Imperative? What are your personal imperatives in life?
Ethics and morals of this present and future
So some big thoughts I’ve been having lately; about imperatives, ethical and moral imperatives, thinking about what to do in life, what not to do in life, etc.
True imperatives is something that stirs you from within, something which you are not forced to do by anybody, but rather, it is “autotelic”; it feels like it is your own moral self impelled reason to do something, for the sake of it, not for the sake of virtue or whatever.
Where we go wrong
One of the things that I disdain about modern day education, is too much of it has to deal with morals and ethics. Yes yes yes, traditional K-12 education we have to learn basic things like how to write read basic rules of grammar etc.
Also, simple math, science, physics, fundamentals.
Yet beyond this — what is all this nonsense we are taught in schools? I think too much time is wasted in school teaching students how to shut up, be quiet, listen and obey to the teacher, and to kowtow to authority figures. In fact, if you critically assess the whole K through 12 industrial educational complex, it has to deal with suppression, authoritarianism:
I am the teacher, you are the student, I am superior and more dominant than you, do not challenge me.
What is the point of K-12 education anyways?  
First, free babysitting, or a free place to put your kids while you have to work your job, to pay the bills and rent/mortgage etc.
Second, not all parents, but some… I don’t think a lot of parents would actually prefer to be with their kids 24/7. I find this insanely bizarre.
Certainly everyone has the right to live their lives however they want, but I suppose this is just a class thing: 
Let the basic parents be basic, our goal is to be supreme. 
Why be basic?
This is where things become fun; everyone seeks some sort of individuality, moral or ethical supremacy, yet, people tend to trend towards being basic?
For example, the average person drinks Coca-Cola or sweetened beverages, whether 0 cal or real sugar or agave sugar or whatever, the average American is overfat, the average American man watches pornography in private,  the average person eats McDonald’s, eats three square meals a day, finances their car and has a monthly car payment, has a mortgage, walks less than 1000 steps a day, spends an hour commuting to work, or five hours a day on zoom, uses Google Chrome, reads the news, is on Facebook Instagram or Google news, watches YouTube, allows their kids to watch YouTube or YouTube YouTube kids etc.
Once again… Do you want to drive the Toyota Corolla, or the matte Black cyber truck?
“I’m the number one idea supplier!”
I think for myself, my number one passion skill, and talent is ideas. I never run out of them! In fact, as time goes on, my penchant for ideas is intensifying. I credit this to the fact that this is the most I’ve ever walked in my life, every morning I wake up, pound my espressos, toss on my 60 pound weight vest, and I go on my daily morning walk, in which I walk with my iPad Pro, voice dictate my thoughts, and come up with lots of ideas. 
Ideation
The ideas are in your legs!
There is talk about “creative ideation“ in Silicon Valley, the basic idea is this–
How do you come up with creative ideas?
My major critique is too many of these artists are too effeminate, weak, overly sensitive, lack access to sunlight and the great outdoors, super pale in the skin and lacks a tan, never goes out, never leaves their home apartment studio or cafe, doesn’t lift weights, or exercise, eats mostly “a plant-based diet” (trust no thinker who is mostly plant-based), and seeks their moral supremacy in their artwork through how obscure, strange, or anti-they are.
True art is not anti
The reason why a lot of thinkers and artists are very superficial is that they seek their uniqueness simply through being anti-.
It is extremely easy to be anti-. Easy to be anti-mainstream, anti-capitalist, anti-government whatever. In fact, I believe that it takes more more courage to be pro government, pro capitalism, pro consumerism etc.
And also, when it comes down to it, we are actually all far more similar than dissimilar. We all have to use the toilet, we all have friends family members and loved ones, we all have good memories and bad, we all similar ends, and have similar goals.
The major problem here is that we tend to vilify one another, and over-exaggerate our differences, rather than trying to intensify our similarities. 
How are they similar?
For example, when it comes to material or consumerism, we try to intensify how these things are different rather than similar.
But wouldn’t the wiser path be to consider, how these things are more similar than dissimilar? 
For example, we all speak the English language, anybody who speaks English or understands English is 80% more similar to you than dissimilar to you. 
We all care for money, whether we like to admit it or not.
We heterosexual men, we all care for beautiful women, we all have certain sexual preferences etc.
And also, everybody likes to be happy! Even good old Aristotle said how happiness might be one of the only human good in which we seek it for the sake of it; I don’t know anybody who doesn’t see happiness or who doesn’t like to be happy?
Why divide?
Here, the bad guys are not politicians, or even nation states, I really think that the bad guys here is the media, the news etc. Why do they care so much to differentiate us all, and to divide us all? The simple idea is that it is more profitable. The more division, the more you incite hate and anger, the more advertising clicks and revenue you get.
Hate is profitable
The simplest way to become happier is via negativa:
Quit the news!
What is the news? Anger porn, hate porn!
For example, the more you incite hate, violence, moral justice, moral virtuosity whatever… you stoke more advertising revenue!
Google is the bad guy?
This is where Google knows that it is in a bad position; they are desperate to indefinitely increase their revenue, advertising revenue, and how do they do this? They do this by inserting ads, sneakily into every part of your existence. The ad advertising in your Google Chrome newsfeed, the ad advertising inside your Google maps, I won’t be surprised if one day the ad advertisements within your Gmail in the future.
Also, Facebook, Instagram, the Meta corporation: once again, any business or company or corporation, tech company that earns revenue through advertising is unethical; the only way they could earn money is through stoking fear, uncertainty, doubt, racism, classism, etc.
Donald Trump is profitable for Google and Facebook and Twitter (X)
Let us consider, what is going to get more advertising clicks, Donald Trump saying something racist or sexist, or a story of a friendly boy helping a grandma across the street?
Duh!
Music
Also my critique on music, modern day music etc.; the very very simple thought is this:
> Don’t trust any music which is dependent by any publishing label.
Very very simple here guys, any musician, who is signed to any label… They are like puppets, the publishing label is like a ventriloquist.
“She going to take it up the ass like a ventriloquist!” – Ye, Carnival
For example, when you see all these rappers, talking about money clothes hoes, Lamborghinis chains etc., how do you know that they’re not just a muppet? With a hand up their ass, forcing them to just say whatever?
Music to trust?
Certain songs, albums which I find fascinating is in which an artist or musician is already independently wealthy, like Kanye when he still had his Adidas deal with his sneaker YEEZY brand,,, the albums he put out I think, are probably much more honest because he was already a billionaire, through his sneakers, and the music that he put out, he just really wanted to put it out because of the sake of it?
Indirect monetization
Or, another masterpiece; “a Written testimony“ by Jay Electronica, and Jay Z. Here, Jay Z is already rich, he don’t need to make music to make money. And this is where Jay Z actually throws down the gauntlet, and takes out all the big arms, and says:
“Time for me to actually rap well”.
And this is where I find the whole Jay Z the real Jay Z; the master vocalist, the master rapper, the sweetest flower. And also Jay Electronica, Jay Z almost becomes a patron saint for Jay electronica, allowing Jay electronica to also shine, because when you already have monetary backing from an independently wealthy person, the artwork creates doesn’t have to monetize itself. 
For example, this is the Sistine chapel; imagine how subpar the Sistine chapel would be if Michelangelo needed to somehow monetize it? 
Also, all the great artworks by Leonardo da Vinci, innovations etc.; because Leonardo da Vinci had the backing from the Medicis, he was able to just focus on his random thoughts and personal interests… Which allowed him to make great innovations!
Cool hair?
How to become more handsome, more beautiful, sexier? Very simple: via negativa!
For example, don’t use a loser baseball cap! I personally hate wearing a baseball cap, I’ve only been having to put it on because the sun is so strong, and giving me sunburn on my forehead and my nose, even putting on SPF 60 sunblock.
I still think that the best haircut to have is the Brad Pitt fury haircut; just get a wireless Wahl hair cutter clipper on Amazon, and just shave the sides to a zero, and let the top grow out and bang!
And then just get some “eco” olive oil hair gel on Amazon, and slick it back!
Better to have a Lamborghini haircut than to drive the loser Lamborghini 
That is consider, the second that you dropped $250,000 on a Lamborghini, that is money which is instantly evaporated from your bank account! And the problem is… You feel cool in your car when you’re driving it, and people are checking out, but the second that you park it, and you walk around in public… Nobody has any idea that you drive a Lamborghini, unless you’re insecure individual who has to wear a Lamborghini hat, to try to signal to people that you drive a Lamborghini.
But the thing is… the second you step into the gym, walk around in a public place, go to the local coffee shop, go to the local bookstore, ride the subway, go to a public event, go hiking, go to the mall etc.… Nobody has any idea what you drive!
So the funny thought; could you spend that $250,000, and purchase something that you could permanently bolt onto your body? 
This is where I think bitcoin is so wise; the second you spend $250,000 on a Lamborghini, the value of your Lamborghini will slowly depreciate overtime, you will slowly bleed yourself to death, and also, to pay for insurance, maintenance will bleed you dry.
The exact opposite; the bitcoin could always be with you, in your iPhone or in the cloud, and overtime, it does the exact opposite; it appreciates. There is no insurance, maintenance fees, laws of physics holding it back. It will just keep accumulating value, over time, forever.
CRYPTO BY KIM
Lose fat
If we consider fat like a biological battery, the genius is this:
If you have any margin of adipose tissue aka fat on your body… That is your metaphorical biological battery, your body is not like a gasoline powered car; you don’t need to put gas into it in order to drive.
Maybe it is better that, to think about your body like a Tesla, or an electric car, and the biological fat you have on your body is like the battery pack!
So for example, let us say that you are 6 foot tall, and you weigh 200 pounds, and you have a lot of body fat on you. Or let us say you don’t have a six pack.
Then I could estimate, perhaps 160 pounds of muscle, and 40 pounds of it might be body fat, adipose tissue. And how long can 40 pounds of adipose tissue last you? Probably at least 100,000 miles!
This is where metabolic disease, or metabolic dysfunction happens; you already have all this body fat on you, yet you still think you have to keep eating, in order to sustain your life?
No! Just start fasting! Fasting if you are over fat, fat, “overweight” or whatever — has zero consequences, zero side effects, and doesn’t cost you anything. The suggestion for people to start fasting is genius because it doesn’t require any equipment, any subscription, or any amount of money, and also technically… fasting or to fast doesn’t require you to do anything – to cook, prepare food, and eat it, or even ordering takeout from your phone, we’re ordering food is a positive action, simply choosing not to eat doesn’t require you to do anything!
Fasting is great for lazy people!
And technically, if you’re super super lazy, the genius of fasting is that it is the ultimate intelligent lazy person thing to do! Stop cooking, stop buying food, stop ordering food on your phone… You could just do nothing!
Posture
Something that I realize for myself, is that the whole time, I think I’ve had extremely poor posture. Always kind of hunched over, you see this happen to a lot of tech workers. My result is from too much time on the laptop, too much time standing or sitting, etc. Even if you have a standing desk or treadmill desk, it is bad for your posture. Why? The axis and the plane is only single directional — we tend to hunch forward, or if you think about a treadmill desk, you only walk forward.
The ideal, which I’ve been experimenting and doing myself, is simple: 

- Don’t use an iPhone, all iPhones are bad
- Use an iPad Pro, the 11 inch, without a loser keyboard case or pencil
- For jotting down thoughts, walking around, in the direct sun, using the voice dictation built into the iOS, the little microphone button in the bottom left corner
- Just walking around town
Why this could be so revolutionary
“Trust no thought that doesn’t come to you while you are walking outside in the great outdoors!” – Nietzsche 
I think one of my new modern day adaptations which is good is that whenever I sit, even for five minutes, my back and my lower back immediately starts to feel pain. As a consequence, I must stand up, walk around, be mobile. 
All of these fools, what they try to do instead is to just figure out a better table or desk or chair setup; in order to cause them to not have any sort of back pain. But the real idea should be
- Get rid of the table, don’t use any tables, no desk, no sitting desk, no standing desk, no treadmill desks
- Get rid of the chairs, no chairs. Chairs are for slaves
Anti chairs
What is the most unnatural position for a human being to be in? To sit.
Technically, a human being should be standing, or walking around, or, if a human being is tired, a human being should be lying on their back, sleeping or taking a nap.  
Either stand and walk around, or lie down on your back.
And this is where I’m starting to think… All chairs are bad. Being a pilot of a fighter jet, you’re still sitting on your butt on a chair. Or if you’re in the Lamborghini or McLaren… You’re just in a chair.
Wheel – chair?
The greatest tragedy, for a man, is to be beholden to a wheelchair, simply to navigate. 
Also, I think the reason why people want you to sit down, take a seat, is typically, when you have other sit down, you are putting people in a more submissive person than you. 
For example, even when you go to church or mass… And there is part of mass or church in which everyone has to sit down, the priest stands up and then give their speech. You never see a priest giving a homily while sitting.
Chairs?
Even a simple thing, when I am eating food, I prefer to stand! In fact, one of my ongoing theories is if you’re a competitive eater or whatever, or if you want to digest better, it is better to eat while standing, rather than sitting. Why? When you’re standing, I think technically your intestines or your digestion is in better physiological form.
Jobs which allow you to be outside, walk around, stand all day?
Apparently, meeting some guys at the local Toyota dealership, very impressive, one of the guys showed me their step counter on their phone, and showed me that on average, he walked about 20,000 steps a day! Very impressive.
Also, my old friend Jimmy the mailman, USPS worker, told me that on average he walked at least 40,000 steps a day?
Outside is the ultimate freedom
Also, apparently a job that I never considered was being a park ranger, in which technically you’re almost like a police officer, you have a gun, but your job is to create some sort of security at the national parks?
I was thinking about it, even a military duty… I feel bad for all the Navy officers and this men who had to just be stuck in aircraft carrier, or in these cramped indoor domiciles all day? 
Or even astronauts, I think the number one issue that most astronauts face is not having the freedom to move around, being stuck in the same old place?
This is where visions of the future astronaut is interesting when it has to deal with gravity, water, swimming in a pool etc.
If you were an astronaut, or stuck in a spaceship, assuming you could produce some sort of artificial gravity, being able to lift weights, swim in the water seems like a good idea! And also, artificial sunlight.
Innovate for the sake of what?
Michael Saylor has a good idea; that is simple life goal or a path is to upgrade the human race. I like this.
Because sooner or later… after years of studying philosophy, going off the grid, etc.… I think the philosopher innovator simply wants to serve human kind, benefit humankind, etc.
And I think this is the nice thing about humanity, the false commentary we get is that humans are naturally selfish, I don’t think so. I think naturally humans are actually very selfless, we think about the collective, the clan, and I think there is natural altruism within ourselves!
Why? A single human being by himself is useless. There is no human being that could collectively hunt cook procure resources, and do everything by himself, or herself. We all need each other.
Even for myself, I am so grateful for society, I’m glad that I don’t have to grow my own cattle, produce my own firewood, produce my own petroleum for my car, we have to figure out advanced technologies to create my own Internet.
The best way to scale yourself
It seems that a simple strategy is to embrace websites, blogs, the web, digital, cyberspace, maybe having a podcast, a video podcast, a YouTube channel, a self hosted email newsletter, your own self hosted blog etc.
Why? Because in theory, let us say that you publish a free PDF e-book on something… A single individual could downloaded it 1000 times, send it to 1000 of their friends, and 1000 of their friends could send it to another thousand of their friends.
Or, in theory, a single blog post could be read 1 billion times,, shared saved and downloaded etc.
Plain text
I’ve been having this annoying issue where I can no longer upload videos to my videopress.com, to my wordpress.org blog. I’m not 100% sure what’s the issue, but I don’t want to put forth the effort to fix it. I’m just like “fuck it”– no more videos.
I think also the biggest issue with videos is that it is not easily transportable, the file sizes are far too large, even assuming that you have a gigabit fiber Internet connection. And unfortunately 99.99% of the planet is running on some sort of super rudimentary, super slow, super low and bandwidth Internet. 
And as a consequence, the reason why I really like text, markdown, simple blog post with text is that it is the ultimate portable thing. You could just copy and paste the whole thing into ChatGPT, or to Google translate, whatever.
Even now, whenever I send out an email newsletter, I always make it a point to export all the text as a simple text based PDF, and I attach it, because if anyone wants to download it and read it later, share it with friends or family or whatever, it is so easy!
And in fact, the reason why I really like the idea of a PDF is that it is a digital book. Technically, a book only needs to have at least two pages, for it to be book. 
Don’t put any faith in all these oversensitive emo book nerds, who gave fellatio to the hardcover, printed book. 
The future of books?
The truth is 99.99% of books could just be really long blog posts.
But, why do they overinflate these boring ass books? Simple: to make money! It is difficult to monetize a single blog post, easy to take a 300 page book, hardcover it, and sell it for 40 bucks.
And the truth is, 99.99% of modern day books published within the last 10 years are not worth reading. 
The only modern day books that have read, which has had any consequence on me the last 10 years published was books by NASSIM TALEB, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, zero to one by Peter Thiel. That is pretty much it. 
As a consequence, this is where using the Internet archive, project Gutenberg for books is so wise; typically if a book is out of copyright, at least it has the test of time which might mean that it has a higher likelihood of being good.
For example economies, to study ancient books on economics, rather than any modern day ones.
For example, economics by Aristotle, or on money by Fernandinho Galliani.
Ancient media?
Maybe only watch movies which are at least 10 years old, or 20 years old, or 30 years old? Or even older than that?
And also the wisdom of reading ancient literature, anything by homer, the Iliad the Odyssey – even Virgil is no good. Virgil is too modern, the Aeneid was really boring. 
Think Greek
Even in ancient Greek times, the commentary was that the Greeks were already in a position of decline. For example, even homer in the Iliad talks about how the modern day Greeks of his time were already degenerate. Or weak. 
The reason why I like reading ancient literature is that it is so simple, so blunt, so great, yet so poetic and elegant. For example when you read the Iliad, thinking about “the dark beaked ships” does 1 billion times more for your creative imagination than any modern day boring book, and also do not trust the French writers, like Balzac they were all a bunch of degenerates addicted to drugs, smoking, narcotics etc.
Only trust sober artists.
Even Nietzsche was very anti alcohol, meth, and “uppers”– opiates of his time, etc.
The Spartan Street photographer
My new idea.
ERIC
The Multi modal approach?
A simple approach is when you create things and ideas, do a multimodal approach; audio, visual, text… Do it all! 
Creative ways to lower expenses? 
My new pursuit is via negativia– my Spartan economic approach.
First, don’t waste money at a car wash, which can get pretty expensive… Just hose it down and wash it yourself!
Second, unsubscribe from everything which has a recurring expense. This means all streaming services, all music platforms, etc.
Get rid of Disney+, Netflix, Spotify, HBO Max etc.
Also, if you’re clever enough, cancel or get rid of your gym membership. On killing multiple birds with one stone: 
- No more reoccurring expenses, which in theory, last indefinitely
- Opportunity cost, time saved not having to commute.
- Also, time saved in regards to not having to find parking, waiting for the squat rack etc.
- I also have an ongoing period that exercising in the great outdoors is far beneficial for your health, outside, even when it is very cold… Is better for your physiology than doing it indoors, which is just a breeding ground for Covid!
Anti COVID lifestyle?
How quickly we forget about Covid… Even now, there is currently a spike in Covid, which has me very nervous and anxious; I cannot afford to get sick, or catch Covid.
I’ve been taking Seneca to these great free events… But even playing with some of these kids, Lego camp, brick building etc.… All these activities are indoors! With no windows open or no ventilation on!
Maybe I’m going to recenter myself, and avoid all indoor places like the plague, as much as humanly possible.
Even another pragmatic reason to stop going to the gym or cancel your gym membership, even a 1% chance of getting sick, or catching Covid from some sort of anti-VAXxer?
Your kid?
Maybe I’ll start my own Montessori?
Issues:
- If, your kid is forced to be inside a classroom all day… With all these other sick coughing kids, maybe none of it is worth it?
- Also, these modern day kids, with all these weird media preferences, are a bad influence?
Certainly you cannot shield your kids forever, but if I think about it… the only good thing I got out of school K-12 is socialization skills, my friends etc. But still… now is a 36-year-old adult, I only truly care for two of my childhood friends, Grace and Justin, and also my college roommate Kevin. Besides this, I don’t really consider anyone else my friend.
When somebody calls you “my friend“… you’re not. 
Only invest in the best
The best or nothing!
ERIC
“Imma let you finish”
“Role models”?
All role models are flawed. Besides you.
EK
BECOME UNLIMITED >
Incoming workshops in SF, LA, CAMBODIA:
ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS >
THE VAULT
- Start Here
- Books
- News
And for the freshest ideas
EK BLOG
Better to live a glorious and happy volatile life, than a boring, predictable and stable one.
ERIC
More ideas on ERIC KIM PODCAST >