you’re just shoving your face with food, sitting on your butt.

Dynamics

The other day I took Seneca to the Koreatown Picco branch Public library, they have a really cool new maker space there, and there was some sort of computer 3-D paper cutting class, with insects and bugs on paper, in which you sat down with a pair of scissors, and what cut out Shapes and glue them together etc. Arts and crafts.

But once again the issue here is why was it done all done while sitting, sitting down? Why are there not arts, arts and crafts in which you’re standing, moving around, running around? 

Also as a sidenote, Seneca actually had the most fun playing in the corner with this marble kinetic set; in which you could create these ramps and these slides and you just put marble on top and let gravity do the work, it seems that Seneca loves most dynamic kinetics and movement!

Life

The most dynamic life, the most standing and moving around life outside is the best life.

Also, prioritizing your sleep, leaving a party early, to make sure you go home and sleep early seems to be optimal.

Anyways, now that forever LA summer is here, and the sun is out, and it is glorious… I feel really bad for people who have to be indoors all day, especially kids are forced to stay indoors all day. 

For example, air conditioning; air conditioning is insanely bad for your physiology. It is far better to be not indoors, outside, hanging out in the shade, rather than being stuck in some sort of claustrophobic indoor space, with the air conditioner blasting. I hate air conditioning in the way it makes me feel, in fact even the days when it is really really hot outside and the sun is really strong, being indoors with the air-conditioning blasting, in the dark, is actually very uncomfortable.

Sports

Seneca at the age of three years four months… Looks like I’m going to be become a sports dad! Gonna sign him up for tee-ball, which is the early version of baseball. 

Anyways, we went to the local park, and we found a football, and it brought back all these wonderful memories from high school in which I played football my sophomore and junior year; outside linebacker, then sideline Becker my junior year; both years being a starter.

Around “the old pigskin“, was sent Kelly was so much fun! Especially with American football, because it is oblong, when it hits the floor, the movement is fun and unpredictable! Seneca loves it! And also I suppose the good thing with the American football is that it is actually really easy for a kid to throw and catch, and hold carry and handle, as the football is soft, and quite big, compared with a baseball which is very small and very hard.

Anyways, when I was at the park I just left my phone in the glove compartment, and was 100% focused on throwing around the football with Seneca, and I legitimately had so much fun! I think the problem with having an iPhone on you is that you’re literally being distracted every other second, which never means that you could really really focus on anything or enjoy anything; for example, Letting your mind go follow, and just noticing the trees in the distance blowing. 

Come on, let us consider it; we are already photographers — we don’t need a loser iPhone or a loser iPhone Pro. We already have our own standalone digital cameras! Which means once again you could just leave your iPhone in the car, and when you are out and about with your kid or doing something or watching fireworks whatever… You could just bring your standalone digital camera instead!

“Downgrade”?

It seems that in life, we are always trying to upgrade things. We are trying to upgrade our lifestyle, upgrade our lives, upgrade our happiness joy and whatever, etc. But I suppose the issue here is that what constitutes a “upgrade”, versus “downgrade”?

Certainly materials matter. Far better to have linen or merino wool than cotton which sucks. The best innovation that I’ve done was designing and creating my own linen tank top shirts, I forget that I’m wearing anything at all! And it is so breezy and light. The second I put on a cotton shirt, just to try it out… Immediately it captures all the sweat, cotton sucks. 

Also, maybe the quality of components and furnishings. For example the reason why I am so happy grateful and joyful about my new apartment here in Culver City is it is literally the nicest apartment I’ve ever lived in my life! All nice Kohler components, and this matters.  For example, recently revisiting Cindy‘s family house, and the components they use at the house! Superficially they look nice, but they are all plastic handles, they feel cheap and flimsy.

Also suppose here, this is why Lexus cars are superior to Tesla cars; certainly a Tesla is the superior car, and also much sexier, but if you actually critically handle and feel the materials, feel the overall handling and the performance, the rigidity and the ride quality of a car… a Lexus is probably 10 times better. Why? Electric cars are expensive. So is the battery pack and all the technology behind it. Therefore, in order to keep the price point tenable, certainly Tesla cannot use the finest materials inside the car for the steering wheel, the seats, the doorhandles, the side trim etc.

God is in the details

For example, looking at the side trim of a car, the most critical part of a car to be insanely discerning about is when you’re about to enter the car from the driver side door, make sure there is no cheap plasticky looking components. Once again on a Lexus LS car, side trimmings, none of them is a cheap black plastic, they are all this nice lovely graphite shiny looking thing. Even my main critique on the Tesla model X, and Y… What’s up with that trim around the wheel wells?

Simple idea for Tesla —

Paint the wheelwells as well!

Even the new Lexus RX cars, it looks like they woke up and finally started to also color match and color paint the wheel wells, which makes the car look 1 million times more elegant!

What to upgrade what to downgrade

OK, in the context of clothing, less is better. For example, less material.

For example, assuming you have to wear a shirt in public, or you’re about to enter a private place, and you must wear a shirt, ideally it is a tank top; a 100% linen tank top, or a merino wool tank top. Scissors are your best via negativa Zen tool.

For example, if you have a black merino wool T-shirt at home, just take a pair of heavy duty scissors and cut out the sleeves!  I also recently did it with one of my old tank tops, in which I made it more like a crop top, because the bottom of the shirt was dragging too low, and I did not like the fit; very simple, cut out the parts you don’t like!

I was also randomly thinking about cars… For example when you expand your family, let me assume that I have one or two more kids, let us assume that I have three kids. If this were the case, I wouldn’t “upgrade” my Prius, even my friend Kevin who has a Tesla model three, has this “doona” slim car seats, in which he could fit two car seats in the back, and his nine-year-old kid could also sit in the back? Certainly it is a bit tight for the nine-year-old daughter, but come on… Growing up, at least me being Asian Asian American, it is not uncommon to shove more kids in the backseat!

Obesity, type two diabetes is the issue here?

How do you cure type two diabetes, fix obesity, prevent it etc.? Pretty simple. 

1. Never allow any bad things in moderation, 0% know. Hard rules.

For example Santa is currently three years four months, and he is aware of cookies and ice cream now, because he sees it in books, in real life, it is part of modern mainstream media in American culture. But here, here is where being a food Nazi is a good idea; once you expose it to your kid, there’s no going back. It is like giving your kid a cigarette and getting them addicted to nicotine at the age of 11 or 12… Which I witnessed myself in middle school with some of my friends or some of the kids at school. Why would you do this? 

For example, I think the number one thing I learned about sociology, social life etc.… Is essentially not to curb to peer pressure, social norms etc. And I think my whole life, maybe the reason I’ve become so successful is because in fact, the fact that I am more so than the average person able to resist social norms, or go opposite.

Even a more recent example, maybe seven or eight years ago etc. is me just quitting to drinking alcohol, not because of any more realistic reason I think it’s fine I just didn’t like the way you made me feel, and I would always get terrible hangovers, and also I just cannot sleep at night even after just one beer or one alcoholic beverage.

Also strange notions of a “balanced diet“. I’m starting to think that this is just propaganda from the Coca-Cola corporation, which tells you that if you exercise, right, you could have a Coca-Cola beverage here and there, because it is “only “120 cal, which will not cause you to get fat, assuming the calories in calories out there that the average human being as long as you maintain under 2000 cal a day, you will not get bad, which means if you eat 1800 cal of quinoa and beans a day, and have one Coca-Cola beverage which is 100 cal, but 38 g of sugar, you will not get fat.   but is this true? No.

Why is nobody strict anymore?

It seems that the critical issue in today’s world is that being strict has gone out of fashion. For example when I see modern day parents let their kids loose with candy, ice cream, desserts, drinking sweetened beverages, watching these stupefying shows on YouTube Disney+ or whatever… It seems that is that modern society, especially in America, there is no more rigger, no more discipline and I don’t think of discipline as some sort of moralistic or ethical imperative; rather, maybe having the wisdom to stick to your guts, to stick to your guns, and to not budge.

I’ll give you example — in intermittent fasting, I think the primary issue against intermittent fasting isn’t that it is “hard”, the more difficult thing I think for the average person is the fact that they succumb to social pressure.

For example, I don’t eat breakfast or lunch, and I haven’t done this for almost 7 years. So anybody who says it is not “sustainable”, I think this is wrong. The question is —

Will you succumb to social pressure or peer pressure or not? 

For example, I think stubbornness is a virtue. Especially in regards to things you care for and believe in.

For example, the modern day society we are taught and socialized and conditions that stubbornness is bad. That you have to be open-minded and yielding. However, I am grateful that I am so hardheaded, stubborn, and wise… In high school when all my friends started smoking, cigarettes and marijuana etc.… It was very easy for me to say no. And I never succumbed to social pressure in order to feel “cool”. 

In fact, the funny thing with pure pressure and smoking and marijuana in middle school and high school isn’t actually pure pressure, for example, let us say that you have a friend who smokes cigarettes, or weed, and they say “do you want to take a hit or try it?” Typically your friends won’t really put a gun to your head and force you to do it… Rather, they will offer it up to you, as an option, and as a kid you have the option to say yes or no.

And typically the kids get into smoking, smoking cigarettes or marijuana, why suppose nowadays vaping… The greater issue here is they just want to feel cool and included.

So, if you no longer care to be cool or included or whatever… isn’t this an insanely revolutionary idea?

Social pressure and food and beverages

In the UK for example, or in London, to drink a beer with your “mates“ is almost akin to brushing your teeth or wiping your butt after you use the bathroom. To not drink beer as a man in the UK… is almost like being a lady with a beard? 

And then the critical issue here becomes British guys trying to pressure you into drinking a beer, by calling you a pussy or whatever.

I actually remember one of the best self-defense mechanisms as a kid, or as a teenager… when your friends would tell you to not be a pussy, or “don’t be gay”… the best response was to say — “I love the cock!” No response from the other party. 

So perhaps the best self-defense mechanism in life modern day life… Is if somebody tries to bully you, the best response is to simply, and give them the answer that they don’t want.

Almost wonder if in silly feces tossing competitions, AK politics… When people try to insult you with some sort of silly argument, Don’t fight back, just roll with it but say the more comedic response.

For example, when I tell people that I’m in Todd quit investing, the first thing a lot of people say, especially women, is “but isn’t that super bad for the environment?” Maybe instead of trying to convince them why it is not bad for the environment, the best response is to just say “yeah, it is terrible for the environment… But it will make you super rich ha ha!” Or — “Fuck the environment, I love money more!” (Will you ever hear a real capitalist say this?)

Even when I would be at the gym, and I would load up the rack with nine plates and beyond, and when people’s jaws would literally hit the floor, a lot of guys would come up to me, even the really really strong buff steroided out guys, and they would ask —

“… Excuse me… Can you explain me what that is for?”

And then I would joke, and say:

For my ego!

And I would laugh it off, because I know that is what the other party is thinking, that “I am cheating“ in order to just boost my ego, apparently the notion of “ego lifting“ is a bad thing… But I think the wiser path is to acknowledge that yet, we all care to augment our ego, and actually this is a virtuous good thing! Example, everyone tries to augment their ego in different ways, one person by becoming some sort of environmentalist, another one by writing their bicycle, another one by to adopt a stray dog instead of having children, or another by deciding to go vegan or whatever.

Ego is good. In fact, I think the better path ahead is for us to be and become more honest and wise —

  1. The ego is virtuous, the best thing ever
  2. Rather than trying to kill our ego, or to diminish our ego… better instead to try to augment it?

Upgrade your body, diminish your possessions

Visiting the family house in Orange County in the suburbs after a while… Some thoughts:

1. Leg power … 1000 horsepower leg power?

Everyone tries to upgrade their vehicle in terms of horsepower, torque and horsepower, 0 to 60 speeds, or the height of their vehicle, getting a truck, lifting their vehicle, getting into Overlanding, etc. Or adding some sort of superficial aerodynamic modifications to their car, carbon fiber, lowering their vehicle… Whatever. 

But, the primary thing what we should try to actually be doing is upgrading our legs! For example, when you put your pedal to the metal, you’re sitting on your butt, etc.… What are you really trying to do here? I think, to push, push with your legs, to feel instantaneous torque, a sense of elevated power … isn’t it far superior instead, for you to increase the horsepower muscles and torque of your legs, in order to do the same thing? 

For example, everyone wants to brag about their Bugatti, their McLaren, their Porsche 911, 911 GT 3 RS, their Lamborghini, now cyber truck or whatever,  but, everyone wants to brag about how their car has 1000 hp, like having a dodge hellcat or whatever… But isn’t it far superior instead to upgrade your legs?

Then, the ideal and the desired outcome is for your legs to have 1000 hp! Or better yet… For your legs to have 2000 horsepower?

Or, sprinting? 

OK, I first find the whole notion of running at a medium high intensity to be absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps a better path forward is instead, to do sprints instead?

For example if you look at any ultramarathoner, they look like sick gazelles. Nothing but stick and bone. I saw a dude who look like an ultra marathon, running on the trails, no shirt on, and he looked like a sick antelope.

I think in regards to running, people mostly do it as some sort of weird moralistic ethical imperative… In order “exercise”, or maybe, to feel included as part of of some sort of community?

I would say instead, if you’re into running, get into sprints instead! For example, it seems the primary metric for any car is the 0 to 60 speed, even the new Bugatti has a 0 to 60 of 1.99 seconds, I think same as the Tesla model S plaid. 

For example, for the most part, nobody cares about how far the range of your car is. The ultimately care about how much horsepower it has, or the 0 to 60 speed, or the quarter-mile speed. It seems that we humans, we have a preference for maximum performance in short durations, rather than “endurance”.

For example, nobody cares that you do 1 million repetitions of curling a 1 pound dumbbell. Much more impressive to lift 1000 pounds, once, for half a second rather than tedious repetitions. 

Putting on a good show

Also, another truism; in regards to putting on a good show… Lifting over 1000 pounds on the squat rack is 1 billion times more impressive and interesting, then the buff guy at the gym doing strange pulley cable exercises. There is always a low-key crowd whenever you see a guy about two bench press three or four plates, or somebody about to lift over six or seven plates, There is always a massive crowd when I was at the gym, when I maxed out the barbell.

To show off, is seen as a vice; but truth be told, how many people say that showing off as a vice simply because they are cowardly? 

In fact, if I think more critically about it… All of the strange modern day ethics we have is instituted by Christian monks, Quaker protestant Victorian era individuals, and ethical philosophers like Socrates.

Ethics is the future

I’m starting to think about this more and more; perhaps to study ethics, to think ethics, to philosophize about ethics, is the future and the path forward. I doing the iPhone 35 Pro will be any good, and also, I think the reason why investing in the technology company is so difficult is the laws of physics, pressure for sales etc. For example, I am actually still quite bullish on Tesla, but still… To respond to the market pressures of always having to produce and sell more vehicles across the planet, seems like a lot of friction in the physical world.

I think the reason why Tesla is such a difficult business and proposition —  and the reason why Google is such a good business, is that Google is not predicated on physical products, physical sales, physical time and space. Google has to do all with the immaterial world; information, going through cyberspace… Which is weightless, travels faster than light speed, and cost-effectively nothing to move information.

Even the difficulty that Apple has is to produce phones and products, in the real physical world, and have to keep enticing customers to keep buying the newest iPhone, to keep upgrading. But I’m sure there’s gonna be a certain point in which people have iPhone pro upgrade fatigue, or they just don’t think it’s worth it anymore. Even, I’m one of the biggest apple and Steve Jobs fan boys that I know, and even now for me, the newest iPhone and iPhone Pro has zero appeal to me.  

Draining your physiological life battery

Don’t drain your battery, especially if you don’t have a recharging element. 

Don’t drive.

I’ll give you an example;  I think the reason why driving is so draining is multifaceted:

  1. First, sitting on your butt, even for a minute, I think has a physiological effect of depressing your body, both mentally and physically. For example, I know in the real world, I hate sitting, anywhere. Even the thought of visiting a theater, and having to sit for an hour and a half, to watch flashing lights on the screen and audio visual stimulation seems like a bad idea to me. I think that the proper way to watch a film or any video thing is to download it off-line on your iPad Pro, the small one, and then, to watch it while walking around town or maybe in nature?
  2. Opportunity cost: I think this is where economics and economic thinking is very very useful… Let us say you want to go to the nearest casino or entertainment hub, which is an hour and a half drive there, hour and a half drive back. Three hours in total. I think it is 1 trillion times better for your physiology health and overall happiness and mood and life mind expansion by using that three hours to just walk around town, go hiking etc. Even more recently, been enjoying taking the metro Seneca, but even the problem with taking the metro is that it is about 30 minutes you have to be static, and you are enclosed indoors; no exposure to the elements, the real world etc.
  3. therefore, I’m starting to think that instead, maybe the Spartan approaches the best. With the Spartans pull up in there chariots and horses, and go right off into the nearby town for entertainment shits and giggles?! They would just hang out in Sparta, train and battle, hang out, be outside topless all day, and chill.

KING OF THE STREETS

The other day, I was with Seneca, and went on a big adventure. We stopped by the central library in downtown LA, quite magnificent! Pro tip; if you drive to downtown LA, just park at the central public library, and as long as you have a valid Los Angeles public library card, it only costs one dollar with validation at the information desk for about two or three hours!

Anyways, what we ended up doing was exploring downtown LA a bit, visiting the Apple theater (great public bathrooms in the Apple building, in the Apple Store on the bottom level), walking by my old stomping grounds far before Seneca was born, a bit on Hope Street and on Broadway in front of ilcafe — tried to carry him and take him to santee alley in the fashion district, but it was a bit too hot, and there was another event happening at the library, so we decided to go next time. 

Anyways, I ended up shooting a street photo that I was quite proud of; why? A dude covered in tattoos, smoking a cigarette hanging out by the curb in front of a muscle car, very cool scene! I put down Seneca for a second, grabbed my camera, picked up Seneca, looped around in front to get a better angle, shoot a few photos, And continued on.

Also, walking along Broadway, actually saw about four or five street furs all hanging out and shooting together! On Fujifilm X 100 cameras, and I think I saw a guy with the film Hasselblad X panoramic camera, and actually think he shot a photo of me and Seneca walking by! I thought to myself; he will be shocked, when he develops the film, to see that he shot a street photo of ERIC KIM and his kid in the wild! (I had a very very low brim on baseball cap covering my face).

Anyways, it was a very happy sight, seeing street photography alive great and well! And also made me quite happy and proud of the seeds that I planted for a lot of street photographers of today. Certainly not every single practicing street photographer of today will not know exactly who I am; but I’m sure that the influential street photographers who are spreading the gospel of street photography today, have probably encountered my blog my work my YouTube videos, or my e-books one way or another. 

The death of Slim Shady

I was talking to a guy, who is also into rap and hip-hop music like me, and he told me that Eminem just put out a new album! I was quite shocked; and also very impressed because after all these years, ever since even I was a kid; I recall when I was a kid was by far the most popular musician, Eminem is still alive and well and making new music and albums! The best way to write who the greatest rapper is, the greatest of all time, the goat is simple;

The greatest of all time is the most durable of all time, who will last the longest. Or whose name will live on the longest.

After all is said and done, what remains? Names. First names and last names, or maybe even the last name.

Even quite funny, I took Seneca to public library event, close to the Otis school of design, and I met a mom and her two kids, and Elsa her husband who is also there… I told them that Seneca’s name was Seneca,  and the man lit up and said, “the Roman stoic philosopher?” I was shocked that he knew exactly who Seneca was, and we started chatting, and I later found out that he was actually a professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University — names last!

Make a good name for your kid 

And I think this is where names are so critical for your kid; a name signals a lot. 

I think the simple strategy is to consider an individual of the past, or maybe still alive, preferably dead, who has had a major impact on your life. And as a consequence, name your kid in honor of that individual.

For example, if and when I have a second kid, I like Marcus Aurelius after Seneca, but there is too many Marcus, so maybe I’ll just name the second kid Aurelius; weather boy or girl.

“If you know you know!” – PUSHA T


The path forward 

I think to perpetually and always restart, fresh slate, carte blanche is the way. What this means is never let your past self dominate or tyranny over your present self, or even your potential future self.

What that means is let us say in the context of photography, and life in general… Don’t be constrained to an old style, don’t just be trying to slap the same old horse to do the same old tricks, do something new.

For example, when I see certain, simply imitating their own style, for their entire career… It becomes a bit boring.

For example, whenever I look at the work search photographers, and that their technique approach hasn’t evolved at all in over 30 years, I find it pretty boring.

Much more interesting for artists who have allowed themselves to change and evolve.

For example, do you want to be a Charmander for your entire life? No! Ideally you want to evolve, find the fire stone, become the Charmeleon, then the Charizard!

Or do you want to be a magic car for your whole life? You want to evolve and become the Gyrados! And a random stoic thought; when others engage in annoying behavior, think of it like they are a Magikarp with splash; “It had no effect!” And you are a Golem.

random Pokémon thoughts

If you’re born in 1988, plus or -15 years, you’re probably played Pokémon or watch the show at least once in your life. I am impressed; even today… Kids of two days still know what and who Pokémon is!

Maybe the best strategy is to think of yourself as the level 255 Snorlax; with the missing no hack — your HP is 100,000, and when these annoying digits, try to attack you, they do damage, but it is only like 10 damage or something. Don’t make a big deal out of it. 

And also, whenever I meet people who look kind of my age, maybe a little bit older or younger, what I like to do is to ask him “who is your favorite Pokémon? Or who is your spirit Pokémon?”

Funny enough, this shows you a lot about somebody’s personality their character, and their ethos.

For example, I’ll never forget this moment; Ryan from backyard brew in Palo Alto asking me what my favorite animal was? And I responded “does it have to be real or not?” he then said no. And I told him Gyrados.  and he knew exactly what that was, and then printed me a free bag of coffee beans with Gyarados on front! He will forever have my favor. And I also am quite certain that he is the person who actually coined and invented the notion of minimum viable product, MVP. I think one of his customers might’ve stole the idea from him.


Anyways, let us take it back to economics, economic theory, business, capitalism in general.

being the number one person in your niche on the planet

This is something I believe in the past; best to become number one in a small niche, a very specific niche, then even to be number two or three in a more general field.

For example, in photography, the sea is too big. I remember once, in the past, when I was living in East Lansing Michigan, and I just wanted to meet some random guitar, I attended a random photography meet up maybe somewhere in Lansing or Detroit or something, And there was about 15 photographers, and it was a very unpleasant experience. The guys were just into HDR, and we just talk about gear and processing and all this boring stuff that I was not interested in. I’ve had the realization that having my personal interest in street photography specific… Even though we are off our first, we are like different beasts.

For example, even for car enthusiast, there is a lot of difference between somebody who is into trucks versus somebody who is into Lamborghinis. Or probably a huge difference between somebody who is into over landing somebody who is into drifting.

the planet is big enough

The reason why I think thinking about niches is interesting is that honestly now that we have over 8 billion people on the planet, what that means is even for a small niche. It is quite a huge impact.

For example, if you think, about the whole pie… The whole field of photography is actually still quite small. Certainly everybody has an iPhone now, which means that everybody’s interested in photography, but the field of people with standalone cameras or standalone digital cameras or standalone film cameras or whatever is still quite small. Does it matter? Not really. 

For example, most people do not own a Lamborghini or a McLaren or even a cyber truck. But, being part of a small exclusive club, isn’t this what people desire?

For example, whenever I meet people who are really into or film or whatever… And they don’t know that I’m actually a photographer, or they don’t know that I’m ERIC KIM… And I hear them opine about all this random films stuff, and they don’t know that I have a black paint film like MP… I feel like I have a secret weapon or a secret power. It is almost like if you were talking to a car enthusiast, and they had no idea that you secretly had Lamborghini in your garage. Or if you need to Tesla dealership and the workers there had no idea that you already had a cyber truck. Or if you own $10 million worth of Tesla stock, or if you were on the board of directors at Tesla or whatever.

Maybe I’m starting to think; best to just lie. The next time I step into a Tesla dealership, I’m just going to fly beneath the radar, and pretend like I am secretly on the board of directors, or a major partner etc. Same thing when going to an Apple Store.

Pick a fight

Do you remember that one scene in fight club, in which Tyler Durden gives assignments, and one of them is actually to pick a fight with a random person? Maybe I’ll start doing this more.

I think the thing that is insanely annoying is that people always try to punk on you, bully you, or have some sort of weird power trip complex, and they try to make you feel small.

Perhaps moving forward, I’m ain’t Finna let nobody ever bully me or my kid ever again, and even if I have a .01% inkling that the person is trying to bully me, troll me, or push me around… I’m going to react Like a bad bull. 

I think this is the annoying thing about service; that I suppose that end the day, I desire or I expect to be treated with great respect, maybe it is a result of my massive ego or whatever, and also I do fine… Because I am such a friendly jovial happy person, also because I am Asian American… People often treat me with less respect, when compared with others?

Throw out the race card or the sexiest card 

If you were Elon Musk, but maybe you had on a mask or you had on the disguise, and you stepped into a Tesla dealership, and let us say that your kid X was playing around on the Tesla cars, shoes on, touching stuff making a mess etc.… do you think that the employee would have the nerve to tell Elon to have his kids stop that?

Or, let us say that in fact, you built a library, or at least, you put $100 million grant to find the library renovation, and then some bad employee comes up to you, and tell you that you and your kid “must go” because he is crying?

A simple way of dealing with bad actors; I think it is a good idea to make a big fuss! Even if you are the bully, the bad guy, whatever.

I actually find a really really in raging, especially when I am inside a store and some minimum wage worker tries to size me up, like at the Lululemon store, not treating me with proper respect because I pull up dressed like a poor person?

I will still never forget when I pulled up to a Lululemon, complaining about one of my products which got ruined my shorts, and I was just wearing some sort of random military Campbell jacket, etc.… And the lady working there treated me with disrespect, assuming that I was the scammer or something because I didn’t pull up looking like a rich person?

Perhaps then, the best response is to speak up, knee-jerk response, loud, take up space, make a big fuss, even if you’re in the wrong.

When in doubt, make a big fuss, even if you’re wrong.

Why?

America is very bizarre; we are a bunch of passive aggressive wimps. For example, everyone always likes to complain about bad behavior, etc.… Yeah what will you all do is to complain about it in private, and we will never stand up for ourselves.

I think this is what people don’t understand; people like to point the finger at “white people”, peoples XYZ whatever… But, truth be told, everyone is low-key insecure somewhere, and actually in fact, everyone is being bullied somewhere!

no more complaining victim mentality 

For example, whenever I visit a new public library, and I have a good experience, I’d like to give it a five star review. For example the town public library is fantastic, they have a brand new maker space, and also a massive Epson printer, and you could print one huge 20 x 30 poster print once a week?

Anyways, I read a random review that one patron, suspected racism because the person had a Jewish American last name?

And then I thought to myself; truth be told… I think the average American doesn’t really know what a “Jewish” last name is. But, it was only once I became 34 years old that I started to learn that certain last names were Jewish?

.

Vanity objects

Even though  I have not touched my film Leica MP camera for about five years, it is still a great vanity option that I’m so happy that I have, which I’ll own forever, and pass down to Seneca, and have Seneca pass it down to his son, as infinitum. The film let go will be like the new family Rolex.

I said this in the past, but my personal thought is the only camera I could ever imagine lasting 300 years might be a film Leica mechanical camera. Either the film Leica MP, or even the film Leica MA, which has no mechanical things at all. 

Should you buy a digital Leica? Probably not. In the year 2024; it is more of a vanity object rather than a practical one. Better to get the new Lumix S9 with the pancake lens, and just put your money into bitcoin. 

Hats off to Ricoh Pentax for making that new film camera! Even in the year 2024!

***

Bitcoin & street photography 

Everyone wants to make money, make money from their art their Fatar you whatever… But the old method of selling prints or whatever, is a very 19th-century idea. We live in the year 2024; shouldn’t we think about the 22nd century and beyond?

The first thought, maybe the best way to just make money is just to put into bitcoin! One bitcoin hits $1.3 million a coin, what that means is that your minimum wage job of today, will at least 10 X or 100 X from now. 

Therefore from a simple monetary perspective, the very simple idea is just make money from bitcoin! And in terms of your photography and screw photography, just do it free; giveaway your photos for free as full resolution JPEG images, give away your information your e-books and your ideas for free, no need to monetize it!

I think monetization is simply a means of people who desire some sort of legitimacy from doing something, rather than thinking critically about their own self-worth?

For example, we tend to have this very very silly notion that somehow if you make money from something, and make a lot of money from something, you could essentially metricate your self-worth. 

And it is true; the simplest way to judge somebody else is how many ones and zeros they got behind them.

But this becomes funny because how much of that is actually real money versus this fake notion of “net worth”?

For example, let us say that you meet the guy in the Lamborghini with the scissor doors, or the guy in the McLaren, or whatever hyper sports car of your dream etc.… What if that person is $10 million in debt? Then his net value and his net worth is -$10 million… Which means he is $10 million poorer than you. 

I fucking love this city!

Almost a year in living in Culver City, I fucking love this city!  best city of all time, certainly within the context of Los Angeles.

There is no second best city after Culver City

Beverly Hills sucks, Holby Hills sucks, 99.9% of LA sucks.

City is the only walkable city in LA, maybe even the whole West Coast? Even better than New York, because you don’t have to take the subway everywhere.

Culver City is the best city in America?

Best weather, best people, best services, massively growing tech and entertainment industry, the future.

Building your name

Your best asset is your first and last name. Make people remember it. Just be like James Bond.

Bond, James Bond.

Kim, ERIC KIM.


TIME

Time is the ultimate instructor, and reveals all things.

For example, do you know who your true friends are, based on time. If you have been friends with somebody, or have kept in contact with somebody for over a decade, or two… It is a signal that you truly care for them.

Also, durability, things which last, people which last. Artist, Art and ideas which last.

And also, often it takes a really long time to just figure things out. For example, I truly believe that it takes one at least two years upon moving to a new place that you figure out how to truly live there well. 

For example, I think the optimal duration to live somewhere is at least two years, before you decide to Lillypad and lily frog off onto somewhere else.

For example, it took at least two years while living in Providence Rhode Island, to figure out how to live their virtuously, making new friends, knowing where to go, building a sense of community etc.

Also, living with Cindy‘s family, her mom‘s house, the family house in the suburbs of Orange County. Took us a while experimenting with a bunch of stuff before we figure it out exercise and fitness related and living related things; for example Cindy discovering hot yoga there, And rediscovering my local gym, buying my Texas power squat bar etc.

I’m close to almost a year and living in Culver City, here in LA, and I’m starting to think and feel that I am actually starting to kind of figure things out. For example, I’m starting to understand a little bit better traffic patterns in Los Angeles, essentially you never want to leave your house after 3 PM, you never want to be in a car Ideally after 2 PM.

I think this is why the Geo location in which you live is so critical, especially in the desirable city like Los Angeles. Why? It seems like the optimal strategy in life is to optimize things in such a way that in theory, you never want to be in a car for more than five minutes a day.

I’m so lucky here in Culver City; I Culver City, especially the arts district in the downtown area, at least 100% or 100 out of 100 in terms of walkability. And also the great thing, if you just want to go on a local hike, go to the mountains, go to higher elevation it is only a three minute drive or so. 

Anti cars

First and foremost, I love cars, so does Seneca. We love the design, the concepts, and more recently, at the age of three years, four months old, he has started to understand that race cars uses stick shift,  And he is interested in it, even the civic type R which has a stick shift.

The other day, super funny kind and random, met a guy named Jason who owns a 720 S McLaren, I think his job is being a car hunter, His vanity license plate says “CARHUNTER” I think — but anyways, chatted with him a bit, and he said “Does your kid want to sit inside my car? And I said of course!” so Jason pulls up the butterfly doors in his $350,000 car, and Seneca hops in, sits inside the cool bucket seats, with the orange stitching and seat belts, plays with the steering wheel – so cool!

But the funny thing, later that day I asked him whether he liked the McLaren, and he said no. I asked him why? He then told me that he didn’t like it because it only had buttons! That it was not a stick shift! Mind blown:

If a race car or a sports car doesn’t have a stick shift, it is not a race car or a sports car, or at least it is not interesting? 

The thing which is actually really funny is that people will just tell you that there is really no more reason left for stick shift, because technically paddle shifting or automatic transmissions are actually superior faster etc. But then again, the argument could also be said about butterfly doors, scissor doors, suicide doors, billionaire doors etc.; there’s really no functional use for it anymore.

The Lamborghini Countach,  the reason why it had scissor doors or the reason why it was invented was because the way it was designed, it was too difficult to see behind you while reversing, so before denting your $500,000 car, the driver would actually pull up the scissor doors, look behind them, while slowly reversing.

Now that all the cars have reversing cameras, there is really no reason to have Lamborghini doors anymore. It is all for show!

And that is OK, but shouldn’t we also make the same analysis that similarly speaking, a manual transmission is also foreshow? And that is OK?

Show boat

In America, we have this very very bizarre and strange notion; on one hand, we idolize money wealth, people who make a lot of money etc. Essentially people who make a lot of money are more powerful than you, more successful than you, and also, superior to you.

From moralistic perspective we know this is not true. And also it is not always a desired thing. 

For example, some of these jobs, like being an extreme plumber, the smell is so horrendous when cleaning out sewage, even being 10 feet away from a really really bad smelling sewer pipe, I almost feel like throwing up. I would not take that job for being paid $100 million a year.

Also, I think this is a good logical case against prostitution; whether you prostitute your mind your body your soul, your butt hole whatever;

No amount of money is worth it. 


“Everyone has to make a living”

This is obvious. There are certain non-negotiables in life like paying the rent, find groceries etc. However, much in life is optional. And I think this is where wisdom knowledge experience, or thinking unorthodox is wise.

For example, I think the number one critical foolish mistake people make is cars, their automobile, etc.

If you want to be a rational human being, it really really seems that the optimal car here is a used Toyota Prius. I recommend the 2010 model up to the 2015 model, which in my mind, has the best design, the most “JDM” (Japanese domestic market, tuner); design, and also, the car has just been on the road forever. The generation before that, the first generation Prius I think looks too bubbly, I hate the design. But I think the 2010 model, has it spot on. 

Even another funny nuance, something I never really thought about; trunk space. I think the new new Prius looks super cool, if you see it from the back it looks like a Porsche 911 with the horizontal blade tail light. However,  the trunk on it is tiny! My sister-in-law Jennifer bought a brand new one, and when I opened up the trunk, I was shocked! It looks like at least 40% smaller in terms of trunk space compared with the 2010 Prius? I suppose this is the trade off that you make in trying to make it more like a fastback coupe design. 

iPhone Pro is only for poor people

How do you know whether somebody is successful or not? Simple– real successful people only use the cheapest iPhones; for example, iPhone SE, or iPhone mini.

It is insane, I see a lot of these working class families, poor working class families, the parents have iPhone pros, often the kids have it too. And the big problem here is that not 100% sure, but I assume that most people don’t buy the iPhone Pro all in cash, they either finance it, or maybe get suckered into some sort of expensive Contract, or something… In those people perpetually stay in poverty.

What is the best way to stay in poverty?

  1. Have a car payment or a lease payment for the rest of your life
  2. Always buy the newest iPhone pro for the rest of your life
  3. Drink alcohol, smoke weed, do drugs, go out, go to the club, go to Vegas, go to festivals
  4. Stay subscribe to all of these streaming services, which is also bleeding you dry!

How did George Washington die?

George Washington was essentially bled to death by his physicians. And let us note, that his personal doctors of the time we’re like imagine having the most reputable Harvard or Stanford doctors, treating you.

During that time, when there was a pseudo scientific notion of humor, blood blood leading, bad blood or whatever… The idea was you have to open up a vein or an artery or something, skillfully let out a portion of “bad blood”, and that your ailment would go away… Even for a long time Koreans believe the same thing, if you were sick, You would use a needle a sterilize needle to pin prick your finger, let out a little bit of “bad blood “, and then, your sickness will go away. We all know this is not true, and because of this pseudoscience, George Washington died.

Also other things; my best friends Steve Jobs. I think in the early stages of his cancer, I think he had liver cancer or pancreatic cancer, he was into all these strange fruitarian, nonsense, in which the general idea was you could somehow starve away the cancer cells by consuming nothing but fruit juice? If they just zapped him with the chemo earlier, he might have actually lived!

Anyways, the first thing you want to do is stop the bleeding. Stop the energy loss!

I’ll give you another example, heating and insulation. For example, during the Los Angeles winter, it actually gets surprisingly cold. And the best way that we were able to stay warm inside the house was to just put up the wind draft insulation thing! We discovered that there was a bad draft coming into the home, from the front door. So even though the house was nice and toasty, it would eventually become really really cold because All the hot air would leave the front door, and all this cold air would come rushing in.

So instead of just blasting the heat 24/7, we did the more effective thing of buying the wind blocker thing on Amazon, installing the heat retention gap insulation stuff on the front door, and then magically, passively, our place retained about at least 40% more heat!

Retain the heat!

I remember the kid when I discovered how jackets worked, I was a bit shocked. I remember as a kid, I always believed that when you put on a jacket, the jacket added heat to your body. But then what I realized was in fact, all the jacket does is retain the heat that your body already has! Mind blown.

 And also, now that is getting really really hot, another funny thing I discovered; actually, when it is very very hot, the easiest way to stay cool is actually to just take off your shirt, and wear minimal clothing! Why? The human body is actually very very well adapted; the hair follicles on our skin do an excellent job of dissipating heat. so when it is really really hot, assuming you have sunblock on or whatever… Optimal strategy to stay cool is just takeoff your shirt! This is what they do in Vietnam all the time and it is not a big deal.

Shorts, and your shirt off!

In America, we still have this bizarre Victorian relationship with our body. The reason why it is so hypocritical is that first, American media glorifies the human body. We all want to look like a marvel superhero, with a six pack, huge bulging biceps with veins and all etc.

The women all want to look like the Baywatch babes; happy, Sunkissed skin, happy smiling, juicy cleavage, firm yet plump butt etc.

But the problem is, I’m starting to realize more and more, I can’t believe I only discovered this at the age of 36 is that most of these people are all artificial!

For example, being here in LA, I’m starting to understand or spot better when women get plastic surgery done to their face! And the workflow is simple; if people have done to their face, it is not uncommon for them to have done their chest or their butt.

For women, first look at the face! Then judge everything afterwards.

And also for men, I’m also starting to see… If you see a guy who looks buff, maybe he has tribal tattoos or something, but is also really really red, like unnaturally red, it is typically a signal that they are on steroids or some sort of weird testosterone and boosting thing, because apparently Steroids overheats your body, and as a result your body turns really red. And also you lose hair. This is why whenever you see a guy who is bald, but with a really really long beard, and is super buff, maybe into CrossFit… Perhaps a signal that they are on steroids.

So then what do you do? You ignore all that! Just focus on yourself, it is impossible to know with 100% certain whether other people take steroids or not; yet, it is easy to know 100% certainty whether you takes steroids or not. And also what plastic surgery you did or didn’t do.

Seeking beauty?

Currently I think we are going through a strange time, I called the uglificarion movement. There is now a new cult of ugly. Ugly clothes, ugly hair, ugly bodies, ugly facial hair etc.

It is prevalent both in men and women.

For men, this seems to be the ironic stereotype — even Seneca gets confused by one of our neighbors. 

For men, it is too either get some sort of ugly facial hair beard thing, or to be a clean cut and have an ugly Hitler mustache? And then somehow cover up your eyeballs wearing really really dark tennis sunglasses, and some sort of hat or trucker hat?

“Unrealistic”?

 the new learned helplessness:

The idea is, learned helplessness?

I think they did some sort of social logical experiment in the past in which they were just keep zapping a poor dog with electrical impulses, and the dog would keep shouting back, yelping back in pain. But after repeat exposures, no the dog would no longer react, Just slide down there helpless. I think they also did a similar experiment with prison inmates or as a torture device; that they would take these prisoners, and just keep electrocuting them, or torturing them for information or whatever, and the torturers would have a kick out of torturing the prisoners, because obviously when you torture somebody, they rile back in pain. But after a while if you do it long enough, the prisoner will no longer react. They will just curl up in a ball, and even though you keep zapping them, it no longer becomes fun for the prison guard. And even after a certain point, the prison guard feels kind of bad about it, and then eventually just goes away.

What is the number one culprit? Everyone thinks it is social media, but actually I think it’s just the news in general. A combination of the iPhone always connected to the Internet, and the ideas that you are constantly injecting your soul with high fructose corn syrup and type two diabetes for the soul, which is news.

All news is toxic. And social media, let us Facebook, is also very toxic because think about how insidious this is; monetize human suffering.

For example, I found out the other day, that somebody we knew in college, very loosely, has three kids, is about my age 36 years old, and is apparently in the last stage of stomach cancer and is going to indefinitely die in the next three months? if you read that, of course this is going to mess up your heartstrings! And affect you for the rest of the day, certainly for long period of time. And then consider, after you read that news, in your newsfeed you see some sort of advertisement for a superficial something?

Evyn apparently now, the millennials the zillenials the generation Z is starting to fight back against Instagram, if you look at the Instagram app in the App Store, read all the negative reviews. They are even trying to do this thing like creating private stories, just for your close friends and family? But as long as they put advertisements anywhere in the Instagram app, it is bad. 

Maybe there is something unethical about monetizing human relationships, social relationships, human emotions, and also our sense of well-being? 

Even my radical things; for the most part, just disable all the notifications on your phone, besides FaceTime. Stop using text messaging. It is bad.

Also a nuance; on the iPhone go to the settings in the phone app, and disable or silence phone calls from unknown callers, a good way to avoid spam.

Then make FaceTime your ultimate filters; if somebody decides to FaceTime you, it is a sign and the signal that  they are your real friend.

In fact, I consider FaceTime to be the most underrated app of all time. It is pure magic!

If I told you as a kid, that you would one day be able to use your phone, and do a video teleconference phone call, with a phone that fits in your front pocket, wouldn’t you think that was magic?

It seems that we have devolved backwards; even though we have the ability for FaceTime, we prefer to text messages instead? What is this the 90s?


The path forward

Distill

I think NASSIM TALEB quotes some sort of aphorism or saying, which goes something like “The ruthless jaws of time shall devour and only leave behind the strong”.

Even when you think about some of these amazing structures of the past, the buildings and the monuments and the architecture which have remained is typically a signal that the architecture of the thing is strong; if the shape of a pyramid lasted thousands of years,  time tested it, and shows in fact that a pyramid is a strong and robust design.

This is why even studying art and design, studying the past is a good idea. Why? Really really really great art of the past, this will last. I think 99.99% of the modern art of today, which has to be “explained” to you by some sort of constipated skinny fat loser with Thick spectacles, has less merit.

Even in the bitcoin standard, which is surprisingly 95% a book about the history of money and economics, the author saif critiques modern art,“ somebody who says that effectively all modern art is based on irony, and some sort of bad joke?

Also I would comment the same thing about modern day photography; it is all far too emo, disconnected,  ugly, ironic, and boring. Even my teacher Constantine Manos said “big and boring. “ Like printing out a really really big photograph or painting or artwork, and framing it really really big. “But ultimately if it is boring, just making a bigger doesn’t make it more beautiful.

The return to joy, happiness, gayness

Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore; Fernando Galliani. 

What is the best personality? I say this; be loud, gay, boisterous, outspoken, ratchet, with a booming voice. Don’t talk quiet, don’t be soft, don’t be cautious; this is just social slavery. Let us consider, why is it that the rule in libraries is to be quiet, submissive, “serious“? This is the way that you enslave and control a population. Just look at 99.9% of Japanese society; this is how the emperor was able to get the Japanese people to suicide and, for the sake of the emperor or the Japanese empire? Not rational.

So what now?

You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to positively do anything or act. Do the opposite, disreact, don’t react. 

Also, what is the exact opposite of spending money on something? Don’t spend money. A simple rule; before buying something, wait at least three months before deciding to buy something. Or better yet, even if you have half a second, half a millisecond hesitation before purchasing something, don’t buy it. Buy it. Why? Obvious decisions are obvious obvious, critical decisions are done in a split section without thinking.

In fact, maybe the modern day is that we think that positively thinking is superior than gut action and gut reactions?

All or nothing

Once again — barbell it! 100% or nothing.

With weightlifting, one repetition maximum. Better to just one time, attempt or lift the heaviest way you possibly can, once, rather than doing tedious repetitions. 

Also, maybe the same thing with clothing, maybe in your day today, daily living circumstance,  dress naked or like a barbarian, and when you go to a wedding, ensure that you are by far the most stylish, and the most dressed up person. Also. When you go to church, suit up! Wear your dress shirts, your blazer jacket.

Also now, now that the sun is becoming super strong in LA, and I’d like to be topless all day, but even for me, the sun is almost becoming a little too strong. When it is too too strong, best to just wear a long sleeve, just put on a long sleeve cover up your arms and your neck etc. Maybe even get some long pants?

The irony —

In the summertime, now that is super hot… and the sun is super strong, I’m gravitating towards covering up, long sleeves and long pants, whereas in the winter time, I’m actually trying to do the exact opposite, and get maximum sun exposure?

I suppose this is where some sort of intelligence or adaptation or being in tune with your environment habitat and climate is critical; your body knows best!

For example, nobody, even if they had 100 SPF sunblock, would want to be in Abu Dhabi, in the deserts, being 100% naked. Look at the outfits of the fremen in the Dune movies; if you live in some sort of desert spot, or in the desert, like Los Angeles… The logic is simple; armor up!

Even in the second Dune movie, when Paul Atriedes goes maximum beast mode, he is 100% covered up, the only thing you could see is his eyeballs. Full face mask on, head covering and everything!

Sun power

Some simple thoughts:

  1. No sunglasses. You don’t need it.
  2. If the sun is super super strong, if you live in Arizona or Las Vegas or whatever, then the logic is to maximally cover up with a really really wide brimmed hat, covering your face and the back of your neck, really really long sleeved shirts and pants.
  3. Don’t be a moron with an all black car in Los Angeles. You are not Batman. White is best. White girl white!
  4. Better to be outdoors, in a public park or at a public square, chilling in the shade, than being stuck indoors! The big thing I’m starting to discover is that when I am inside the house, at home, it’s slowly zaps away all of my energy. Physiologically I’m not sure why this happens, but I hate it. Honestly speaking, my only passion and desire in life, and always be hyper hyper in terms of energy. All else is fine.

What zaps away your energy?

I just ran a quick errand, driving to Westwood the other day, and there wasn’t that much traffic on the 405, maybe only about 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back, and while I think it was fine, because in my mind I think I like driving or I’m a good driver or whatever, the biggest issue here is Any time spent in the car is a positively bad one!

Now, I’m starting to look at the 405 like the Armageddon. Or “carmaggedon”.  when we watch post apocalyptic dystopic films like mad Max or whatever, that is the 405 freeway, it is even horrendous in medium traffic. It is my personal hell.

Even a day or two after braving the 405, I still feel some sort of PTSD.

I’m starting to think even more and more… Opportunity cost. Driving anywhere for 20 minutes, even for a very very good event, it just might not be worth it. Why? Maybe you gain more intelligence wisdom and experience simply walking around for 20 minutes, And 20 minutes back, 40 minutes is 1 trillion times better than being stuck in a car for 40 minutes.

And I think this is the true wisdom of living a grand life in Los Angeles; once again, the deal is to never drive. After that, never drive more than five minutes a day.  Trust me, your body mind and soul will thank me.

Then, why does this become such a radical notion? Simple; if you’re true desired I’ll come is to never spend any time in a car, whether you’re driving or whatever… Then, I just saved you $1 million. Why? Don’t be the old fat Type two diabetes man driving the Bugatti, or the balding man driving the Porsche 911; be a real man, drive a Prius. 

Hybrid is the way

Hybrid kids, mixed race kids are better, more genetic diversity stronger, more attractive. Seneca being half Korean half Vietnamese. The funny thing, Koreans are super racist, especially towards mixed race kids; yet they all know, Seneca is super handsome! And they all look at Cindy and they all comment on how beautiful she is!

Even my friend Josh White, he has a kid, half Canadian half Korean, she is so beautiful! Much more beautiful than these inbred Korean kids.

Thoughts for Korea and Japan

Super simple; if you don’t want your population to die off, if you want to be around for another 300 years, open up your borders! Come on and think about it… Lisa from BLACKPINK is 100% Thai from Thailand! And everybody knows that she is the best member, the prettiest, most stylish, and the most skilled!  And the funny thing; nobody ever doubts her Korean. What that means is Korean, is starting to become more of a nationality rather than a race thing. 

For example, let us say that you are 100% Vietnamese, but your family is from the north or in Hanoi, which is closer to China, which means you look more east Asian Chinese rather than southern Vietnam, which shares more borders with Cambodia Laos and Thailand.  let us assume that you were born and raised in Korea, and you are 100% fluent in Korean the cultural mannerisms etc.… I don’t think anyone would ever doubt your Koreanness.

At least the good thing with Korea, Koreans are very open-minded. The Japanese are very very close minded, and will be unto their detriment. Why? With the current birth rate being at least close to zero in Japan, in 300 years, when you got no more Japanese human beings left, what will happen to Japan?


The Spartan Way 

Some radical ideas:

First, beyond purchasing food, paying rent, gasoline or electricity for your car, perhaps a really insanely innovative idea we could do is the radical opposite of what capitalistic society tries to get us to do:

NOT spend money

I think this is a pretty big idea because all of this is centered around spending money.


Only cowards spend money?

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious, you won’t see me outside with at least one of my watches” – Kanye

Certainly it is very very difficult to earn money, but spending money… is very easy.

Let us first consider the fact that the act of spending money, even a chimpanzee or a three-year-old child could do it! Seneca, ever since he was about a year or two old, already knew how to insert a credit card, chip up, or even use the iPhone with Apple Pay to purchase things? Or even simply, handing off Dollar bills to the other person?

So I think the first idea is typically, maybe the best strategy is to teach our kids, and also maybe yourself, not to spend money? 

Propaganda

About a month or two ago, we stepped inside at JP Morgan Chase, opening up a checking account for my mom, and they had these little kids activity coloring books, and one of them was like a book on the idea of saving money in your piggy bank whatever.

However, the reason why this was quite bad was because it was still centered around spending money! The idea was you save up your allowance and your money in order to buy that electric scooter you want or something.

Born into consumerism

I mean let us think about it… ever since a kid is born, they are born into captivity by this capitalist consumerist market. Often society parents and people will bemoan the fact that kids are all addicted to games, video games whatever… iPhones, tablets iPad etc., but who is really at fault here? Of course the parents!

The first thing to note or to ask; if the kids are addicted to YouTube or their iPhone or the iPad or Netflix Netflix or YouTube YouTube kids or whatever… are the parents addicted to it? Yes!

Parents — quit media and your iPhone.

In fact, don’t look at the kids, look at the parents! Typically, kids are just mini versions of their parents.

We like to treat our kids the way we wish we were treated as kids

For example, even a funny thing that I realized, seeing my brother-in-law get my nephew Benji all these cool toys on his birthday, essentially it is interesting, my brother-in-law is buying his son toys that he wished he had as a kid. And this is where I respect my brother-in-law so much; he is essentially like a big kid!

I think in fact, the parents who I really care for or trust or admire are the ones who are the most silly, and also playful with their kids! You could see it in a split second at the playground; I only admire the parents on top of structures playing with their kids! Not the disconnected parents, sitting in the shade, sitting on their butt, doing something stupid on their phones.

When you take your kid to the park, lock your iPhone in the glove compartment in the car!


The matrix

So, let us consider the analogy of the matrix. I think the analogy the matrix is very good here because honestly in fact, we are all living in a metaphorical matrix right now.

For example, think about the battery pack. The battery pack is essentially like us toiling away with our physiological energy, brain power mind power soul power etc., in order to power these batteries. And, toiling away so hard, the funny irony; we work so hard and we sacrifice so much of our health and well-being, in order to purchase things which dull away the pain, but actually in fact… these end up making us sicker and weaker?

For example, marijuana and alcohol; the two biggest depressants we got in modern day society. For an individual who is depressed, or lacking vigor or having poor health… adding more marijuana to their life, or adding more alcohol to their life is a positive detriment. Do people not know that both these substances have physiological mental, and a physical effect on the body, which actually dulls your senses? It is almost like putting a condom on your mind and soul!

Does man live to make money, or does money exist to serve man?

OK, the number one foolish mistake we all make; it seems that we live in order to make money, rather than thinking about this critically and knowing and understanding that in fact, the opposite is and should be true; money should exist in order for us to pursue our own personal needs desires and wants!

In fact, the whole cult around money has become pretty ridiculous. The notion of money has become its own godhead, its own cybernetic metaphor and impetus in life.

Minimum viable income

A very radical idea I have is towards this minimum viable income concept. The general idea is you want to reduce your expenses to the bare bare bare bare minimum, and after that you direct all of your energy power and resources towards augmenting your true life desires, your true true goals in life, rather than money for money sake, which is a slave mentality.

Just watch the movie 300; do you want to be one of those Persian slaves, or the traitor who just wanted to be showered in gold coins and penetrating all these drugged out hallucinating women? Of course not!

Drugs are bad

“Pretty girl with white toes, she like to put it in her nose!” – Playboy Carti

Something which is actually a bit shocking to me; I grew up super sober, I maybe smoked marijuana twice in my life, both instances when I was around 25 years old. I didn’t really like it.

The reason why I am so anti-marijuana is because when I was in high school, I saw all my friends who got hooked on it, and it just made them lazy, dumb, and unmotivated. Just like Elon Musk said on the Joe Rogan podcast; “Smoking marijuana is like the exact opposite of drinking a cup of coffee“. And I love coffee. 

I don’t know if marijuana is pretty cheap now, or people using these vape pens or these weed pens or whatever. But, why dull your senses? Why not heighten them instead?

“I’m in love with a V dub engine, it dulls my senses” – JAY Z

“Success sucks, why? Too much stress” – JAY Z

Don’t skip leg day

A funny thought; if you want to maximize your manliness, let us consider that your member, and your testicles are connected to the lower half of your body. And also let us consider that your legs are probably at least five times stronger than your upper body. For example, easy to lift 1000 pound with your legs and your shoulders, very very difficult to lift 1000 pounds with only your arms and your upper body.

Or once again, easy to do a 1000 pound atlas lift, difficult to do 1000 pound benchpress, nay impossible?

Legs = Testosterone

So the very very funny idea I have is maybe, if you want to increase your testosterone and your manliness, every day, work out your legs!

In fact, if I could tell you that by exercising your legs every single day, you could increase your testosterone by a factor of 10 X, or become 10 times manly, more confident, stronger, less tired less petite, more cheerful… wouldn’t you do it?

A life beyond women

In fact, I think the primary mistake that men make is that they only work out their upper body because they want to somehow attract women?

My personal theory is that the primary way for a man to attract a woman is through his testosterone levels, his hormonal levels.

For example, the number one compliment I have been getting by both men and women is my tan, especially my foot, five finger tan. And there is also an ongoing theory that increased sunlight and sun exposure and testosterone manliness have a connection.

To boost your testosterone, spend more time in the direct sun!

Tall dark and handsome

For example, the notion of being tall and handsome, is really a good note here. Even other day I met this one friendly mom, and she told me that she was immediately attracted to her personal trainer, a tall dark handsome man with curly hair named Alejandro, and she ended up having a kid with him. It’s funny because the kid doesn’t look like mom at all and even the mom says I only know his kid because I birthed him!

Why do we desire to purchase certain things?

Let me give you an example: I remember when I worked my UCLA undergraduate job, in IT tech-support, and I literally felt like I just spent five hours a day scrolling through Reddit, killing time on the Internet. And I would also spend a lot of time looking at these camera review websites, gear review forms whatever, and ultimately I think the desire was to just spend more time outside making pictures!

The goal is to shoot more!

And I think this is the insidious thing about the whole camera photography complex; the idea is that we lack the freedom and the time to actually go out and make pictures, which is the desired goal… and we think, if somehow, we purchase XYZ camera or XYZ lens, or XYZ accessory… like a carbon fiber tripod or whatever… suddenly we will have more inspiration motivated and opportunity to actually go out to make photos? But is this true? No.

For example, the very very simple advice I have for any photographer is that the best camera is the maximally small compact one, the imagine like John Wick and his pistol. When shit hits the fan, he is not tooting around and automatic weapon, he just relies on his trusty pistol. Think about that one scene in which he is drifting his car door less Camaro, and picks up his pistol, and shoot the bad guys.

If we consider the Ricoh GR camera, it is like our metaphorical pistol. It is both our precision tool, and also, our general purpose tool.

You cannot hide an M-16 in your front right pocket.

Ways in which I spent a lot of time as a kid, as a teenager playing counterstrike, 1.6. The original one. 

The funny thing is that video games, and gun violence doesn’t really have anything in common.

For example, to me as a kid, guns weren’t really a big deal; for example, when I was in Boy Scouts, in one of the summer camps, I got both my shotgun and rifle merit badge, the same camp, as well as my archery merit badge!

Kids aren’t dumb; I remember being shocked as maybe a freshman in high school; the Boy Scouts instructor giving a bunch of kids rifles, at the shooting range, teaching us how to use it. I was a bit shocked as a kid, because even as a kid this seemed a bit dangerous. I remember asking the instructor “…Has anyone ever turned one of these guns around and just shot somebody else?” The adult got very serious, looked at me, and told me “Never say things like that.“ So with extreme caution, we never did anything dumb, and I was actually a quite good marksman! I could hit the target from very very far away, and also I was very good at shotput, in which you use a shotgun to shoot a flying disc in the air!


Your word is your sword 

I think the grand difficulty that we have in modern day life is that we no longer have any avenues for physical valor. The only thing which is commoditized is sports; but the reason why sports is bad is that it is too regimented, too constrained, and lacks any sort of real life application.

As NASSIM TALEB has commented; what some fools think is that somehow… a chess master would somehow be a master in military strategy. While this might make a good movie plot, in real life it is not true.

The reason why I am actually anti-chess, and a lot of these board games or whatever… consider how poor it is for your physiology. Sitting on your butt the whole time, stationary, using your brain. It requires no physical valor, or skin in the game. At worst if you lose the match, maybe you feel bad, but beyond this, there is really no downside to losing. This is also where video games are bad; there is no real life downside.

At least with weightlifting, powerlifting, hypelifting, one rep maxing is interesting is that there is some sort of potential physical downside. If you aren’t focused enough, yeah certainly you hurt yourself. And that is the whole point!

And this is where I found the logic to be so bizarre; when these steroided out guys would be so shocked of how much I would attempt weightlifting at the gym, when I would rack up the barbell with seven plates, eight plates, nine plates, 10 plates, 10 plates and hook another 25 on top, they would always tell me… “Be careful”. 

Now that I think about this commentary in retrospect, it is really kind of a weakling cowardly side jab;

I am much bigger than you, and you look smaller than me, and also you are built more lean, and also you are Asian… and therefore I am befuddled how you are so much stronger than me, and I want to inform you how you might hurt yourself.

The best compliment

Even I have heard people talking about me at the gym on the side; 

You know… there are some guys who are on steroids who don’t look like they’re on steroids (referring to me)

Anyways, what these wimps don’t realize is that they are staring at an Achilles in the flesh, a demigod; half man half god; born from a mortal father, with a goddess mother. 

“I am a god”

I think one of the most radical, gutsy things ever uttered in rap music is the Kanye YEEZUS album, in what he put out the “I am a god” song and album.

Note, he did not say that I am the God, but a god (lower case). Even some random stuff that I started to do research in during Covid times is the whole Jay Electronica, the movement of black African-American guys turning to Allah, the fruit of Islam movement, in which the code word for “ALLAH” (arm, leg, leg, arm, head) the general idea in which all humans are born like gods, born in the image and the likeness of God.

“I know I’m not the most high but I’m on a close high.” KANYE, I AM A GOD, YEEZUS ALBUM

In fact, the only concert I have ever gone to my life was seeing Kanye West live at the Oakland Coliseum, for his YEEZUS Tour. It might have been one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed, especially when they put the fake mountain in the fake Jesus to come on stage, and also when Kanye put on the sequin covered facemask, they shot a laser on it, and reflected it all around the dome.

Ethics is the future, not technology

Ethics, worldview, philosophy, your own personal code of ethics, the way you decide to approach life, this is the future, not the loser iPhone Pro, or any of these ridiculous virtual reality headsets.

Very very simple; what we desire is real life real world engagement– we desire the embrace and the sweet smell of a woman, no no no… you don’t want to be having virtual reality sex, with your virtual reality girlfriend, or live with your virtual reality dog, driving around in your virtual reality Lamborghini, getting virtual reality head or whatever… Nobody wants a virtual reality babe.

What or which concepts are absent in the past?

In fact, when you think about ancient Greece, philosophy, the ancient Romans etc.… there is almost no focus on women. Women are absent; they are never mentioned, nor discussed or talked about. Certainly not talked about like commodities in today’s world. 

The way that a lot of guys get suckered is this strange logic: if I get super super rich, and drive the Lamborghini or the Ferrari or the big truck or whatever, and I’m super super buff, and I have a six pack, suddenly I will attract all these babes, who will want to have intercourse with me, and I can live a super happy playboy lifestyle for the rest of my life, in pure bliss, without any obligations?

Spartan philosophy

The true Spartan way is almost a polar opposite; the goal is to live a maximally frugal and economical life, have kids and beget children, have at least one son to carry on the family name. And the rest of your life is just focused on military training, combat, to be ready to defend your family, your nation when shit hits the fan.

This is where once again, all this fake ass patriotism stuff annoys me; if you’re on Facebook, looking at Donald Trump memes, watch Fox News or Tucker Carlson, make fun of “libtards”, talk about the alphabet gender spaghetti, you are not a true American. Just keep your mouth shut, enroll in military duty. You have nothing to defend yourself against.

Similarly speaking, we liberals also have this bizarre notion of virtue signaling; if you are a true progressive liberal, don’t even say the “Donald Trump” name — don’t talk about the news or politics or whatever. The simplest thing is to just vote against the other party you don’t believe in, get involved in local city politics, attend some sort of city council meeting, vote on issues you care for. Also don’t use Twitter, which might be about 99.9% bots? 

***

Men and women must be trained alike

Only Spartan women can birth Spartan men.

Physical training is both critical for men and women. This is also where it is so impressive that Israeli women are also serve military obligations, I think this is a great idea. Maybe also America, there was some sort of obligatory ROTC training in high school, both for men and women, maybe for junior and senior year… this might be a good idea. Good for virtue, physics, the physical element, physical training, building a sense of camaraderie or kinship between our fellow Americans.

In fact, even though I am a Democrat, I have always voted Democrat, and also I consider myself a liberal, I have had nothing but positive interactions with conservatives, Republicans, people on the right. In fact if anything… right wing people to be more friendly, fun, jovial, and happy. Liberals on the left tend to be dark, morose, and fakely-righteous? I remember accidentally walking into some sort of anti-Joe Biden rally, talked with all the friendly people, and was even offered free hotdogs and free ice cream barbecue from the people there! 

The reason why social media and the internet is so toxic is that it villainizes other sides, these metaphorical human beings. But if you actually talk to people face-to-face in the flesh, person-to-person, pure to pure; we are about 90% similar, 10% dissimilar.

Quit the internet, talk to people face to face, 1 on 1, in real life.


Only purchase digital things? 

A random thought, maybe the way we could curb all of this superficial consumerism is to only purchase digital things, digital goods, digital things.

Digital money: Bitcoin

Digital books, digital movies– Apple TV shop, iTunes Store, iBooks Store. I actually find that purchasing a film is much better than subscribing to a streaming platform. Why? Skin in the game. When you pay the $10 a month or the $15 a month or whatever for that streaming service, you don’t really value any of the films or TV series on it… watching media on streaming platforms is like a sedative; you watch something not because you want to watch it, or learn from it, but instead, just watch it to distract yourself.

Putting your money where your mouth is 

The funny thought is the point of purchasing something isn’t to “support“ the producer, but instead, to have a sense of pride that the thing that you purchased is actually something that you believe in or care in?

For example, I have purchased with my own money all the John Wick movies, all of the matrix movies, and now both of the Dune movies. Typically when we actually purchase something with our own money, it is a sign that we actually really really believe in it.

Also, the reason why you never want to trust anybody who is sponsored by anything, is because typically when you are given free things, or sponsored by something, you don’t actually really believe in it, you just accept the advertising and the sponsorship in order to make money or to feel special.

I bought all my Ricoh and LUMIX cameras with my own real money

For example, in the context of cameras, reviews, sponsorships etc.; only trust a photographer who had actually purchased the things with their hard earned money. 

For example, I have done collaborations with Fujifilm before, received free cameras in the past, free lenses etc.… And have also been paid money by then. Also I did some free consulting for them, sharing some good ideas like adding a film grain simulation effect filter to their cameras, which they did, in which now you could add green tier digital JPEG photos with the Fujifilm filter, and select either weak, normal, or strong grain. 

I am proud that all the Ricoh cameras that I purchased, none were given to me by free from Ricoh. I purchased them all with my own money. 

Also kind of a random thing; I think the whole blogosphere was shocked when I purchased a LUMIX G9 camera — it totally seemed like out of left field, because Panasonic Lumix was on nobody’s radar. And currently, now that all my Ricoh GR cameras are dead, my only camera is the Lumix G9 camera and the 14mm f2.5 pancake lumix lens (only $200!). And the only two cameras I think might be worth considering purchasing in the near future is the new Ricoh HDF cameras, or the new Lumix S9 camera with the pancake manual focusing lens. 

Trust?

Ultimately, trust nobody, only yourself.

Also with filters; put more trust in dead people than people who are alive. Why?

The difficult thing with following people who are still alive today is that you don’t know how it all ends. With dead philosophers, artists, innovators, you do. 

Also, I think the big differences in the past, there was not a profit motive. An artist or an innovator did not need money, because they had the private patronage of some wealthy family like the Medici’s, Leonardo da Vinci etc.

Independently wealthy with Bitcoin

So I’m starting to think more and more… maybe the best true way to be a true artist, visionary, thinker, innovator entrepreneur is to independently make money somewhere, and don’t have to rely on advertising or sponsorships or brands to support your lifestyle.

I would put more faith in the photographer or the weightlifter who makes his living investing in bitcoin,  rather than somebody who is always spamming you with advertisements on YouTube or podcasts.

In fact, are there any podcasts which exist which don’t have any advertising? Besides my own?

ERIC KIM PODCAST >


Why bitcoin is the future

Bitcoins, satoshis– this is finally the solution to these annoying online advertisements. 

Maybe the true Spartan only cares for in bitcoin and satoshis, but never spends it or touches it, but just keeps accumulating it.

Bitcoin is like our shield – our economic shield and our hedge against the uncertain future.

ARMOR UP!
ERIC


Economic theory

I always thought that economics was stupid, honestly, truth be told, I think when you look at all this fake mathematics behind economic theory, it is all fake, the new hocus-pocus witchcraft, and the number one critical thing I learned about studying statistics both in high school and in college is that statistics is fake metrics that could be gamed however you want. 

Therefore, put zero faith in statistics. Better talk to a real human being, face-to-face, person to person, instead of engaging in ridiculous debates on the internet, which again is filled by 99.9% ChatGPT powered bots.

Once once again, if I waived a magic wand, and I revealed to you that in fact, all of the negative comments you read in your life on the internet, these trolls who said mean things to you, if you actually found out that they were all just artificial intelligent ChatGPT bots the whole time… how would you feel? Wouldn’t you feel better?

The next generation of comments on the internet

Maybe the only way we could truly verify whether somebody who is leaving a comment is a real human being or not is to institute the orange check icon, that the individual spent maybe $10 worth of bitcoin or Satoshi’s to verify their humanity.

Several years ago, I had the wisdom to just disable all and delete all comments on my website and blog etc. and also disabling them on YouTube etc. Why? For the most part, comments are useless. Even the positive ones!

When people say nice things about you in the comments, the reason why you could be bad is that it becomes a shackle; you keep publishing stuff that gets good feedback, and as a consequence, you end up staying the same instead of being innovative.

For example, when Bob Dylan went electric; he probably polarized 90% of his fanbase– they booed him off stage (his core audience, his real fans!). Also, everyone likes the old Kanye West in the college dropout album… but I like the new Kanye, I like the new carnival, the newest version of an artist is always the best.

A funny contradiction; everyone always wants the newest iPhone, the newest Tesla, whatever… But everyone wants the older artist, the older music, the older version of a certain thinker? If we stay consistent here, shouldn’t we prefer the new philosophy or the new thoughts or the new approach of an artist or a musician or a thinker versus their old self?

For example, everyone seems to prefer the old ERIC KIM, the old EK, but this is when I was still addicted to Facebook, using an android phone, and I still had my 9 to 5 job.

Sometimes, for myself, I miss my old Vietnam self; but in fact, my best self is my now self with Seneca! Also, sometimes I miss my old ERIC KIM gym self, the HYPELIFTING self, but when I think critically about it, I am 1000 times happier with my new bitcoin self, my new off the grid self, my new walk 10,000 steps a day in the direct Los Angeles sun self. 

Then I think the biggest nugget of wisdom:

Prefer the you self right now, not the past self?

Kill your old self!

ERIC


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New books, new media?

Now that everything is becoming so hyper, once again, think about the past.

The Iliad, the Matrix, the 300, John Wick, keep it simple, keep it succinct. I’m very very skeptical of anything new, whether they be new movies, new series, new films etc.

Even this past generation, the last 10 years, the only innovative film created was the John Wick series, nothing else. Even though I was also enthusiastic about the new Mandalorian series, eventually after the first season, it all goes downhill.

With Marvel movies, I think the only good ones was before Disney bought it, for example the original Iron Man, the original Captain America etc. 

Why? The problem with Disney is that it is trying to maximize its profits, let us consider it is a publicly treated company, and as a result, the logic is to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Whenever anything is created for the masses, it is bad.

Once again, would you prefer to drive the McLaren, with the butterfly doors, or would you prefer to drive the Toyota Corolla?


Forward the ideas

EK MIND SUPPLY >


Always start new:

START HERE


The Spartan Way 

Some radical ideas:

First, beyond purchasing food, paying rent, gasoline or electricity for your car, perhaps a really insanely innovative idea we could do is the radical opposite of what capitalistic society tries to get us to do:

NOT spend money

I think this is a pretty big idea because all of this is centered around spending money.


Only cowards spend money?

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious, you won’t see me outside with at least one of my watches” – Kanye

Certainly it is very very difficult to earn money, but spending money… is very easy.

Let us first consider the fact that the act of spending money, even a chimpanzee or a three-year-old child could do it! Seneca, ever since he was about a year or two old, already knew how to insert a credit card, chip up, or even use the iPhone with Apple Pay to purchase things? Or even simply, handing off Dollar bills to the other person?

So I think the first idea is typically, maybe the best strategy is to teach our kids, and also maybe yourself, not to spend money? 

Propaganda

About a month or two ago, we stepped inside at JP Morgan Chase, opening up a checking account for my mom, and they had these little kids activity coloring books, and one of them was like a book on the idea of saving money in your piggy bank whatever.

However, the reason why this was quite bad was because it was still centered around spending money! The idea was you save up your allowance and your money in order to buy that electric scooter you want or something.

Born into consumerism

I mean let us think about it… ever since a kid is born, they are born into captivity by this capitalist consumerist market. Often society parents and people will bemoan the fact that kids are all addicted to games, video games whatever… iPhones, tablets iPad etc., but who is really at fault here? Of course the parents!

The first thing to note or to ask; if the kids are addicted to YouTube or their iPhone or the iPad or Netflix Netflix or YouTube YouTube kids or whatever… are the parents addicted to it? Yes!

Parents — quit media and your iPhone.

In fact, don’t look at the kids, look at the parents! Typically, kids are just mini versions of their parents.

We like to treat our kids the way we wish we were treated as kids

For example, even a funny thing that I realized, seeing my brother-in-law get my nephew Benji all these cool toys on his birthday, essentially it is interesting, my brother-in-law is buying his son toys that he wished he had as a kid. And this is where I respect my brother-in-law so much; he is essentially like a big kid!

I think in fact, the parents who I really care for or trust or admire are the ones who are the most silly, and also playful with their kids! You could see it in a split second at the playground; I only admire the parents on top of structures playing with their kids! Not the disconnected parents, sitting in the shade, sitting on their butt, doing something stupid on their phones.

When you take your kid to the park, lock your iPhone in the glove compartment in the car!


The matrix

So, let us consider the analogy of the matrix. I think the analogy the matrix is very good here because honestly in fact, we are all living in a metaphorical matrix right now.

For example, think about the battery pack. The battery pack is essentially like us toiling away with our physiological energy, brain power mind power soul power etc., in order to power these batteries. And, toiling away so hard, the funny irony; we work so hard and we sacrifice so much of our health and well-being, in order to purchase things which dull away the pain, but actually in fact… these end up making us sicker and weaker?

For example, marijuana and alcohol; the two biggest depressants we got in modern day society. For an individual who is depressed, or lacking vigor or having poor health… adding more marijuana to their life, or adding more alcohol to their life is a positive detriment. Do people not know that both these substances have physiological mental, and a physical effect on the body, which actually dulls your senses? It is almost like putting a condom on your mind and soul!

Does man live to make money, or does money exist to serve man?

OK, the number one foolish mistake we all make; it seems that we live in order to make money, rather than thinking about this critically and knowing and understanding that in fact, the opposite is and should be true; money should exist in order for us to pursue our own personal needs desires and wants!

In fact, the whole cult around money has become pretty ridiculous. The notion of money has become its own godhead, its own cybernetic metaphor and impetus in life.

Minimum viable income

A very radical idea I have is towards this minimum viable income concept. The general idea is you want to reduce your expenses to the bare bare bare bare minimum, and after that you direct all of your energy power and resources towards augmenting your true life desires, your true true goals in life, rather than money for money sake, which is a slave mentality.

Just watch the movie 300; do you want to be one of those Persian slaves, or the traitor who just wanted to be showered in gold coins and penetrating all these drugged out hallucinating women? Of course not!

Drugs are bad

“Pretty girl with white toes, she like to put it in her nose!” – Playboy Carti

Something which is actually a bit shocking to me; I grew up super sober, I maybe smoked marijuana twice in my life, both instances when I was around 25 years old. I didn’t really like it.

The reason why I am so anti-marijuana is because when I was in high school, I saw all my friends who got hooked on it, and it just made them lazy, dumb, and unmotivated. Just like Elon Musk said on the Joe Rogan podcast; “Smoking marijuana is like the exact opposite of drinking a cup of coffee“. And I love coffee. 

I don’t know if marijuana is pretty cheap now, or people using these vape pens or these weed pens or whatever. But, why dull your senses? Why not heighten them instead?

“I’m in love with a V dub engine, it dulls my senses” – JAY Z

“Success sucks, why? Too much stress” – JAY Z

Don’t skip leg day

A funny thought; if you want to maximize your manliness, let us consider that your member, and your testicles are connected to the lower half of your body. And also let us consider that your legs are probably at least five times stronger than your upper body. For example, easy to lift 1000 pound with your legs and your shoulders, very very difficult to lift 1000 pounds with only your arms and your upper body.

Or once again, easy to do a 1000 pound atlas lift, difficult to do 1000 pound benchpress, nay impossible?

Legs = Testosterone

So the very very funny idea I have is maybe, if you want to increase your testosterone and your manliness, every day, work out your legs!

In fact, if I could tell you that by exercising your legs every single day, you could increase your testosterone by a factor of 10 X, or become 10 times manly, more confident, stronger, less tired less petite, more cheerful… wouldn’t you do it?

A life beyond women

In fact, I think the primary mistake that men make is that they only work out their upper body because they want to somehow attract women?

My personal theory is that the primary way for a man to attract a woman is through his testosterone levels, his hormonal levels.

For example, the number one compliment I have been getting by both men and women is my tan, especially my foot, five finger tan. And there is also an ongoing theory that increased sunlight and sun exposure and testosterone manliness have a connection.

To boost your testosterone, spend more time in the direct sun!

Tall dark and handsome

For example, the notion of being tall and handsome, is really a good note here. Even other day I met this one friendly mom, and she told me that she was immediately attracted to her personal trainer, a tall dark handsome man with curly hair named Alejandro, and she ended up having a kid with him. It’s funny because the kid doesn’t look like mom at all and even the mom says I only know his kid because I birthed him!

Why do we desire to purchase certain things?

Let me give you an example: I remember when I worked my UCLA undergraduate job, in IT tech-support, and I literally felt like I just spent five hours a day scrolling through Reddit, killing time on the Internet. And I would also spend a lot of time looking at these camera review websites, gear review forms whatever, and ultimately I think the desire was to just spend more time outside making pictures!

The goal is to shoot more!

And I think this is the insidious thing about the whole camera photography complex; the idea is that we lack the freedom and the time to actually go out and make pictures, which is the desired goal… and we think, if somehow, we purchase XYZ camera or XYZ lens, or XYZ accessory… like a carbon fiber tripod or whatever… suddenly we will have more inspiration motivated and opportunity to actually go out to make photos? But is this true? No.

For example, the very very simple advice I have for any photographer is that the best camera is the maximally small compact one, the imagine like John Wick and his pistol. When shit hits the fan, he is not tooting around and automatic weapon, he just relies on his trusty pistol. Think about that one scene in which he is drifting his car door less Camaro, and picks up his pistol, and shoot the bad guys.

If we consider the Ricoh GR camera, it is like our metaphorical pistol. It is both our precision tool, and also, our general purpose tool.

You cannot hide an M-16 in your front right pocket.

Ways in which I spent a lot of time as a kid, as a teenager playing counterstrike, 1.6. The original one. 

The funny thing is that video games, and gun violence doesn’t really have anything in common.

For example, to me as a kid, guns weren’t really a big deal; for example, when I was in Boy Scouts, in one of the summer camps, I got both my shotgun and rifle merit badge, the same camp, as well as my archery merit badge!

Kids aren’t dumb; I remember being shocked as maybe a freshman in high school; the Boy Scouts instructor giving a bunch of kids rifles, at the shooting range, teaching us how to use it. I was a bit shocked as a kid, because even as a kid this seemed a bit dangerous. I remember asking the instructor “…Has anyone ever turned one of these guns around and just shot somebody else?” The adult got very serious, looked at me, and told me “Never say things like that.“ So with extreme caution, we never did anything dumb, and I was actually a quite good marksman! I could hit the target from very very far away, and also I was very good at shotput, in which you use a shotgun to shoot a flying disc in the air!


Your word is your sword 

I think the grand difficulty that we have in modern day life is that we no longer have any avenues for physical valor. The only thing which is commoditized is sports; but the reason why sports is bad is that it is too regimented, too constrained, and lacks any sort of real life application.

As NASSIM TALEB has commented; what some fools think is that somehow… a chess master would somehow be a master in military strategy. While this might make a good movie plot, in real life it is not true.

The reason why I am actually anti-chess, and a lot of these board games or whatever… consider how poor it is for your physiology. Sitting on your butt the whole time, stationary, using your brain. It requires no physical valor, or skin in the game. At worst if you lose the match, maybe you feel bad, but beyond this, there is really no downside to losing. This is also where video games are bad; there is no real life downside.

At least with weightlifting, powerlifting, hypelifting, one rep maxing is interesting is that there is some sort of potential physical downside. If you aren’t focused enough, yeah certainly you hurt yourself. And that is the whole point!

And this is where I found the logic to be so bizarre; when these steroided out guys would be so shocked of how much I would attempt weightlifting at the gym, when I would rack up the barbell with seven plates, eight plates, nine plates, 10 plates, 10 plates and hook another 25 on top, they would always tell me… “Be careful”. 

Now that I think about this commentary in retrospect, it is really kind of a weakling cowardly side jab;

I am much bigger than you, and you look smaller than me, and also you are built more lean, and also you are Asian… and therefore I am befuddled how you are so much stronger than me, and I want to inform you how you might hurt yourself.

The best compliment

Even I have heard people talking about me at the gym on the side; 

You know… there are some guys who are on steroids who don’t look like they’re on steroids (referring to me)

Anyways, what these wimps don’t realize is that they are staring at an Achilles in the flesh, a demigod; half man half god; born from a mortal father, with a goddess mother. 

“I am a god”

I think one of the most radical, gutsy things ever uttered in rap music is the Kanye YEEZUS album, in what he put out the “I am a god” song and album.

Note, he did not say that I am the God, but a god (lower case). Even some random stuff that I started to do research in during Covid times is the whole Jay Electronica, the movement of black African-American guys turning to Allah, the fruit of Islam movement, in which the code word for “ALLAH” (arm, leg, leg, arm, head) the general idea in which all humans are born like gods, born in the image and the likeness of God.

“I know I’m not the most high but I’m on a close high.” KANYE, I AM A GOD, YEEZUS ALBUM

In fact, the only concert I have ever gone to my life was seeing Kanye West live at the Oakland Coliseum, for his YEEZUS Tour. It might have been one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed, especially when they put the fake mountain in the fake Jesus to come on stage, and also when Kanye put on the sequin covered facemask, they shot a laser on it, and reflected it all around the dome.

Ethics is the future, not technology

Ethics, worldview, philosophy, your own personal code of ethics, the way you decide to approach life, this is the future, not the loser iPhone Pro, or any of these ridiculous virtual reality headsets.

Very very simple; what we desire is real life real world engagement– we desire the embrace and the sweet smell of a woman, no no no… you don’t want to be having virtual reality sex, with your virtual reality girlfriend, or live with your virtual reality dog, driving around in your virtual reality Lamborghini, getting virtual reality head or whatever… Nobody wants a virtual reality babe.

What or which concepts are absent in the past?

In fact, when you think about ancient Greece, philosophy, the ancient Romans etc.… there is almost no focus on women. Women are absent; they are never mentioned, nor discussed or talked about. Certainly not talked about like commodities in today’s world. 

The way that a lot of guys get suckered is this strange logic: if I get super super rich, and drive the Lamborghini or the Ferrari or the big truck or whatever, and I’m super super buff, and I have a six pack, suddenly I will attract all these babes, who will want to have intercourse with me, and I can live a super happy playboy lifestyle for the rest of my life, in pure bliss, without any obligations?

Spartan philosophy

The true Spartan way is almost a polar opposite; the goal is to live a maximally frugal and economical life, have kids and beget children, have at least one son to carry on the family name. And the rest of your life is just focused on military training, combat, to be ready to defend your family, your nation when shit hits the fan.

This is where once again, all this fake ass patriotism stuff annoys me; if you’re on Facebook, looking at Donald Trump memes, watch Fox News or Tucker Carlson, make fun of “libtards”, talk about the alphabet gender spaghetti, you are not a true American. Just keep your mouth shut, enroll in military duty. You have nothing to defend yourself against.

Similarly speaking, we liberals also have this bizarre notion of virtue signaling; if you are a true progressive liberal, don’t even say the “Donald Trump” name — don’t talk about the news or politics or whatever. The simplest thing is to just vote against the other party you don’t believe in, get involved in local city politics, attend some sort of city council meeting, vote on issues you care for. Also don’t use Twitter, which might be about 99.9% bots? 

***

Men and women must be trained alike

Only Spartan women can birth Spartan men.

Physical training is both critical for men and women. This is also where it is so impressive that Israeli women are also serve military obligations, I think this is a great idea. Maybe also America, there was some sort of obligatory ROTC training in high school, both for men and women, maybe for junior and senior year… this might be a good idea. Good for virtue, physics, the physical element, physical training, building a sense of camaraderie or kinship between our fellow Americans.

In fact, even though I am a Democrat, I have always voted Democrat, and also I consider myself a liberal, I have had nothing but positive interactions with conservatives, Republicans, people on the right. In fact if anything… right wing people to be more friendly, fun, jovial, and happy. Liberals on the left tend to be dark, morose, and fakely-righteous? I remember accidentally walking into some sort of anti-Joe Biden rally, talked with all the friendly people, and was even offered free hotdogs and free ice cream barbecue from the people there! 

The reason why social media and the internet is so toxic is that it villainizes other sides, these metaphorical human beings. But if you actually talk to people face-to-face in the flesh, person-to-person, pure to pure; we are about 90% similar, 10% dissimilar.

Quit the internet, talk to people face to face, 1 on 1, in real life.


Only purchase digital things? 

A random thought, maybe the way we could curb all of this superficial consumerism is to only purchase digital things, digital goods, digital things.

Digital money: Bitcoin

Digital books, digital movies– Apple TV shop, iTunes Store, iBooks Store. I actually find that purchasing a film is much better than subscribing to a streaming platform. Why? Skin in the game. When you pay the $10 a month or the $15 a month or whatever for that streaming service, you don’t really value any of the films or TV series on it… watching media on streaming platforms is like a sedative; you watch something not because you want to watch it, or learn from it, but instead, just watch it to distract yourself.

Putting your money where your mouth is 

The funny thought is the point of purchasing something isn’t to “support“ the producer, but instead, to have a sense of pride that the thing that you purchased is actually something that you believe in or care in?

For example, I have purchased with my own money all the John Wick movies, all of the matrix movies, and now both of the Dune movies. Typically when we actually purchase something with our own money, it is a sign that we actually really really believe in it.

Also, the reason why you never want to trust anybody who is sponsored by anything, is because typically when you are given free things, or sponsored by something, you don’t actually really believe in it, you just accept the advertising and the sponsorship in order to make money or to feel special.

I bought all my Ricoh and LUMIX cameras with my own real money

For example, in the context of cameras, reviews, sponsorships etc.; only trust a photographer who had actually purchased the things with their hard earned money. 

For example, I have done collaborations with Fujifilm before, received free cameras in the past, free lenses etc.… And have also been paid money by then. Also I did some free consulting for them, sharing some good ideas like adding a film grain simulation effect filter to their cameras, which they did, in which now you could add green tier digital JPEG photos with the Fujifilm filter, and select either weak, normal, or strong grain. 

I am proud that all the Ricoh cameras that I purchased, none were given to me by free from Ricoh. I purchased them all with my own money. 

Also kind of a random thing; I think the whole blogosphere was shocked when I purchased a LUMIX G9 camera — it totally seemed like out of left field, because Panasonic Lumix was on nobody’s radar. And currently, now that all my Ricoh GR cameras are dead, my only camera is the Lumix G9 camera and the 14mm f2.5 pancake lumix lens (only $200!). And the only two cameras I think might be worth considering purchasing in the near future is the new Ricoh HDF cameras, or the new Lumix S9 camera with the pancake manual focusing lens. 

Trust?

Ultimately, trust nobody, only yourself.

Also with filters; put more trust in dead people than people who are alive. Why?

The difficult thing with following people who are still alive today is that you don’t know how it all ends. With dead philosophers, artists, innovators, you do. 

Also, I think the big differences in the past, there was not a profit motive. An artist or an innovator did not need money, because they had the private patronage of some wealthy family like the Medici’s, Leonardo da Vinci etc.

Independently wealthy with Bitcoin

So I’m starting to think more and more… maybe the best true way to be a true artist, visionary, thinker, innovator entrepreneur is to independently make money somewhere, and don’t have to rely on advertising or sponsorships or brands to support your lifestyle.

I would put more faith in the photographer or the weightlifter who makes his living investing in bitcoin,  rather than somebody who is always spamming you with advertisements on YouTube or podcasts.

In fact, are there any podcasts which exist which don’t have any advertising? Besides my own?


Why bitcoin is the future

Bitcoins, Satoshis– this is finally the solution to these annoying online advertisements. 

Maybe the true Spartan only cares for in bitcoin and Satoshi, but never spends it or touches it, but just keeps accumulating it.

Bitcoin is like our shield – our economic shield and our hedge against the uncertain future.

ARMOR UP!
ERIC


Economic theory

Always thought that economics was stupid, honestly, truth be told, I think when you look at all this fake mathematics behind theory, it is all fake, the new hocus-pocus witchcraft, and the number one critical thing I learned about studying statistics both in high school and in college is that statistics is fake metrics that could be gamed however you want. 

Therefore, put zero faith in statistics. Better talk to a real human being, face-to-face, person to person, instead of engaging in ridiculous debates on the Internet, which again is filled by 99.9% ChatGPT powered bots.

Once once again, if I waived a magic wand, and I revealed to you that in fact, all of the negative comments you write in your life on the Internet, these trolls who said mean things to you, if you actually found out that they were all just artificial intelligent ChatGPT bots the whole time… Wouldn’t you feel better?

The next generation of comments on the Internet

Maybe the only way we could truly verify whether somebody who is leaving a comment is a real human being or not is to institute the orange check icon, that the individual spent maybe $10 worth of bitcoin or Satoshi’s to verify their humanity. Several years ago, I had the wisdom to just disable all and delete all comments on my website and blog etc. and also disabling them on YouTube etc. Why? For the most part, comments are useless. Even the positive ones!

When people say nice things about you in the comments, the reason why you could be bad is that it becomes a shackle; you keep publishing stuff that gets good feedback, and as a consequence, you end up staying the same instead of being innovative.

For example, when Bob Dylan went electric; he probably polarized 90% of his fanbase. Also, everyone likes the old Kanye West in the college dropout album… But I like the new Kanye, I like the new carnival, the newest version of an artist is always the best. A funny contradiction; everyone always wants the newest iPhone, the newest Tesla, whatever… But everyone wants the older artist, the older music, the older version of a certain thinker? If we stay consistent here, shouldn’t we prefer the new philosophy or the new thoughts or the new approach of an artist or a musician or a thinker versus their old self?

For example, everyone seems to prefer the old ERIC KIM, the old EK, but this is when I was still addicted to Facebook, using an android phone, and I still had my 95 job.

Sometimes, for myself, I miss my old Vietnam self; but in fact, my best self is my now self with Seneca! Also, sometimes I miss my old ERIC KIM gym self, the HYPELIFTING self, but when I think critically about it, I am 1000 times happier with my new bitcoin self, my new off the grid self, my new walk 10,000 steps a day in the direct Los Angeles sun self. 

Then I think the biggest nugget of wisdom:

Prefer the you self right now, not the past self?

Kill your old self!

ERIC


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New books, new media?

Now that everything is becoming so hyper, once again, think about the past.

The Iliad, the Matrix, the 300, John Wick, Tippet simple, keep it succinct.  I’m very very skeptical of anything new, whether they be new movies, new series, new films etc.

Even this past generation, the last 10 years, the only innovative film created was the John Wick series, nothing else. Even though I was also enthusiastic about the new Mandalorian series, eventually after the first season, it all goes downhill.

With Marvel movies, I think the only good ones was before Disney bought it, for example the original Iron Man, the original Captain America etc. 

Why? The problem with Disney is that it is trying to maximize its profits, let us consider it is a publicly treated company, and as a result, the logic is to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Whenever anything is created for the masses, it is bad.

Once again, would you prefer to drive the McLaren, with the butterfly doors, or would you prefer to drive the Toyota Corolla?


The Spartan Way 

Some radical ideas:

First, beyond purchasing food, paying rent, gasoline or electricity for your car, perhaps a really insanely innovative idea we could do is the radical opposite of what capitalistic society tries to get us to do:

NOT spend money

I think this is a pretty big idea because all of this is centered around spending money.

Only cowards spend money?

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious, you won’t see me outside with at least one of my watches” – Kanye

Certainly it is very very difficult to earn money, but spending money… is very easy.

Let us first consider the fact that the act is spending money, even a chimpanzee or three-year-old child could do it! Seneca, ever since he was about a year or two old, already knew how to insert a credit card, chip up, or even use the iPhone with Apple Pay to purchase things? Or even simply, handing off Dollar bills to the other person?

So I think the first idea is typically, maybe the best strategy is to teach our kids, and also maybe yourself, not to spend money? 

Propaganda

About a month or two ago, we stepped inside at JP Morgan Chase, opening up a checking account for my mom, and they had these little kids activity coloring books, and one of them was like a book on the idea of saving money in your piggy bank whatever.

However, the reason why this was quite bad was because it was still centered around spending money! The idea was you save up your allowance and your money in order to buy that electric scooter you want or something.

I mean let us think about it… Ever since a kid was born, they are born into captivity by this capitalist consumerist market.  Often society parents and people will be moan the fact that kids are all addicted to presents, games, video games whatever… iPhones, tablets iPad etc., but who is really at fault here? Of course the parents!

The first thing to note or to ask; if the kids are addicted to YouTube or their iPhone or the iPad or Netflix Netflix or YouTube YouTube kids or whatever… Are the parents addicted to it? Yes!

In fact, don’t look at the kids, look at the parents! Typically, kids are just mini versions of their parents.

For example, even a funny thing that I realized, seeing my brother-in-law get my nephew Benji all these cool toys on his birthday, essentially it is interesting, my brother-in-law Khanh is buying his son toys that he wished he had as a kid. And this is where I respect my brother-in-law so much; he is essentially like a big kid! I think in fact, the parents are really care for or trust or admire are the ones who are the most silly, and also playful with their kids! You could see it in the split second at the playground; I only admire the structures playing with their kids! Not the disconnected parents, sitting in the shade, sitting on their butt, doing something stupid on their phones.

The matrix

So, let us consider the analogy of the matrix. I think the analogy the matrix is very good here because honestly in fact, we are all living in a metaphorical matrix right now.

For example, think about the battery pack. The battery pack is essentially like us toiling away with our physiological energy, brain power mind power soul power etc., in order to power these batteries. And, twirling away so hard, the funny irony; we work so hard and we sacrifice so much of our health and well-being, in order to purchase things which dull away the pain, but actually in fact… And up making us sicker and weaker?

For example, marijuana and alcohol; the two biggest depressants we got in modern day society. For an individual who is depressed, or lacking vigor or having poor health… Adding more marijuana to their life, or adding more alcohol to their life is a positive detriment. People not know that both these substances have physiological mental, and a physical effect on the body, which actually dulls your senses? It is almost like putting a condom on your mind?

Does man live to make money, or does money exist to serve man?

OK, the number one foolish mistake we all make; it seems that we live in order to make money, rather than thinking about this critically and knowing and understanding that in fact, the opposite is and should be true; money should exist in order for us to pursue our own personal needs desires and wants!

In fact, the whole cult around money has become pretty ridiculous. The notion of money has become its own godhead, its own cybernetic metaphor and impetus in life.

Minimum viable income

A very radical idea I have is towards this minimum viable income concept. The general idea is you want to reduce your expenses to the bare bare bare bare minimum, and instead, you direct all of your energy power and resources towards augmenting your true life desires, your true true goals in life, rather than money for money sake, which is a slave mentality.

Just watch the movie 300; do you want to be one of those Persian slaves, or the traitor who just wanted to be showered in gold coins and drugged out hallucinating women? Of course not!

“Pretty girl with white toes, she like to put it in her nose!” – Playboy Carti

Something which is actually a bit shocking to me; I grew up super sober, I maybe smoked marijuana twice in my life, both instances when I was around 25 years old. I didn’t really like it.

The reason why I am so anti-marijuana is because when I was in high school, I saw all my friends who got hooked on it, and it just made them lazy, dumb, and unmotivated.  Just like Elon Musk said on the Joe Rogan podcast; “Smoking marijuana is like the exact opposite of drinking a cup of coffee“. And I love coffee. 

I don’t know if marijuana is pretty cheap now, or people using these vape pens or these weed pens or whatever. But, why dull your senses? Why not heighten them instead?

“I’m in love with a V dub engine, it dulls my senses” – JAY Z

“Success sucks, why? Too much stress” – JAY Z

Don’t skip leg day

A funny thought; if you want to maximize your manliness, let us consider that your member, and your testicles are connected to the lower half of your body. And also let us consider that your legs are probably at least five times stronger than your upper body. For example, easy to lift 1000 pound with your legs in your shoulders, very very difficult to lift 1000 pounds with only your arms in your upper body.

Or once again, easy to do a 1000 pound atlas lift, difficult to do 1000 pound benchpress, nay impossible? 

So the very very funny idea I have is maybe, if you want to increase your testosterone and your manliness, every day, work out your legs!

In fact, if I could tell you that by exercising your legs every single day, you could increase your testosterone by a factor of 10 X, or become 10 times manly, more confident, stronger, less tired less petite, more cheerful… Won’t you do it?

In fact, I think the primary mistake that men make is that the only work out there upper body because they want to somehow attract women? My personal theory is that the primary way for a man to attract a woman is through his testosterone levels, his hormonal levels. For example, the number one complement is my tan, especially my foot, five finger… And there is also an ongoing theory that increase sunlight and sun exposure and testosterone manliness have a connection. Example, the notion of being tall and handsome, is really a good note here. Even other day I met this one friendly mom, and she told me that she was immediately attracted to her personal trainer, a tall dark handsome man with curly hair named Alejandro, and she ended up having a kid with him. It’s funny because the kid doesn’t look like mom at all and even the mom says I only know his kid because I birthed him!

Why do we desire to purchase certain things? Let me give you an example: I remember when I work my UCLA undergraduate job, and IT tech-support, and I literally felt like I just spent five hours a day scrolling through Reddit, killing time on the Internet. And I would also spend a lot of time looking at these camera review websites, gear review forms whatever, And ultimately I think the desire was to just spend more time outside making pictures! And I think this is the insidious thing about the whole camera photography complex; the idea is that we like the freedom and the time to actually quote and make pictures, which is the desired goal… And we think, if somehow, we purchase XYZ camera or XYZ lens, or XYZ accessory… Like a carbon fiber tripod or whatever… Suddenly we will have more inspiration motivated and opportunity to actually go out to make photos? But is this true? No.

For example, the very very simple advice I have for any avatar is that the best camera is the maximally small compact one, the imagine like John Wick and his pistol. When it hits the fan, he is not tooting around and automatic weapon, he just relies on his trusty pistol. Think about that one scene in which he is drifting his car door less Camaro, and picks up his pistol, and shoot the bad guys.

If we consider the Ricoh GR camera, it is like our metaphorical pistol.  it is both our precision tool, and also, our general purpose tool.

You cannot hide an M-16 in your front right pocket.

Ways in which I spent a lot of time as a kid, as a teenager playing counter strike, 1.6. The original one. 

The funny thing is that video games, and gun violence don’t really have anything in common. For example, to me as a kid guns weren’t really a big deal;  for example, when I was in Boy Scouts, in one of the summer camps, I got both my shotgun and rifle merit badge, the same month, as well as my archery merit badge! Kids aren’t dumb; I remember being shocked as maybe a freshman in high school; instructor giving a bunch of kids rifles, at the shooting range, teaching us how to use it. A bit shocked as a kid, because even as a kid this seemed a bit dangerous. I remember asking the instructor “… Has anyone ever turned one of these guns around and just shot somebody else?” The adult got very serious, looked at me, and told me “Never say things like that.“ So with extreme caution, we never did anything dumb, and I was actually a quite good marksman! I could hit the target from very very far away, and also I was very good at shotput, in which you use a shotgun to shoot a flying disc in the air!


Your word is your sword 

I think the grand difficulty that we have modern day life is that we no longer have any avenues for physical valor. The only thing which is commoditized is sports; but the reason why sports is bad is that it is too regimented, too constrained, and lacks any sort of real life application.

As NASSIM TALEB has commented;  what some fools think is that somehow… A chess master would somehow be a master in military strategy. While this might make a good movie plot, in real life it is not true.

The reason why I am actually anti-chess, and a lot of these board games or whatever… Consider how poor it is for your physiology. Sitting on your butt the whole time, stationary, using your brain. It requires no physical valor, or skin in the game. Worst, you lose the match, and maybe you feel bad, but beyond this, there is really no downside to losing. This is also where video games are; There is no real life downside.

At least weightlifting, powerlifting, uplifting, one rep maxing is interesting is that there is some sort of potential physical downside. If you aren’t focused enough, yeah certainly you hurt yourself. And that is the whole point!

And this is where I found the logic to be so bizarre; when these steroid did out guys would be so shocked of how much I would attempt weightlifting at the gym, when I would wreck up the barbell with seven plates, eight plates, nine plates, 10 plates, 10 plates and hook another 25 on top, they would always tell me… “Be careful”. 

Now that I think about this commentary in retrospect, it is really kind of a weakling cowardly side jab;

I am much bigger than you, and you look smaller than me, and also you are built more lean, and also you are Asian… And therefore I am befuddled how you are so much stronger than me, and I want to inform you how you might hurt yourself.

Even I have heard people talking about me at the gym on the side; 

You know… there are some guys who are on steroids who don’t look like they’re on steroids (referring to me)

Anyways, what these wimps don’t realize is that they are staring at an Achilles in the flesh, a demigod; half man half God; born mortal father, with a goddess mother. 

“I am a god”

I think one of the most radical, gutsy things ever uttered in rap music is the Kanye YEEZUS album, in what he put out the “I am a god” song and album.

Note, he did not say that I am the God, but a god (lower case). Even some random stuff that I started to do research in during Covid times is the whole Jay Electronica, movement of black African-American guys turning to Allah, the fruit of Islam movement, in which the code word for “ALLAH” (arm, leg, leg, arm, head) the general idea in which all humans are born like gods, born in the image and the likeness of God.

“I know I’m not the most high but I’m on a close high.” KANYE, I AM A GOD, YEEZUS ALBUM

In fact, the only concert I have ever gone to my life was seeing Kanye West live at the Oakland Coliseum, for his YEEZUS Tour. It might have been one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed, especially when they put the fake mountain in the fake Jesus to come on stage, and also when Kanye put on the sequin kept facemask, they shot a laser on it, and reflected it all around the dome.

Ethics is the future, not technology

Ethics, worldview, philosophy, your own personal code of ethics, the way you decide to approach life, this is the future, not the loser iPhone Pro, or any of these ridiculous virtual reality headsets.

Very very simple; what we desire real life real world engagement– we desire the embrace in the sweet smell of a woman, no no no… You don’t want to be having virtual reality sex, with your virtual reality girlfriend, or live with your virtual reality dog, driving around in your virtual reality Lamborghini, getting virtual reality head or whatever… Nobody wants a virtual reality babe.

In fact, do you think about ancient Greece, philosophy the Romans etc.… There’s almost no focus on women. Women are absent; they are never mentioned, nor discussed or talked about. Certainly not talked about like commodities in today’s world. 

The way that a lot of guys get suckered is this strange logic: if I get super super rich, not drive the Lamborghini or the Ferrari or the big truck or whatever, and I’m super super buff, and I have a six pack, suddenly I will try all these babes, who will want to have intercourse with me, Not super happy Playboy lifestyle for the rest of my life, in pure Bliss, without any obligations?

The true Spartan way is almost a polar opposite; live a maximally frugal and economical life, have kids and beget children, have at least one son to carry on the family name. And the rest of your life is just focused on military training, combat, to be ready to defend your family, your nation when shit hits the fan.

This is where once again, all this fake ass patriotism stuff annoys me; if you’re on Facebook, looking at Donald Trump memes, watch Fox News or Tucker Carlson, make fun of “libtards”, talk about the alphabet gender spaghetti, you are not a true American. Just keep your mouth shut, enroll in military duty. You have nothing to defend yourself against.

Similarly speaking, we liberals also have this bizarre notion of virtue signaling; if you are a true progressive liberal, don’t even say the “Donald Trump” name — don’t talk about the news or politics or whatever. The simplest thing is to just vote against the other party you don’t believe in, get involved in local city politics, attend some sort of city council meeting, vote on issues you care for. Also don’t use Twitter, which might be about 99.9% bots? 

***

Only Spartan women can birth Spartan men.

Physical training is both critical for men and women. This is also where it is so impressive that Israeli women are also serve military obligations, I think this is a great idea. Maybe also America, there was some sort of obligatory ROTC training in high school, both for men and women, maybe a junior and senior year… this might be a good idea. Good for virtue, physics, the physical element, physical training, building a sense of camaraderie or kinship between our fellow Americans.

In fact, even though I am a Democrat, I have always voted Democrat, and also I consider myself a liberal, I have had nothing but positive interactions with conservatives, Republicans, people on the right. In fact if anything… Right wing people to be more friendly, fun, jovial, and happy. I remember accidentally walking into some sort of anti-Joe Biden rally, talked with all the friendly people, and was even offered free hotdogs and free ice cream barbecue from the people there! 

The reason why social media and the Internet is so toxic is that it villainizes other sides, these metaphorical human beings. But if you actually talk to people face-to-face in the flesh, person-to-person, pure to pure; we are about 90% similar, 10% dissimilar.

Only purchase digital things? 

A random thought, maybe the way we could curb all of this superficial consumerism is to only purchase digital things, digital goods, digital things.

Digital money: Bitcoin

Digital books, digital movies– Apple TV shop, iTunes Store, iBooks Store. I actually find that purchasing a film is much better than subscribing to a streaming platform. Why? Skin of the game. When you pay the $10 a month or the $15 a month or whatever for that streaming service, you don’t really value any of the films or TV series on it., It is almost like a sedative; you watch something not because you want to watch it, or learn from it, but instead, just watch it to distract yourself.

Putting your money where your mouth is 

The funny thought is the point of purchasing something isn’t too “support“ producer, but instead, to have a sense of pride that the thing that you purchased is actually something that you believe in or care in?

For example, I have purchased with my own money all the John Wick movies, all of the matrix movies, and now both of the Dune movies. Typically when we actually purchased something with our own money, it is a sign that we actually really really believe in it.

Also, the reason why you never want to trust anybody who is sponsored by anything, is because typically when you are given free things, or sponsor by something, you don’t actually really believe in it, you just accept the advertising and the sponsorship in order to make money or to feel special.

For example, in the context of cameras, reviews, sponsorships etc.; only trust a photographer who had actually purchased the things with their hard earned money. 

For example, I have done collaborations with Fuji film before, received free cameras in the past, free lenses etc.… And have also been paid money by then. Also I did some free consulting for them, sharing some good ideas like adding a film grain simulation effect filter to their cameras, which they did, in which now you could add green tier digital JPEG photos with the Fujifilm filter, and select either weak, normal, or strong grain. 

I am proud that all the Ricoh cameras that I purchased, none were given to me by free from Ricoh. I purchased them all with my own money. 

Also kind of a random thing; I think the whole blogosphere was shocked when I purchased a LUMIX G9 camera — it totally seemed like out of left field, because Panasonic Lumix was on nobody’s radar. And currently, now that all my Ricoh GR cameras are dead,  my only camera is the Lumix G9 camera and the 14mm f2.5 pancake lumix lens (only $200!). And the only two cameras I think might be worth considering purchasing in the near future is the new Ricoh HDF cameras, or the new Lumix S9 camera with the pancake manual focusing lens. 

Trust?

Ultimately, trust nobody, only yourself.

Also with filters; put more trust in dead people than people who are alive. Why?

The difficult thing with following people who are still alive today is that you don’t know how it all ends. With dead philosophers, artists, innovators, you do. 

Also, I think the big differences in the past, there was not a profit motive. An artist or an innovator did not need money, because they had the private patronage of some wealthy family like the Medici’s, Leonardo da Vinci etc.

So I’m starting to think more and more… Maybe the best true way to be a true artist, visionary, thinker, innovator entrepreneur is to independently make money somewhere, and don’t have to rely on advertising or sponsorships or brands to support your lifestyle.

I would put more faith in the photographer or the weightlifter who makes his living investing in bitcoin,  rather than somebody who is always spamming you with advertisements on YouTube or podcasts.

In fact, are there any podcasts which exist which don’t have any advertising? Besides my own?


Why bitcoin is the future

Bitcoins, Satoshis– this is finally the solution to these annoying online advertisements. 

Maybe the true Spartan only cares for in bitcoin and Satoshi, but never spends it or touches it, but just keeps accumulating it.

Bitcoin is like our shield – our economic shield and our hedge against the uncertain future.

ARMOR UP!
ERIC


Economic theory

Always thought that economics was stupid, honestly, truth be told, I think when you look at all this fake mathematics behind theory, it is all fake, the new hocus-pocus witchcraft, and the number one critical thing I learned about studying statistics both in high school and in college is that statistics is fake metrics that could be gamed however you want. 

Therefore, put zero faith in statistics. Better talk to a real human being, face-to-face, person to person, instead of engaging in ridiculous debates on the Internet, which again is filled by 99.9% ChatGPT powered bots.

Once once again, if I waived a magic wand, and I revealed to you that in fact, all of the negative comments you write in your life on the Internet, these trolls who said mean things to you, if you actually found out that they were all just artificial intelligent ChatGPT bots the whole time… Wouldn’t you feel better?

The next generation of comments on the Internet

Maybe the only way we could truly verify whether somebody who is leaving a comment is a real human being or not is to institute the orange check icon, that the individual spent maybe $10 worth of bitcoin or Satoshi’s to verify their humanity. Several years ago, I had the wisdom to just disable all and delete all comments on my website and blog etc. and also disabling them on YouTube etc. Why? For the most part, comments are useless. Even the positive ones!

When people say nice things about you in the comments, the reason why you could be bad is that it becomes a shackle; you keep publishing stuff that gets good feedback, and as a consequence, you end up staying the same instead of being innovative.

For example, when Bob Dylan went electric; he probably polarized 90% of his fanbase. Also, everyone likes the old Kanye West in the college dropout album… But I like the new Kanye, I like the new carnival, the newest version of an artist is always the best. A funny contradiction; everyone always wants the newest iPhone, the newest Tesla, whatever… But everyone wants the older artist, the older music, the older version of a certain thinker? If we stay consistent here, shouldn’t we prefer the new philosophy or the new thoughts or the new approach of an artist or a musician or a thinker versus their old self?

For example, everyone seems to prefer the old ERIC KIM, the old EK, but this is when I was still addicted to Facebook, using an android phone, and I still had my 95 job.

Sometimes, for myself, I miss my old Vietnam self; but in fact, my best self is my now self with Seneca! Also, sometimes I miss my old ERIC KIM gym self, the HYPELIFTING self, but when I think critically about it, I am 1000 times happier with my new bitcoin self, my new off the grid self, my new walk 10,000 steps a day in the direct Los Angeles sun self. 

Then I think the biggest nugget of wisdom:

Prefer the you self right now, not the past self?

Kill your old self!

ERIC


EK PHOTO SUPPLY

EK WORKSHOPS

Become a new you:

New books, new media?

Now that everything is becoming so hyper, once again, think about the past.

The Iliad, the Matrix, the 300, John Wick, Tippet simple, keep it succinct.  I’m very very skeptical of anything new, whether they be new movies, new series, new films etc.

Even this past generation, the last 10 years, the only innovative film created was the John Wick series, nothing else. Even though I was also enthusiastic about the new Mandalorian series, eventually after the first season, it all goes downhill.

With Marvel movies, I think the only good ones was before Disney bought it, for example the original Iron Man, the original Captain America etc. 

Why? The problem with Disney is that it is trying to maximize its profits, let us consider it is a publicly treated company, and as a result, the logic is to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Whenever anything is created for the masses, it is bad.

Once again, would you prefer to drive the McLaren, with the butterfly doors, or would you prefer to drive the Toyota Corolla?


Digital is The Future

Digital goods, digital products

–> proof of work digital goods which cannot be replicated?

There is currently a idea of NFTs, which stands for non-fungible tokens. The idea is creating a digital artwork or digital product which can be sold, in which an individual can prove their own ownership.

I suppose my thought, in regards to bitcoin, which isn’t entirely fascinating is that it is truly the first digital money. That cannot be replicated, you cannot fake it, because the proof of work network is so energy intensive, you cannot make something out of nothing.

I suppose the reason why proof of work is so critical here, and what a lot of these foolish pseudo environmentalist don’t understand is that if something doesn’t require energy to produce, whether human labor, material production, etc.… Then, it has no value.

For example, being born in 1988, and witnessing all of this digital rights stuff, protections against digital copying, as well as anti-digital piracy. 

As a kid, growing up, obviously I have no money, because I don’t work yet… The logic never seemed to make sense to me: 

if I download this video game book or movie or album which is digital… I don’t do any harm unto you.

But then the owner or the publisher or the business might say

“Well… It cost me a ton of money for me to produce this thing, and you are a morally evil and bad person because you are stealing this, because you might have paid $20 for this CD, if you did not pirate it.”

But the logic doesn’t make sense for a kid, because if you are a kid, there is no option to; because you don’t have any money, you wouldn’t have purchased it in the first place anyways! I suppose it is different as an adult once you got money… But still, I think for anybody who is in tech, IT, obviously we all have taunting software, we all know pirate bay, we all know how to turn on the VPN and cover our tracks, and download stuff etc.

I think even at this point in 2024… Truth be told pirates something is actually more cumbersome. It takes more time, you are at the risk of viruses and cyber attacks etc.… But I suppose the great convenience here you have access to the direct files.

For example, I have no problem paying $10 or $20 or whatever for you, Kendrick Lamar album, Jay Z album whatever, however, my primary annoyance is that let us say that I pay $10 on the iTunes Store or Apple Music to buy a new CD. But, I can only access it on my Apple iOS device! What if I want the files directly, to remix them, chop it up in GarageBand, or just use it as background audio for my photography slideshows? Then I am stuck. 

Selling digital products

I suppose hear the issue is, you could still sell digital products, whether they be digital e-books, digital PDF files, digital zip files, digital music files, whatever. But still, the only reason people actually pay money to purchase these digital products online is because they either believe and desire to support the creator, or they want access to it, or they cannot easily google and find it free online.

So I suppose, the real question here is how can we create a digital good? In which when you purchase a digital something, it actually does really have value? That you cannot replicated, not out of an ethical thing, but a physics based approach? 

For example, with digital products, is it possible to solve the double spending problem?

This is the primary phenomenal innovation of bitcoin; you cannot copy of bitcoin or replicated, like you can do as an MP3 file of Beethoven’s fifth Symphony. Or an e-book,.pub file, or PDF file of the Iliad. 

I think this is why I believe in open source so much; because it seems like the ethical, rational thing to do. My philosophy has always been simple:

Do unto to others as you would like others to do onto you.

For example I like free stuff, free files, free videos, and I hate these goddamn advertisements, is annoying banner pop-up ads, and I hate having to subscribe for some sort of email newsletter in order to download something I want access to.

Therefore as a result, in all of my personal endeavors, I try to make it as easy and direct for people to access my videos, photos, files, e-books whatever with direct links either or directly from my own website blog server, Google Drive links, dropbox links etc.

Once again, how can we create a new digital good on the Internet? Which can either be purchased with US dollars, or satoshis or bitcoin?

***

Books

I’ll give you a good example with books; a book is a physical object, something you could hold in your hand. I cannot snap my fingers and then magically duplicate it into a thousand more books. 

I think the reason why books, printed books have value because we know that there was work and energy and labor and materials necessary to produce the thing: the physical pages, the ink, the binding, the packaging, the genius of the writer and illustrator, etc. And also we humans we still have a passion for tangible things; I think most people would prefer owning a physical book in hardcover for drama put it on their shelf, and think that it has value, rather than paying $30 for an e-book of the same sort.

Why ebooks

With ebooks electric book, maybe we should just call them digital books…  The reason why nobody likes to pay that much money for it because we are not stupid. We know that of course, it cost money and effort and time and energy for the writer to write the book, get it edited, proofread, distributed whatever… But we know that the marginal cost of having it downloaded, is practically zero. Therefore the rational human being would think to themselves: I know that it cost effort in time for the author to write the book, but if I download it as an e-book, it should be cheaper than the hardcover.

For example, let us say I want to purchase a new translation of the Iliad, for $30.  but let us say that I started reading it, and I hate how heavy and cumbersome it is.

Then let us say that I just want to buy it in the iBooks store, if that is the case… I expect it to cost less than $30, because I know that I don’t have to purchase the materials for the hardcover book. I might expect it to cost like $10, $9.99 or whatever.

Fiat money is a scam?

Currently the biggest issue we have is what the US dollar, essentially the Fed can just keep printing more of it! Then in someways, this is not too different than somebody pirating MP3 files for your favorite artist. They can keep inflating the digital supply of something, there is no hard cap.

I suppose the reason why the notion of cap is critical here is that it obeys the laws of physics! For example once again, if I have a physical book, there is a law of conservation of energy, I cannot snap my fingers and reproduce it with zero cost. Of course I could use energy and resources to print and publish more books, but once again, Hard caps, gravity, friction, the law of conservation of energy applies.

Think Bitcoin

If you believe in physics, first principles, and you are not a fool, bitcoin is for you! Why? Even Fernandinho Galliani in his treatise “On Money” said that true money has a hard cap, a limited supply. He talks about why gold is money, because of its scarcity.  however, he also knew that if you increase the supply of something, like when the conquistadors discovered tons and tons of gold in the New World, then he realized that the value of gold then plummets.

Because bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins, and none will ever be produced ever again, for the next hundred thousand years, what that means then is  it is finally, the first scarce desirable good commodity or thing on the planet or the universe.

Once again, the reason why is so valued is because most people think of it as scarce, which is true, but it is not a true scarcity in so far much as they are still mining gold today, and still discovery new gold mines across the planet, Gold mines we did not know existed in the past!

So in theory, if you put 1 million workers to work, and employed thousands of geologist, and then let’s say you magically said that 1 ounce of gold was worth now $1 million, certainly we would discover more gold and produce more gold! But also consequently, when we discover more gold and we put it on the market, then the value of gold will plummet.

Karl Menger on monopolies

What Carl Manger says in his book the principles of economics, a section that is very very fascinating, a short section is on monopolies. Even then, he knew that there were certain industries that created artificial monopolies, by creating things into an artificial scarcity, for example diamond producers, and restricting the ability or the supply of Diamonds to enter the market, artificially.

Also in luxury goods, one of my good friend Stephanie who worked in the luxury goods market, also told me that a lot of these luxury fashion houses, when they produce too much of a luxury bag, throw it in the furnace and destroy it. Why? If you have too much real Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags on the market, it will become less valuable. Therefore it becomes more profitable to just take the unsold goods, and just incinerate it in a furnace! 


So what now?

Just some general thoughts on life:

First, I am so insanely grateful for all of my world travels, my world campaigning, all of my accomplishments or whatever. Yet, the accomplish of begetting Seneca is 1 million fold more than any other thing I have achieved or accomplished in my life.

Certainly the work in the labor of actually carrying the baby, and birthing the baby, and breast-feeding the baby and your child is all on the woman. So then what is the role of the man? To create structures in which your partner or wife desires to beget a child with you.

In praise of kids

A lot of these ridiculous things like desiring to purchase a Lamborghini, a Porsche, a Porsche 911, a Porsche 911 GT three RS, a Bugatti or whatever… I think these tend to be fantasies or pipe dreams for people who are childless, don’t have a kid yet, or have no intentions on having kids. 

The walking dead

Now, when I see people and I meet people who are childless, and have no intention on having kids, to me they are like the walking dead.

Then, the whole impetus of their life is towards hedonism; maximization of sensory pleasures whether it be visual — such as traveling to Japan and seeing all the cool stuff, or like eating good food, omakase sushi in Japan, indulging themselves in art, travel, exploration, creating art and ideas, writing books, being “cultural”– or maybe backpacking with their dog or whatever… These people had zero interest to me. Why? They are the walking dead. They shall die and they shall have no living legacy.

Hedonism and kids?

Technically, the ultimate hedonic pleasure you can gain is actually from your kids! Your kid is the most wonderful, evolving growing, entertaining beautiful joyful thing!

For example, almost every single day, Seneca at the age of three years and four months, I am starting to see his language acquisition skills excel rate at a phenomenal rate! And I am so insanely proud because I see the things that I have taught him, and it sticks!

For example, my deep pride and joy that ever since he was born, only spoke to him in Korean, and now, he speaks almost 90% Korean fluently!

Also, when I look at his shape physique and form, the buff kid of all time, I am so insanely proud of him because he is also, the most physically dominant, tall handsome strong intelligent kid of all time.

I am also so proud because whenever I meet other parents, parents or teachers who work with kids, and they honestly remark that Seneca is tall, I feel so insanely proud! People telling me that I am such a great dad, doing a good job parenting, deep sense of joy.

Also, contrary to popular knowledge, having a child actually makes you more adventurous! For example, ever since Seneca was born, and now that he is getting older, I am being exposed to so many new wonderful activities and things, things I wouldn’t have never partook in before he was born! For example, exploring all these awesome science centers, becoming a kid again! Also, rediscovering the Lego Batman movie, other joyful things etc.

So actually the irony is if you want to maximize your hedonism in life, your happiness your joy your fun, don’t get the stupid dog, have a kid instead! 

Keanu Reeves needs to have a kid

For example, there’s also this weird bias that it is cool, more macho, more manly and masculine to be a forever bachelor. No. Only degenerates think this way.

once again, think king Leonidas and his son; have at least one male heir to continue your legacy. 


The digital transformation of everything

So random thing is Seneca and I have been on Los Angeles Public library tour, hitting up all the local libraries, all these great free community events etc.

Something Seneca has been really into lately, is finding and discovering DVDs, especially the LEGO movie, and the LEGO Batman movie, which I find is so insanely funny and great, we need a little bit more humor in our lives. 

In fact, maybe the reason why the Lego Batman movie is so genius is that it is insanely fun, playful, irreverent,  humorous, self-referential, and actually feels more realistic ironically enough?

Anyways, some new thoughts on films; don’t watch any movies that you otherwise wouldn’t be happy with your kid, and also… Maybe in fact the best movies are kids movies?

And also; maybe the best films the only the good ones are the humorous ones, the comedic ones!

For example, why hasn’t a film like Zoolander come out recently? I still remember the notion of “Fragile” (Fra-geee-lleh) or on the Simpsons — “Boo-Uurns!”.

My critique about two days mostly hyper emotional emo world is that there is no more humor. Everything needs to be dark, Marose, emo, self-flagellation.

In fact, what is the main problem of Genzie, millennials, everyone in this generation? The young youth?

The issue is that everything is hyper; hyper sensationalized, hyper media. 

My simple tip for us incoming parents — some hard rules:

  1. Never ever ever ever ever kid an iPhone or a smart phone. If you need to track them or call them or whatever… Just give them one of those Apple AirTags and attach it to them, or just buy them a phone. Yes you could just buy the phone on Amazon supercheap, and tossing in a Sim card. in fact I would even say the best dumb phone is the only one that could make phone calls only, no LCD screen. I find texting to be one of the most ineffective ways of human communication, and also hugely depersonalizing.
  2. No electronics inside the home: I have a new rule with Seneca, if he wants to play games on the iPad, whether it be poly bridge, racing games (GRID AUTOSPORT, the paid one), pocket city, roller coaster tycoon classic, etc — I just tell him that he is only allowed to play it outside! So I toss the iPad in the backpack, we go on a walk, we go to some sort of social public space, and then I let him play there, and typically the funny thing is by the time we get to the public outside space… He doesn’t want to play the game, and instead he’ll just run around instead!
  3. Maybe with movies films media etc. also, only let them watch it outdoors? Like if they want to watch a movie, have them only watch it at the local nature center or park, also funny thing; maybe the future will be more analog, this will be our new privilege. For example, Buy a USB-C DVD player for your MacBook laptop, as we don’t have DVD players anymore, and if your kid wants to watch a movie, just check it out from your local library? Adding some sort of friction in today’s digital world is a good idea; having Disney+ or HBO Max or Netflix or YouTube or whatever… With so much streaming movies shows and entertainment possible… It is almost like giving your kid a firehose of high fructose corn syrup laced with type two diabetes for kids. Parents will often be alone; well it is so hard… And it is true! But I think we’re having a new sense of elitism is good; let us consider that 99.99% of Americans are obese, morbidly obese, etc. Just because everyone else is shoving donuts into their mouth, and getting fat, doesn’t mean you should either.

Digital property?

Every few thousands of years, comes a major paradigm shift which changes everything.

We are so insanely to be alive right now in 2024; two massive paradigm shifts happening at the same time: artificial intelligence (open ai, ChatGPT), and Bitcoin.

Also, I think a very fascinating innovation I’ve discovered is that to rebrand something, or to reimagine something, or to re-understand something is also a huge innovation.

For example, the critical insight by Michael Saylor is thinking and considering that bitcoin is not a cryptocurrency, but digital property.

The reason why Michael Saylor’s idea of Bitcoin being digital property is such a grand insight is that in the crypto world ,,, 99% of our efforts are being wasted on the fact that everyone wants to replace the US dollar or replace the entire visa network with their own cryptocurrency or alt coin or etc. 

Not going to happen.

I think for high velocity payments, like buying a cup of coffee coffee or a shot of espresso at your local coffee shop, going to Whole Foods Trader Joe’s or Costco, Amazon fresh whatever…  having high velocity money like your Visa credit card, or Apple Pay on your phone is actually much more convenient. And then we barbell this; bitcoin then is our digital property, low velocity. If you think of bitcoin like owning property on the upper East side of Manhattan New York City, the ideas you keep it forever in the family, and you pass it down to your kids kids kids. And the strategy is simple;

Never sell the property. 

You borrow money against it, maybe you rented out, you try your best to maintain it, upkeep it, pay the property taxes etc. But you never sell the property. 

I also suppose the same idea is in line with bitcoin, if we reimagined it as digital property.

One day, you will be able to rent out your bitcoin, like imagine if you were a landlord, renting out your property to millennials.

Or, imagining that it could be like a digital hotel of the future; renting it out, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, or maybe even minute by minute, to whoever wants to be there. 

Then, essentially we could become like the new digital slumlord; we just sit on our bitcoin forever, collecting rents and money, and we could just chill at the beach, chill at the pool, etc.


Now what?

If you take things further, I think really long-term etc.… ultimate goal is durability as an artist, a creative a thinker etc.

Think peer to peer 


I think the problem in today’s world is because of iPhones, social media, entertainment, Netflix YouTube whatever… We engage with human beings only through media, while sitting on our butts, without any real risk.

My simple thought is always:

Better to risk a friendly social interaction and get rejected, rather than not attempted it at all. 

Simple thoughts: get rid of those losers sunglasses, those dark tennis sunglasses, throw your noise canceling headphones in the trash, and when you are out and about, “raw dog it”– no sunglasses, because sunglasses are for cowards. You will not get eyeball cancer. If the sun is too bright just get a baseball cap, or some sort of visor to protect your eyeballs from the sun.

Also, no headphones. No AirPods AirPods pros, whatever.

I think the critical issue here is that when you have AirPods, noise canceling headphones, AirPods pros on in your ears, or whatever your plug like Bluetooth device, the issue is that you block out 99.99% of the positive stimulation from the environment.

For example, I believe our sense of hearing is actually more acute and more primal than our eyes. For example, if you’re driving around Los Angeles, you will hear the siren of a firetruck before you see the flashing lights.

The reason why I hate Tomkin in LA so much, and I consider it extreme bad manners is that whenever people honk, there is always a fight or flight physiological response from us.  as a result, I’ve been going on a bit of a social justice rampage, whenever people honk, especially when they honk because the person did not drive immediately .1 ms after the light turns green, I give them a sharp that’s there, or I roll down my window, I stick down my hand, and I tell them to calm down. the hand jester for calm down is just put your calm down, and just motion it downwards. No need to give people the middle finger, I think some sort of shame , public shaming is a good idea. 

Also, smokers. Am going to go harder now, 100 X harder. To shame people for smoking in public. I’m just going to pretend like I’m a cop, I’ll tell people not to smoke when I have my weight vest on, because I look like a undercover cop or swat team or whatever. or, moving forward I’m going to do an experiment, whenever I am at a stoplight, and I see people texting on their phone at the stop sign, I’m just going to pretend like I’m CP and then make eye contact with them and tell them to keep their eyes on the road. Nowadays in Los Angeles and beyond people shielded by their cars and their tents, and their sunglasses, and they feel like they are abated for any sort of social responsibility. Even worse, people smoking marijuana while driving. I’ve seen this twice in Los Angeles so far. Rather than complaining, I’m going to do some sort of low-key Vigilante Justice, kind of like Batman. Batman, Batman not in the dark Maroso Way, but can you imagine a playful humorous and joyful Batman? My alter ego is like the Lego Batman, the Lego Bruce Wayne. 

No more compassion. I think the problem of people in Los Angeles, especially when they use their vehicles like cowards, is that they black some sort of exposure to the real world. No skin in the game.

Moving forward, I’m just gonna imagine like I am the super cop, the local city cop, CHP officer etc. 


Better to preemptively serve justice and be wrong… Rather than be a bystander or don’t do anything?

When I was a kid, I wish that more blue collar job ideas were offered to me, like becoming a firefighter or a cop, CHP officer or whatever… I might have even enjoyed doing some sort of low-key form of ROTC as a highschooler?

For example, even Seneca… He loves firefighters, firetrucks, police cars, police, police SUV cars etc. And of course he loves the cyber truck, he also likes it with a matte Black wrap. 

In fact, getting a cyber truck, a cyber beast with a mat black wrap, and getting the black and yellow license plate… This is your metaphorical at mobile? If you think about the Christopher Nolan mobile, essentially it is like a matte Black military vehicle tank —  rather than some sort of sissy, or even muscle car.

The Batmobile in the most recent the Batman movie, with the emo Batman, was also interesting because the Batmobile was also kind of like some sort of muscle car on steroids. 

Even nowadays with vehicles, are you surprising to me, I am starting to get more into trucks, even even the new Toyota Land Cruiser looks super cool?

Once again, if you think about Carl Menger and Austrian economics,  one of the great ideas from Carl is that he talks about how our preferences change overtime; for example that which has utility or interest to us as a child, a mature man, or an old man is all different!

I think maybe it is cultural; I was born in 1988, born Asian American Korean American… And to have Asian pride was to drive some sort of Japanese car, lower it, pimp it out, and race it? Essentially like the early fast and the furious movies, Tokyo drift etc. 

I suppose this is where media is bad; any sort of media you watch and integrate into your soul as a child, has a deep impact on you.

For example, a really stupid thing I saw as an adult the other day — week three young boys, maybe around seven years old, all playing in the sandpit together, doing some sort of fake Godzilla versus King Kong pretend fighting. Eventually one kid falls to the floor, because he is playing, and then one kid starts to kick sand in his face, the kid who was pretending to act all tough, then started to cry, and I’m just watching this from the side with Seneca, and I’m just thinking… Wow this is also bizarre. I’m glad that Seneca has no idea what King Kong or Godzilla is; a lot of these modern are superficially violent, not even in interesting ways.

I also suppose that as a man, raising the sun… Being very very critical on what not to expose them to, you don’t want your kid to the lowest common denominator, become addicted to YouTube or YouTube kids like cocaine candy. 

In fact, I think I am very critical of Google Chrome books in the classroom. Why? Essentially you are getting kids hooked on advertising, and Clickbait at a very young age. I wondered… Is it possible that instead, I could send send cut to school with his own MacBook Air laptop, and not use one of these adware devices?

Let us consider this scam; teachers have their kids self teach themselves something, which they see on YouTube, and of course on the side is all this Clickbait related content that they will be tempted by. Let us also understand adults, the single best thing you could do is enable some sort of related video ad blocker on YouTube. In fact, I think the ethical thing YouTube should do is integrate some sort of toggle on YouTube the YouTube app, maybe you can make it a premium only feature, in which you could actually turn off related videos, turn off comments, and high metrics like video views subscriber numbers, number of comments etc. Why? Has the potential to teach you anything, which is good… But I’m starting to think that the trade-off is not worth it, if you support it with advertising, and Liz related content or videos on the side with all these clicky images, it is a very very dark hole.

My number one suggestion for parents: never ever ever ever ever show them YouTube in fact, uninstall it from your phone. Just think to yourself, if elite Apple CEOs and C officers, and also directors,  and also Apple employees and higher-ups send them to schools without any screens or devices… Also let us remember that Steve Jobs did not permit his kid to use an iPad at home… What is the rest of us plebeians don’t understand?

Also, let us realize this bad thought; why is it that all employees would preferred to use an iPhone over a Google pixel? Similarly… Why is it that Apple employees would prefer to have a Gmail over an iCloud account?

Also, why is it that Tesla sales people don’t actually own Teslas?

Maybe there needs to be some sort of skin in the game rules here.


Digital x Physical

No no no, the future is not the meta-verse. Nobody wants to own a virtual Lamborghini, and live in your virtual house, and get virtual sunlight and virtual floor to ceiling windows, eat virtual steak, have virtual sex with your virtual babes, have virtual fans, go virtual hiking, and take virtual drugs. 

I am almost 100% Berish on virtual reality. The future is not virtual reality, the future is ChatGPT, and bitcoin. 

If in fact, we think about it… No amount of money could actually incentivize me to use that terrible Apple Vision Pro device. Even if you made it practically weightless, ability to use it with classes or whatever, even if you made it like glass, Nobody would really want it. The pain of having to always charge it, the additional bulk, even with my own eyeglasses, which are 100% titanium LINDBERG, Which I think I owned for almost 15 years,  are practically weightless. Now that it is Los Angeles summer, and the sun is strong… I’m starting to wear a baseball cap because I’m getting sunburn on the top of my nose bridge, and my forehead, even if I lather myself with SPF 60 sunblock. Kids and adults know… We don’t actually like having things on our heads or our faces. 

This is where Apple engineers, it may be also Mark Zuckerberg needs to understand… Having some sort of device that sits on our head or our eyes is not desirable. Unfortunately, the future is still some sort of smart phone like device.

In fact, my super grand idea is to create a smart phone without any screen; the true zen phone. Mybe I will call it the Seneca phone. 


More digital thoughts 

Very very simple things here guys;

1. Digital photo books

Publish your photos as e-books, PDF e-books, PDF files, or even share the JPEG files with people in a zip file! 

One of the great things that I learned in the photo world, which is full of a bunch of loser fake art virtue signaling wimps. They are all a bunch of unhealthy, unwell artist, who seem to hate people and humanity, and when they are photographing people in the streets … they are not doing it out of a spirit of love of humans and humanity, but rather, they are seeking some sort of revenge on other people.

Digging deep; I’ll tell you all the dirty secrets.

First, Magnum is bad. Magnum photos, all bad. Eventually everyone is just petty and devious of one another, because everyone wants to be rich and famous, and adored.

And also, there’s this weird talking for position here; everyone wants to be seen as the most elite supreme and legitimate, yet everyone is broke as hell, Evyn look at these famous guitar furs constantly traveling and doing workshops, they only do it because they are broke, and need to pay their rent, They don’t do it for passion.

Maybe the best way to approach things is only take workshops or classes or do things with individuals who don’t even need the money. Maybe there is some sort of genuineness here;

Certainly everyone needs to make a living, but often when you have some sort of famous person or photographer teaching some sort of workshop or travel excursion or whatever… Being managed by some other booking company or individual … there is actually not a strong incentive for the Fatar for to do a good job or care about the well-being of their students because they are usually being paid some sort of flat rate, let us see $5000, by the booking organizing agency, so as long as they show up, and do the minimum viable amount of work, they don’t really care.

Then, maybe the filter in a more practical sense is only do workshops or workshops or whatever by photographers who host the workshops by themselves; without some sort of third-party booking agency.  because they are incentivized to have the students be repeat students, and also they want good news to spread about themselves!

So if you see photographers, private individuals who host their own workshops, travel excursions,  and individuals who have been doing it for a very very long time, years, maybe even decades, and they hosted themselves, they are the point person… Without some sort of assistant or third-party, typically it is a signal that they are doing something right.

Once again, durability and longevity here is key. 

Any artist musician photographer producer or whatever who has been around for decades, and who are still in the game… Even then they’re 40s 50s 60s and 70s, it is a sign that they are good.

For example, Kanye still coming out with new music (CARNIVAL) even after the whole antisemitism thing and break with Adidas. And after his divorce and losing I think custody of his four children?

Also, Eminem just came out with a new album! His road rage song, respect for Eminem, saying what he really believes in, even though he might get “canceled”.

Because isn’t that the point, that you become rich successful powerful enough that you are uncancellanble? 

How to be uncancelable

Very very simple, your own website, your own blog etc.

A website and a blog is the ultimate censorship proof platform. Evyn emails, email newsletters… Having to keep updating my self hosted sendy.co email newsletter platform, Gmail in Google is starting to put a new controls in which you have to add all these random tags to your email and newsletters in order for your emails to reach Gmail accounts, at this point, every intelligent human being that I know has a Gmail account. Gmail is essentially a monopoly on email.

I think at this point, maybe 90% of emails on the Internet or Gmail account? And close to 100% of Americans have some sort of Gmail, Google account?

This is where using a Gmail or a Google account for authentication behind things is so useful; I could almost guarantee that your Gmail account will be around 100 years from now, even though eventually they might fill up with all these advertisements and stuff. I’m starting to think, One day, Gmail just started to put the top three emails on top of your inbox as advertisements, but people stop using it? I certainly would stop using it, but I think 99% of other people will keep using it.

Even now, the reason why I will never ever ever buy an android phone ever again, or a Samsung or whatever is funny enough because of Apple Maps. Apple Maps is inferior to Google maps, but now, I’m being driven by all of these square pin advertising on Google maps, And even this new spamming thing that Google maps is doing one I am driving is asking me whether there are still speed traps ahead? Shame on you Google and Google programmers; I wonder if  you have actually caused a handful of accidents, or maybe even accidental deaths because you put a pop-up while people are using Google maps to drive?

Simple suggestions for the Google maps and the Google team

First, a very simple one to pull in Google, just make some sort of 999 a month, add free premium membership. I would very gladly pay for this.  and once you are on Google premium, there are no more annoying square advertisements on your Google maps.

Also, by default, disable that annoying pop-up about speed traps or whatever, and instead, when you first install the Google maps app, ask people as an option, whether they want it enabled or disabled. It is not a privacy thing; it is a pop-up distraction danger thing. 

Also, disable that feature of the five or 10 minutes slow down ahead things; once again, another dangerous distraction while you’re driving.

Also, a very telling note; one of my millennial friends used to work on the Google maps team, quit, and now on her iPhone, she only uses Apple Maps, she doesn’t even have Google maps installed on her phone. Hmmm….

Also about photography; all of the Apple employees I know, none of them use the iPhone as their primary camera, most of them don’t even use it at all. Instead, they have Leica M cameras,  the compact digital Hasselblad medium format camera, Sony a series cameras, they shoot film, a RICOH GR camera, have a like a SL camera, some sort of standalone digital camera. Also almost none of them use Fujifilm

Camera facts

The best camera brands are Lumix Ricoh Pentax. 

The Leica Q is essentially a Panasonic Lumix in disguise,  The only digital lighter worth owning is a Leica M camera.

Even though I like Fujifilm, and I’ve used all the cameras, still… I don’t recommend it to people. In my whole career, I have never purchased one with my own money, I have bought a ton of Ricohs with my own money,  I purchased a Leica M9 by myself, sold it (thank you Todd Hata) and traded it for a film Leica MP camera (thank you Bellamy Hunt, Japan Camera Hunter), and I think maybe 2017 or 2018 purchased a LUMIX G9 camera I purchased in Japan– which after all my Ricohs died, is the camera I am currently using.

In fact, the most exciting camera that just came out is that new Pentax film camera; it is the new film Ricoh GR camera! It has an integrated flash, and also, because it is half frame, it doubles the amount of exposers you could shoot on a single roll of film, pure genius! This is a very insanely innovative, economical way to extend the joy of shooting film photos, while minimizing the cost! 

Photography for kids

I’m planning on volunteering and just doing some free photography classes for kids, which has the ultimate zero barrier to entry. They could just bring their iPad, tablet, iPhone or smart phone, or stand alone digital camera if they have an option. Or even a film camera! 

Kids are the ultimate photographers. They shoot with joy, no need to share the photos? 

In fact, Seneca, he loves photography, just like myself. He shoots with no obstructions, no hesitations, sometimes he likes to look at the photos, sometimes he doesn’t care too. Maybe this is a more enlightened way we could approach photography?

Evyn as a fun thought experiment; if you had a film camera, or a digital camera or whatever, and you could actually not store the photos or view them later… Would you still do it? Maybe? 


Free digital books

Just give it away for free! Free, as in zero cost, and also free as in freedom!

And also, don’t make people do some sort of annoying subscribing to your email newsletter or whatever to gain access; just do direct links! Hosted on your own FTP server, uploaded to your WordPress media library, share a Google Drive or a dropbox link, etc.

Make it as friction free as possible; because the truth of the matter is in today’s world, for anyone to see your photos or your artistic work, you almost have to pay people to look at your photos! Because the fact is, the world is so inundated with images now, especially now with the advent of ChatGPT and DALL-E, and these billions streaming shows… People don’t have the time to look at your photos! 

In fact, I only think that the reason why people sign up for Fatar a few workshops with these famous furs, is because they simply want some sort of affirmation from the famous guitar for that their work is good, legitimate, and they want to gain some sort of confidence?

For example if Henri Cartier Bresson were alive today,  would I care to sign up for workshop with him just to tell him that my photos are good? No. I think we should also consider Bresson as a failed photographer; somebody who secretly had penis envy towards all his famous painter friends.  let us also remember the fact that at the end of his life, he totally gave up photography, and famously said “photography is not a legitimate art form, it is only a means and path towards painting, and drawing, which is the true art form”.

Always study an artist from the backwards from the grave to the present.

Typically, whatever an artist or a thinker or creator believes in towards the end of their life is kind of like the final testament. Because they have had enough experience, and have distilled their wisdom long enough to gain some sort of deeper insight about things.


Spartan Economics

The spartan economist:

We new Spartans, we shall inherit the earth!

TLDR; think spartan when it comes to money, economics, life.

A truly pragmatic way to think and approach life

I think my critical critique of 99.9% of economists is that all of their fake science and fake pseudo scientific mysticism on the economy whatever, none of it is really tired to practical reality.

For example, more important things; where you live, what car you drive, whether you own a single-family home or rent, what kind of groceries you buy, where, or how much, etc.

Or, where you invest your money, where you save your money, you decide not to spend money on, your own personal financial philosophy.


Spartan investing

Some thoughts on investing;

First, I’ve always been interested in passionate about investing, ever since I was in high school. I still remember my high school science math teacher, Dr. Ahmed, told me about mutual funds back in high school, and told me this unorthodox strategy that I should claim being an emancipated minor, being able to borrow some money, and essentially, use that money to invest in an aggressive mutual fund. And this was junior year of high school, I think I was 16. 

Somehow I did get my hands on some money, maybe like $1000? Or $1200, or $1600? Anyways, somehow I was able to create an investing account when I was 16, my junior year, and I invested in the one thing that I knew was very important, Adobe, which made Photoshop, which I knew was very important because I pirated Photoshop as a kid, and I used it to create all of my images on my computer. I also invested some money into a mutual fund, and even the course of maybe two years, I saw the value of my stock in my mutual fund holding go up? I think I might have realized a $600 or $800 gain, and I was overjoyed!

Fast-forward a bit to college… I realized when I was in college I was able to take out some student loans, and I use some of that money to invest in the market, while I was still in school, my sophomore year. I suppose I was 19 at the time?

Anyways, very stressful; I will check market prices, on my laptop, note this was before the iPhone existed, and it was very stressful. I would see the price go up a little little bit, and I was overjoyed, full of euphoria, and then I would see the price go down, and I would feel my stomach shrink. I remember losing sleep over this.

Stoic training

Anyways, from the age of 19, I had to learn how to control my emotions, something part of my early stoic training. And also, getting into trading penny stocks my senior year, in which I accidentally misread the financials for an oil company, that when I thought they were making a profit, they were actually losing money because they would put the financials in parentheses, which I did not know at the time meant a loss. So I suppose my knowledge was good, but I misread the information, and therefore I saw my life savings of maybe $3200 go to zero. As a 20, 21 year old, this was the worst tragedy I ever experienced in my life.

Anyways, I still think I had some good intelligence. I remember during the subprime mortgage meltdown, I saw the price of Ford go almost to zero, and I saw Blockbuster about to go bankrupt. I knew that Ford was a good long-term investment because I knew that Ford would recover in the long-term, and also I knew that blockbuster would go to zero because Netflix was the future. I think the only problem at the time was at the time I didn’t have any access to, as I think I already lost all my money.

So if I had the opportunity and access to capital, I would habe bought Ford (which has gone up a lot since then) and I would have shorted Blockbuster, which as I predicted ,,, went to zero.

Skin in the game

So this is a big thing; being an armchair investor vs being a real Spartan investor, somebody with skin in the game, with their own personal money in the game.

For example, I think being a personal private investor, investing your own hard earned money is critical here; because that was your soul time energy over many hard hard years of your life. You should/can only take financial risks with your own money. If it is someone else’s money — easy to toss the money like confetti.

Money as your life soul energy

For example, I think about the decade plus in which I taught workshops, I worked hard to do much research, all the thousands of dollars I spent on photo books, writing reviews articles blog posts, videos, etc.… writing books, making presets giving it away for free etc — essentially the best way to think about money is it is your time force energy energy life soul energy imputed into some sort of concrete thing; let us say that it is solidified into a single US dollar.

However the biggest issue here is that Fiat currency, the US dollar, is like an iPhone battery. That slowly but surely, it slowly drains and loses charge and also ability to hold charge.

For example, everybody knows that if you take an iPhone or a laptop, and you just let us sit on your desk for a month without charging it, it will naturally die, even if it was turned 100% off.

Also a problem with batteries and recharging; if you permanently keep it charging all the time, I think also the battery loses the ability to retain charge, and the maximum capacity of the battery loses charges as well.

Think ahead

For example, my 2017 MacBook Pro, 13 inch touch bar space gray, which I bought for about $2000 maxed out refurbished at the time… I think the battery of it only last about five or 10 minutes now before shutting off.

I also heard the same thing with Tesla cars — if you just let it sit, and don’t charge it every single day… slowly it will lose charge. I suppose this is the upside of having a gasoline powered car, is that oil and petroleum will just sit there, and will not lose charge. Surely there are other things you still gotta worry about like the battery, but still… For the most part oil and gas is more stable than an electric battery and charge.

Funny random thought —

Manual is the future?

For example, a manual transmission car even in 2024– will probably still be functional 30 years from now? Electric cars and Teslas and even Hybrids ,,, maybe not?

Also manual focusing lenses, 100% still functional 300 years from now!

With digital cameras, you will always swap out the bodies … but the manual lenses will last forever.

For example, I am 100% confident my Leica 35mm f2 ASPH Summicron lens and my film manual and mechanical Leica MP camera will last 300 years from now … any other digital equivalent? No.


Building capital for the sake of it?

Anyways, I think the general impetus behind investing is a bit misguided. I think in the past I had he thought, and also maybe the general idea that people have is:

“I will invest this amount of money in order for me to gain a return, in order for me to purchase XYZ in the future.”

For example children are taught of a piggy bank, you save your allowance and your birthday money in it, so one day in the near future, you could buy a scooter or something.

Once again this twisted logic; you should save money in order to accumulate money, in order to have enough money and purchasing power in order to purchase this thing in the future you want, rather than thinking about saving money as a vehicle for investing, to grow your monetary power. 

For example, only a moron would spend his whole life toileting and working hard, in order to save the $250,000 or so to buy the Lamborghini. This is insane; the second you buy the $250,000 Lamborghini, your bank account balance then goes to zero, and in theory you are now impoverished.

Let us say that we embrace the two Lamborghini rule;  which is only about a Lamborghini if you are rich enough to afford two of them. But then again, the critical issue here becomes let us say yeah $500,000, and you buy the Lamborghini, and now your monetary power is cut in half, now you only have $250,000 in the bank. I don’t know about you, but nobody likes to see their wealth go from $500,000 to $250,000 in a split second, even if in fact you did buy the Lamborghini and own it.

 actually, the only logical thing to do is to drive to the closest  Lamborghini dealership in Newport Beach, show the guy you’re a bitcoin balance on your phone, and then sit in all the Lamborghinis you would like, play with the steering wheel, see how it feels to be inside the Lamborghini, touch the materials, take it on test drive, enjoy the sound of the engine, the driving experience whatever, and then decide not to buy it. 

Or another option is to just rent it for a day! Whether it cost $1000 or $5000 or whatever, a much much better financial way to use your money than to blow $250,000!

 even if you were a Jay-Z; you would not go out and start buying expensive cars like I’m $1 million Bugatti or whatever. If you are a true capitalist, a true investor, somebody who really does care about money… The point is you invest your money, and you keep stacking it forever, and you actually spend as little money as possible, in order to indefinitely increase your wealth!

For example, you do not buy the $1 million Bugatti — no. Rather, you buy $1 million worth of bitcoin, and then you see it become 10 million, 100 million, 1 billion, 10 billion, 100 billion. Isn’t this what somebody who really cares about money… Isn’t this how they should think? 


Toys are bad

We Spartans know that toys are bad. In fact, some things I learned about toys, in raising Seneca: 

  1. Superficially legos seem like a good idea, but eventually, Legos are bad. Why? As a parent you got to clean up their mess, and also… when your kid grows up sooner or later you’ll just donate the Legos to another family. The ideal and optimal strategy then is to just play with Legos at the local library on the brick building day, and just leave it there, and go back home.
  2. For Seneca’s entire life, I’ve only bought him two toy cars; I think two Lamborghinis, the small hot wheels style. I think we already lost them.
  3. Almost by osmosis, kids, whether you like it or not, or gain all of these free toys by orbit. For example when they visit their grandma’s home, or play with cousins or whatever… They will pick up random toy cars here and there. Therefore, the simple ideas that you never have to purchase kids any toys, they will naturally get toys from friends and family, on their birthday holidays etc., even if you are a “anti toy household”.

Set a good precedence. 99% of things we desire to purchase as adults or just really really expensive toys. 

Are toys bad?

I think so.

Essentially the purpose of a toy for the most part, is some sort of thing to distract your kids while you as a parent to do something else.

And also, the problem and issue with toys is that it doesn’t make them anymore physically strong or capable.

When it comes down to it, the best things to prioritize for your kid is their physical strength, height, muscle mass, ability to climb stuff, run around, be out in nature, go on hikes, have a nice tan for actually being in the sun, ability to pick up heavy stuff and throw them, etc. Even one of the things I’m very proud of is ever since Seneca was very young, he would be really good at throwing rocks into bodies of water!

No, whenever I see other kids, the only thing I’m ever impressed by is to see how muscular they are! Or how they are in running climbing, doing physical things. 

Weapons & armor & shields

If we think about the ancient Spartans, what were their possessions? Simple: their spear and shield, even their sword was kind of more of an accessory piece.

Also, I think according to Plutarch, or some of the ancient historians, there are funny quotes like “why are spartan swords so short?” Spartan response: “So we could get close to the enemy”.

Also, one of the most critical things about being a spartan was your shield; the reason why the hunchback was not allowed to fight along the spartan army was because he could not raise his shield, and the critical thing about being a spartan was the ability to defend the man next to you.

Even when you consider the final duel or fight between Achilles and Hector, I think it comes down to throwing spears, at a distance, and having the other party defend themselves with their shield.

Helmets were also critical because there were many times in which having the right shield actually defended you from death.

Bow and arrows are for cowards

Or why guns are for pussies:

Even the ancient Spartans, when the ancient Spartans saw a castle with lots of archers on top one Spartan commented –

“Is it women who live there?”

Certainly when it comes to real military combat, typically the armies or the side with the strongest firepower wins. For example, the Roman legionnaires, I think 99% of their lethality was because they had catapults, and they were just sling massive rocks and destroyed 99% of the other side of the enemy, and then the Roman legions would then enter in phalanx form, and just tidy up the rest of the mess. 

And even now, the US military, they are essentially getting rid of real pilots, and just creating drone aircraft instead. Why? Human being pilots are a liability; it is always bad PR if your pilot gets killed in combat, or gets killed by an accident. if it is a drone, certainly people alone the financial laws, but when it comes down to it… a financial loss is always superior to a human life loss. 

For example let us say that it cost the US military $100 million to create a drone aircraft. And let us say that for one reason or another it gets destroyed. Or it fails, better to lose $1 million aircraft to lose the life of one single human pilot.

Armor up!

Anyways, in modern day life, the big issue that we have is all of these pussies who have guns. Or knives.

A real man, should only engage in hand-to-hand combat, and the only thing that a real man does is has body armor as a form of defense.

For example, if you’re really afraid of people shooting you up or whatever, just buy a bulletproof vest. This is what cops have. Technically as a private citizen, I think you are allowed to purchase and own and wear a bulletproof vest, if you so desire. 

For example, just think of Keanu Reeves (John Wick) in his Kevlar armor suit jacket, how he used his suit jacket as a shield or armor against incoming bullets. So gangsta.

And even now, the supreme way I feel tough is wearing my 60 pound weight vest around; I think even real cops, who wear bulletproof vest, a real bulletproof might only wear 10 pounds or 20 pounds?

Now I suppose because I do my daily walks with my 60 pound weight vest, I no longer really feel it on me. This is a very good thing. Let us say I get into a high conflict situation and I just put on my weight vest, I know that nobody could fuck with me or Seneca or Cindy.

Unfuckable with

A true Spartan; only has armor, no guns, no knives. His word is his sword.


Money as a defense against slavery

“Fuck off money”– having enough money that you could just fuck off, and not have to do nothing. 

So my first Spartan economic thought is that the purpose of money is more of an economic shield, barrier, buffer, or armor to prevent you from working like a slave.

The purpose of money isn’t to buy stuff, purchase a home, buy superficial things, purchase a vehicle, travel to Japan ne eat overpriced sushi…but rather, via negativa; for you not to work.

As long as you got a job, a boss, a steady paycheck… you are not free. 

For example, doesn’t matter if you’re being paid $750,000 a year at Apple; as long as you have to stay inside your nice glass cube prison cage, you are not free. 

Also, as long as you got a mortgage on your home, payments on your car, and any sort of debt or obligations… once again you are also not free.

Also a Spartan ethic thing;

Don’t indebt others.

What it means is never ever ever let anybody borrow money from you. Because let us say you loan $1000 to somebody and they don’t have the means to pay you back like they promised in two weeks. What do you do, beat them up, or hostage their family members? No.

Never borrow money from others, never lend money to others.

The only type of money exchange should be gifts. No obligations. 

All debt is bad debt

More recently I thought I’ve been thinking through is in regards to the notion of debt; for example what some institutional investors do is take on debt to purchase things, property, bitcoin like Michael Saylor and microstrategy, in order to purchase more assets, in the promise that it will grow in the future.

I’m starting to think, maybe could work for the corporations, institutions etc.… but maybe this kind of leverage is not a good idea for us private investors, because it could cause you to lose your freedom.

So once again, never leverage debt, even “good debt” to acquire more property. 

The goal

  1. NOT have a job
  2. NOT have debt
  3. NOT be employed by anyone else besides you (sole, sole proprietor — number of employees is 0– you are your only employee).

Creating your own new Sparta

What is very interesting about Sparta, Kim Leonidas etc.… is that the point wasn’t to enslave millions and billions of people, rather, it was to think about committing to your own local population… for example, maybe the Spartan population was only 10,000 Spartans? And they had about 50,000 helots till the land?

A big thought: it seems that the modern day individual loves to complain critique and hate on everything, hate on global policies, politics, individuals, music, media, iPhones and social media, whatever. Whenever people talk about global warming, carbon levels, carbon footprint whatever… typically I see a lot of these people are either single, maybe they own a dog, certainly they have no children and kids.

Never trust any environmentalist who don’t have kids.

Propaganda 

In fact, the lamest thought is that kids contribute most to the carbon footprint of the planet… my ongoing theory is that these people are just humanity haters; they just want to take their dog to the grave with them?

Who knows, perhaps your kid, or some other kid who is born today is going to be the one who solves pollution on the planet; who creates a solar power panel which is 1 billion times more effective, or invent some sort of nuclear power fusion fission energy generator that could fit in your back pocket?


Become the change in which you wish to see manifested in the world

Anyways, my simple thought is rather than complaining and critiquing about society whatever… more effective to just become the change in which you wish to see manifested in the world, and also a big thing; have kids! Create your own micro society, create your own cultural values, and insanely Spartan, stoic and staunch about it.

Niches are the future.

Creating new cultural norms

For example, I think giving presents and buying toys for kids on their birthday is ridiculous. I believe rather — gift experiences and time together. Therefore for my niece Amelia and Benji, I don’t think I’ve ever bought them any toys on their birthday or on any holidays. What I do instead is take them rockclimbing with me and Cindy, and also when I’m just with them… I just play with them! I leave my iPhone in my glove compartment of my car, and I just run around with them!

I remember Amelia saying a year or two ago saying “I miss Samchon ERIC,… Because he is the only one who plays with me”…


How to raise your kids

I think in today’s world of hedonism and indulgence… this is my thought on how one should aspire to raise one’s kids–

The thought is to raise, train, and breed your kid to be creators, innovators, Spartan Stoics, with maximum physical capability, a 100% carnivore diet, with extreme vigor, play and joyfulness.

For example, would you give your kid heroin? Certainly not. Then don’t shove kids in front of their face Netflix or Disney+ or bluey or whatever when you just want them to stop crying. Let them confront their own emotions, explain things to them, let them cry it out; give them a kiss on their forehead if they fell on their head, and the big thing; don’t let any other loser adults punk your kid around.

Something that randomly caught me offguard being a new first time parent, is having these miserable old female librarians telling Seneca not to cry inside the library and that “he must go outside,” or even having random people in the apartment next to us passive aggressive things like complaining that Seneca was playing with his toy cars outside?

One thing that pisses me off is society has become maximally tolerant of dogs and their misbehaviors; but, no privileges to children? 

“Don’t smoke here! No smoking here!”

In fact, I’m starting to think more and more… perhaps I should become more aggressive, more of an asshole parent. For example, I’ve been on a bit of a rampage in which telling other people to not smoke in public places, when I’m with Seneca. Even though they might give me a dirty look, or even if I might feel bad about it… This is what a true Spartan would do. Essentially you take the brunt of badness, bad emotions whatever… And defend your kid, defend your wife, defend your family.

Also, never tell people sorry. Just tell them thank you. 

When to attack?

Also, I think America we could learn a thing or two about Sparta; for the most part, think America should just stop meddling in the business of other nations, other nation states, even if we want to maintain some sort of world peace for the interest of America.

For example, America needs to stop waging positive war. The only good use of military is defense. America needs to be well positioned in such a way that if anyone attacks us, we could defend ourselves. But I think ethically, America should not wage preemptive attacks on other nations and other nation states, in order for us to be like Machiavelli’s prince; the idea that often to defend oneself, you have to preemptively attack. We are strong enough.

Even when a foreigner visited ancient Sparta, the foreigner asked, why are there no walls? And the Spartan said, because our men and our children defend these borders.

One day your kid is going to find your gun 

I think this is also the thing that is so ridiculous about gun ownership in America, all these loser notions of “self-defense“. Everyone always wants a gun on them, because they are afraid of being shot or being attacked. And I think some people shoot another person preemptively, because they fear their life is in danger danger or whatever.

But, the law is, you are never allowed to shoot first. The only time you pull out your gun or whatever and start shooting is one the other person has already shot you, or has already shot something in the environment.


The stoic Spartan investing strategy

Live Spartan. Essentially somebody who glorifies themselves and their own human body, their own physical strength, just think about how buff your muscles, your shoulders your back and your traps are.

Your pride joy and glory is your own body and muscles, not your possessions.

I trust no man who has tattoos, has a dog, and drives some sort of entry-level German car 

No dogs, no cats, no animals. Only children.

Ensure that you have at least one son to continue the family name. 

Perhaps foolishness is a virtue?

I’m also starting to think, being mad, being a madman is a virtue. Anybody who focused is too much on security, safety, prudence and rationality is a wimp.

Good for your wife, do it for your family, be a true mensch.

Throw your cares and concerns into the tailwind, burn all your bridges, burn your ships behind you, don’t look back. Only forward.


What type of money would Spartans prefer?

Historically, the ancient Spartans would abolish money. Because they know that money corrupts.

I think one of the earliest Spartan legislators, Lycurgus, essentially made the law in which he converted all money into huge stones, which were essentially impossible, maybe it was made of iron etc. made accumulation of wealth so cumbersome, people eventually stopped chasing wealth for the sake of it.

Mandatory military duty?

I was always an anti-military, but now as an adult… I’m starting to see the virtues.

For example, in South Korea, all men are required to do a mandatory two year military service, even StarCraft players and BTS members are not exempt.

The good thing about this, as well as Singapore… it builds a sense of nationhood and camaraderie between men. Even one of my friends, Andrew, a professor I think he did some sort of part-time Navy officer reserve training when he was getting his PhD… and he said something like “I think if there was some sort of military duty amongst Americans, there would be a lot less divide and conflict”. I also agree.

Probably the most anti-racist training that I ever got in high school was accidentally; playing high school American football. Essentially, I was thrown in all rainbows of races; African-American, Latino, southeast Asian, east Asian, Caucasian etc. There was a strong sense of brotherhood, and everybody supported one another. And for the most part, we put aside all of our differences and our cliques.

Sports team unites

For example, I remember some of the white guys who were hefty lineman, I think they were into Cowboys and rodeos and wearing cowboy hats whatever, and African-American kids would just hang out with other African-Americans at school, and the southeast Asians were also part of their own crew etc., all my friends were Korean American, or east Asian… But when we all played football together, did practice, played games etc.… we would all sing the same ridiculous songs on the school bus, breaking windows on the bus, etc.

Sports teams eliminate race.

Jewish-Americans

Also, a very formative thing that I did was Boy Scouts; becoming an Eagle Scout, etc. Also here… all notions of race, religion whatever was erased; I remember that my scoutmaster was Jewish Jewish American, and his two sons were all in scouts with me would wear the little Hat, and I never knew what it really was, but I never really hated on it.

And also, I remember the Levee brothers; also two boisterous Jewish American kids, Ariel and Jamie, And once again, I didn’t even know what antisemitism was until I went to college?

We are all American

Anyways, my grand vision is that being American should be more of a nationality, more of a nation state thing, rather than a racial thing.

For example, the genius of Rome, was that as long as you paid taxes, you were Roman. It didn’t matter if you were from Spain, like Seneca the younger, who I named my own son after, Seneca was not a Spaniard — he was a Roman. 

Also, I have more in common with Kendrick Lamar who grew up to E-40, than I ever did with any Korean person I met in South Korea.

Also some funny nuances; I have far more connections with somebody I meet up in the bay area, in the 90s, doesn’t matter if they are Latino or black or whatever…

Even Southern California, LA South Koreans; they are different from me. 

As long as you grew up to underground rap, the Bay Area high E-40 hyphy movement, if you know who Keak da sneak is, if you know how to go stupid dumb and hyphy yellow bus retarded, if you over owned a pair of all white K-Swiss tennis shoes in high school, and just wore white T-shirts and dark blue denim, and never owned a pair of shorts until you’re late 20s… then you are with me.


John Wick would like bitcoin

A very interesting scene, and also in the universe of John Wick; it is a world beyond money. For example, in the universe of John Wick, money is just like these gold coins, which are used to gain access, trade favors, clean up messy dead bodies, to protect or guard things, or for people to take a hit at somebody.

For example, when John Wick wants to get into the secret club, he has to insert a single golden coin, very much like putting a coin in some sort of arcade machine.

Also, when John Wick is first seeking revenge in the first film, and he opens up his war chest… It is all guns ammo and gold coins. No US dollars, no Fiat currency.

Why bitcoin is the way

I recently sold all of my Tesla stock, and purchased micro strategy stock instead (MSTR). Why? Some convincing arguments from michael saylor:

 first, product cycles. Certainly for the most part, purchasing Apple stock is a good idea, however, who knows if the iPhone 35 pro will be any good?

Also, CEO; let it say that one day, Elon Musk totally left Tesla. And no longer had any affiliations with Tesla. If this were the case, Tesla would not be worth anything.

I think the genius about bitcoin is that it is a religion. Satoshi, is essentially this metaphorical Jesus speaker, the savior, and he disappears forever. With any other crypto asset, Ethereum and Vitalik or even chainlink and Sergey; as long as you have a central spokesperson, a CEO, a president or a leader, a charismatic individual… You will not last.

For example, one of the very interesting things that I learn from my political sociology class at UCLA as an undergraduate with Mark Jepsen was that nations or nation states that are led by charismatic individuals don’t last. Once the leader dies off, there is no longer any vision.

For example the genius of America, is that even if we have a few bad apples, the whole thing will still chug along OK. Let us consider that after Mao Zedong died, after Ho Chi Minh died, both mainland China and Vietnam has slowly and surely started to delve into capitalism… The dominant world system.

In fact, that is consider that seems that 80% of the Chinese economy is still dependent on America. And essentially, the CNY, is pegged to the US dollar; because there are capital controls in order from the Chinese government, in Chinese mainland Chinese individuals cannot take their wealth out of the country, especially when they prefer to buy property and live in Vancouver Canada instead… It is a strong signal that duh , America’s on top.

Even though if you had currency is weak, America is still the strongest Fiat currency on the planet. I recently talked to a woman who just got her green card from Beirut Lebanon, and she told me that the whole lira thing is a mess;  that people prefer to just hold and trade US dollars instead.

Even when I visited Cuba, even though they have the local Cuban dollar currency, still at end of the day, things are priced in US dollars.

After the US dollar, all other currencies, nobody wants them. Nobody wants the euro, too much chaos in Europe. Nobody wants the pound, Britain’s isolationist policies make it the next Japan, they will still stagger on but will slowly become irrelevant, nobody wants a Korean won — their population is dying off, and it seems that the greatest market for new Hyundai cars are actually in the states, nobody wants the Japanese yen, once again their birth rate is practically zero now. Nobody wants Chinese yuan — I don’t know any non-Chinese person who would prefer using WeChat, we pay, or a Huawei phone.

As long as rich mainland Chinese people prefer to use an iPhone Pro over a Huawei phone, America will always be on top. 

Election cycle predictions 

I’m voting for our Kamala Harris, because she has more aligned with my ethical beliefs, even though she will lose. I’m almost 99.99% certain that Donald Trump win.

The good news is that Donald Trump is very pro bitcoin, bitcoin mining etc.; so after Donald Trump gets elected, after the dust settles… Your bitcoin value will blossom.

Even if bitcoin and crypto goes through another bear market, which eventually it will… Still, the US economy will be stronger under Donald Trump than Kamala Harris.

If anything, of Joe Biden stepping down and having Kamala Harris rotten instead is like the final hail Mary – and I have played enough high school football to know that Hail Mary’s never work 99.999% of the time. The only time a Hail Mary will work in an American football game is almost never; you only hear about it when you watch random TV clips, or YouTube videos, but I think the chance of a Hail Mary working is practically zero. 


So what is in your locus of control?

So I think the big thing to note here is that the stoic way is simple:

What is in your locus of control, what isn’t?

Politics, climate change, dual politics, etc. are not in your control.

What is in your control? Your own individual behaviors, what you write about to friends family and on the Internet, whether you decide to use social media or not, your own individual actions, and also… Your own individual non-action; what you decide not to do. 

For example, it seems that the words you refrain from, what you decide not to say, is more telling than what you decide to say.

Another stoic strategy; when you hear something which is very puzzling to you, restrain responding immediately… It works 99.9% of the time.

silence is golden, speaking intelligently is silver.

Nobody wants silver.

Just focus on one thing?

Spartans only focused on one thing; freedom. 

The lame thing about America is you have a bunch of these fake ass patriots, waving Trump flags, we have never done any military service. Freedom is not free, or live free or die.

The general ethos is that it is true… Freedom is not free. But what is the opposite of free? Skin and soul in the game; actually being on the front lines of something.

For example, I have a simple rule; you’re not allowed to talk about freedom or whatever or is some sort of fake ass patriot chest thumping flag waving coward, if you have never served military duty, or at least have done Boy Scouts and know how to properly fold a flag!

Also, if you really want to be conservative or Republican or whatever, the simple news is don’t watch Fox News, or any news.

Could be told, both sides are foolish. The left the right the center the moderates whatever… You gotta think like an individual. This means removing all news from your brain, all news which is run on advertising is toxic.

I have another big idea news agencies, website individual bloggers, magazines etc. except payments in bitcoin and Satoshi, no advertising.

The truth is as long as something is supported by advertising, the low-key bias will be to make it more sensationalist, less connected with reality, in order to get more eyeballs in order to make more advertising dollars.

Are there any newsies which do not run on advertising? No.

As a consequence, trust no news but yourself.

Where to get your news? 

ironically enough, maybe the best place to get your news is through intentional propaganda government portals, like going to the official US military defense.gov website, because you could smell the propaganda more critically.

Propaganda, propaganda, propagate just means to spread something. The French use the word propaganda, not in the evil way as we Americans think, propaganda just means to spread something.

and once again, realize that all is toxic, all news is bad. Injecting news into your brain and soul is almost like injecting type two diabetes into a healthy individual.

News is like type two diabetes for your soul.


Spartan theory?

To sum up, the spartan way simple: live like a spartan, like the hungry wolf, invest all of your money and earnings and into bitcoin, have at least one kid, derive your pleasure enjoy another human beings, conversation, love and charity, through physical activity exercise, Risky weightlifting, being outside in nature the greet outdoors, and think exposure;

Unless you got real exposure to something, you aren’t permitted to say nothing.

ERIC


Don’t opine about something you’re not invested in 

Put your money where your mouth is, or don’t put your mouth where your money is not.

***

Film club

Required watching for any aspiring Spartan Stoic is all of the John Wick movies, the movie 300, the matrix movie, maybe Blade Runner? I prefer the second one. 


EK BOOK CLUB

The sayings of Spartans, just Google it. Also, all of the books have Seneca, all of his letters. Also the meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and honestly all of the stoic thinkers are good.

Nietzsche, all of his books.

NASSIM TALEB– all of his books.  

Interview, podcast club

All of the interviews and podcasts in YouTube series by Michael Saylor , michael.com, or hope.com 

Economic theory

All economic theory is bad. The best is to just read the Iliad, think about the ancient Greeks about their life before money was invented.