Category: Uncategorized

  • INSANELY JACKED LEGS

    I don’t know why, yesterday I guess I walked a lot with Seneca, now that Seneca is giving heavier and heavier… I guess my leg muscles are continuing to adapt and develop.

    Today, waking up…  feeling insane vigor and strength in my legs. It feels so good!

    Godlike thighs

    Currently reading the Emily Wilson translation of the Elliott, and there’s this nice scene in which Ares, the God of war slaps both of his thighs.  It was such a great visual, because I know exactly what that feels like! 

    Why the cult of the upper body?

    Assuming that your penis in your balls are connected to your Laura after your body… I have a funny theory that if you actually want to increase your manliness, your testosterone, or dominance… Logical option is to 100% focus on strengthening your legs, 1000X.

    For example, in the world of bodybuilding, weightlifting, etc.… When you get to the Mr. Olympia levels, the crème de la crème of weight lifting and bodybuilding,  it comes down to your wheels, your legs!

    In fact, this is something that I witnessed that almost 100% of the guys at the gym don’t have… Impressive legs!

    Remember… When I was still at my old commercial gym, I was doing my normal weightlifting thing, and in the freeway section, there was only one young woman, who randomly asked me “are you a swimmer?” I then said no, why? She said to me “your thighs and legs are massive!” a lot of the other guys at the gym witnessed this, and heard it… I think they were all secretly envious and jealous of me.

    start from the bottom up

    OK… Another thing that was very interesting is that in the Elliott… Some of the ways that the ancient Greek heroes are described as having insanely strong feet and hands.

    A very simple thought to strengthen your feet is to go barefoot as much as humanly possible, or the simple vibram five finger shoes.  walk around with a 60 pound weight vest, and also do types of weightlifting which involve lifting barefoot while standing up! This could be a rack pull, deadlift walk, atlas lift,  farmer’s carries, etc.

    Also, the easiest way to strengthen your hands is by not using these weekly straps, and just using plain old chalk, either the powdery stuff or the liquid chalk, both are good, actually the liquid chalk gives you better grip, – and start training your hands to lift heavy dumbbells, barbell, etc.… If you’re using a barbell, for the heavier weights start to use a mixed grip.

    For example, even a simple exercise that I did for a while at my old gym was Farmer’s carries with the 150 pound dumbbells, which were the highest or the most heavy dumbbells at the time. Or when I went to the Gold gym Venice Beach… The famous one I conquer the golden 330 pound dumbbells quite easily; just use chalk, and lift up the dumbbells a single 330 pound dumbbell with two hands. Assuming that you could double lift over four plates five plate six plate seven plates eight plates… to lift up a 330 pound dumbbell, especially if it is in between your legs like a sumo lift position, using both hands, and chalk, is actually pretty easy. For a while I was doing the duck walks with it, just as a form of fun training exercises. Unannounced to me, apparently I went viral twice over when some random people were recording me doing it. 

    SWAT TRAINING

    Kind of a random idea… About adaptation etc.

    So, one of my new ideas is this notion of tactical training. For example… I bought this pair of shorts from ten thousand.cc, which are actually not very good they already got ripped at the waistband,  but I was certainly suckered by the marketing, because they were branded as “tactical“ shorts.

    There’s this really great scene in John Wick, which I plan on re-watching again… In which he goes to the Somalier, and  one he is getting strapped up and equipped up… There’s this great dialogue and talking in which the Somalier asks John Wick — what occasion? And when he is making his suit jacket, he asks what kind of material to use, and he says “tactical”– so gangsta! Wick essentially gets a suit jacket made, that has built in Kevlar, and he uses as a mini shield, with his suit jacket when he is doing gunfights etc. 
    Anyways, I think the whole modern day notion of tactical is very fascinating to me because thinking about king Leonidas and the Spartan 300, the battle of Thermopylae, the hot gates, and also modern day times… What is it that we modern day men lack? War, warfare, battle, Physical valor!

    And don’t get at me with these pussy guns. Having a gun makes you a coward. It makes your dick size smaller.  I actually would like this alternate universe in which let us say I snapped my fingers, and men, grown men… If we got into arguments or whatever, we could do it like Brad Pitt fight club style… No guns no knives, no weapons, just your bare fists. And you just have two dudes getting a ring, topless, and just battle it out. 

    Boxing

    I actually think boxing is quite virtuous, assuming that both parties are wearing gloves, and a protective helmet thing. Why? I think two men often have a disagreement or inimical feeling towards one another, especially when it comes through high school guys were going through puberty or whatever… Just have them let them box it out seems like a good idea.

    For example, even when it comes to these technology Titans like Elon musk and… I would love to see them just get into a boxing match together. To see who has the more valor.

    American football

    One thing that people do not know about ERIC KIM is that I played American football softball junior year, first playing outside linebacker, then my junior year inside linebacker, starting.

    Ever since I was a kid, in Bayside Queens New York, I always wanted to become the strongest, the most dominant, the most monstrous. I was the strongest out of all my friends, and everybody knew it.

    Anyways, in high school… I then had interest in trying to do the most mainly sport, which was bar none American football. But funny enough, I almost had no idea the rules of American football, and this is also another funny thing I will teach you:

    The real players don’t actually fully know how the game is played.

    For example, I played defense, because I like to tackle, and I was a tough mofo. I started off as outside linebacker because I had no experience, and then once I proved to my coaches that I was hard and strong, I became middle linebacker my junior year, starting, would call the plays etc. 

    KILL!

    Anyways, it does put chest on your hair, for example, I remember the first time I ever had to practice doing a kick off, it was probably the most unnatural, fearful thing of all… Essentially You kicked the ball, and it goes down the field… And then a guy on the other side grabs it, and you have two parties, battle armor, sprinting at one another for 100% speed… And when the guy with the ball is trying to penetrate the other side, what he does is he grabs the ball like a child, with two arms protecting it, and then dips his head and his helmet and his body is super super low, and what do you have to do as the other side is to also get super super low, to try to get under him, and then you take on this full on collision, and tackle him.

    Two things:

     first, this is very unnatural, and insanely frightening. Why? Once again, it is not natural to sprint and another guy in full battle armor, and you in full battle armor, and collide head on. The risk of injury is high, even with protective equipment.

    Not only that, it does take a lot of physical courage, and also mental courage. For example, you have to trust your own strength, your own skill, your own valor.

    I suppose my only regret is I wish I played varsity football my senior year, but my tennis coach, who I respect is my Mr. Miyagi, coach Greg Lowe discourage me from playing football because he thought it would be a distraction to playing varsity doubles tennis, in which I also played in high school, and was number one on the team.

    Anyways, I think it is wise to have kids, boys, men, young men etc. engaging some sort of physical combat, training, wrestling exercises, boxing, whatever.

    Why? True manliness, true courage cannot be divorced from physical reality.

    For example, certainly mental courage, is very important. And also having the courage to speak your mind, even though the whole world may hate you for it. 

    Or also the courage about Rosa Parks, sitting in front of the bus, and refusing to get up.

    Anyways, I think the big issue in today’s world is we have deferred courage into the realm of video games, and other silly things, which are not connected to embodied physical reality.

    I was even thinking about it… Tennis, Chas, sports etc.… Certainly they all take skill, but there is no real physical downside to it.

    Only sports have a physical downside may be American football or rugby? But beyond that, all these other sports, they are essentially “grass fairies”? (the way that we football players used to make fun of soccer players)

    Retention

    A few years ago, I give up watching porn. Why? It Just became a little bit ridiculous to me. And also, interestingly enough… I think in ancient China or Korea or somewhere… There was this interesting ocean is that anytime you eject your semen or Seminole fluid, they call it “energy suicide“, and as a consequence, it totally made sense.  no man in his right mind would rub one out real quick, 15 minutes before the big fight. Also, I am pretty certain that half Thor did not rub one out real quick before that lifting his infamous 502 kg dead lift.

    I think pornography is fine, and a funny thought…

    if you watch porn, but you don’t masturbate to it… And you do not eject your seminal fluid, is it still porn? 

    Maybe not. Maybe it is just erotic art?

    I think there’s nothing wrong with masturbation or whatever. Apparently it is a supernatural. And probably better for a teenage void to masturbate rather than get a random girl pregnant. Or even worse catch a STD or STI.

    Anyways, I think the primary thing to consider is your physiology. Even Nietzsche mentions that some of his writing, his critique of a lot of the modern day German youth was that they spent too much time wasting their energy, “spending” on women, etc.

    The seed of life

    OK, if you get rid of all this Christian Judeo moralistic guilt about sexual intercourse whatever… And just made it really really primal, biological,… Natural, what do you have?

    Even the other day, walking along the nature preserve and seeing two monarch butterflies chasing one another in the air.

    Or, peacock with his beautiful feathers and plumage, to attract a mate. 

    To mate, to have children, to produce offspring – this is what all the biology, life is all about. Even if you think about bacteria, fermentation, mold, making kefir cheese whatever,  what the bacteria does is very simple; it consumes the lactose sugar protein energy sources, and then it produces offspring. All life, animal life and beyond is all about producing offspring, indefinitely.

    I think modern daytimes, the anti-children sentiment is very bizarro. I have some theories.

    First, who are the people who are promoting this anti-children nonsense, and all this patently insane ideas that children are the worst thing you do for planet in terms of the carbon footprint or whatever? These are individuals, who have no religion, no values, live in Berkeley California,  a lot of them childless old people in their late 50s, mid 60s, 70s… And they are bitter and salty about life, and as a consequence, what they try to do is to the rest of society, with their strange vegan values.

    Vegetarian is natural, it has been around since time of Seneca the younger. But it was still associated with weird cults, that is why Seneca stopped being vegetarian because he did not want to be accused of being part of a weird cult which was anti-empire. And in India, being vegetarian has been around forever.

    However, I think the reason why it is good to beat people in the flesh, face-to-face, not via the Internet is because you could judge them, based on their age their height their physiology, their physical health, their food consumption behaviors etc.


     Figure it out as late as possible, ALAP

    I have this motto called ALAP, which stands for as late as possible.

     for example, my very simple suggestion is when it comes to weightlifting, fitness, the gym etc.… It is never plan your workout before you enter, once you enter the arena, once you enter the Colosseum… Then figure it out.

    The gladiator makes his plans once he enters the arena – Publius Syrus

    In modern day times, we have these silly notions of project management, planning, etc. But the reason why it is foolish is because if you think about it from a baye’s theory, bayes statistics — the truly wise and optimal way to do things is you do the action in the moment of, because that is when you have maximum information about everything at hand.

    Which essentially what it means is right now, directly in the direct moment, bricolage, taking chances risk taking and making lots of foolish mistakes, but after 99 failed attempts, you get one which is a screaming home run!

    > “You still taking advances huh? Me and my niggas we taking real chances uh!” – JAY Z

    THE LIFE OF OJ.


    What is entrepreneurship?

    According to Jeff Bezos, if you already know that something is going to work with 100% certainty before you try it, it is not an experiment.

    I think therefore, the ethos of entrepreneurship is paradoxical;

    You can study entrepreneurship, study the past, has successes, but what has succeeded in the past may or may not succeed right now or the future. 

    For example, Warren Buffett is not a good example because he is about 90 years old, and his recipe for success worked 90 years ago, in America, before bitcoin was invented. So knowledge is very context specific, even if you were Warren Buffett and you did the same exact investing strategy in Brazil… You would not succeed.

    I think this is where it is so difficult to think carte Blanche, blank slate. why? If it has never been done before, if nobody has ever succeeded doing it… How do you know if it is possible or not?

    You cannot make street photography your living

    Back in 2009, 2010… when I was first starting off my photography journey, I had zero intention in turning my passion for photography and street photography into my living, even though I wanted to. I was extremely pragmatic: I did not quit my day job, I knew that it was wise to have a steady 9 to 5 job, at least I could pay my rent with 100% certainty. 

    Fresh out of college at UCLA as an undergraduate, making $40,000 USD a year… The year 2010, working for a company called demand media which has rebranded to the “Leaf group”, my first job was online community manager… And I was able to get an internship there a year prior my senior year at UCLA, all things to Cindy for finally it on an email list server.

    Anyways, some simple entrepreneurial advice:

    Working from home is a godsend.

    I still remember… When it was the year 2010, it was actually my fantasy to be able to work from home! Why? I could just do the minimum amount of work possible, to not get fired, away from my overseers, get all my work done in about two hours, and then I could just spend the rest of my time blogging, which was my passion, doing photography street photography and building up my Empire on the side?

    Nowadays they call it a side hustle, which is a pretty good idea. 

    Pay your rent with your day job, enter the minimum amount of work possible to not get fired, do not seek your promotion or advancement in your career, and devote 99% of your excess energy building up your entrepreneurial enterprise.

    The sad truth is 99.9% of entrepreneurial endeavors fail. I was lucky because I have never failed in my life. Everything that I wanted to do and set my mind to it, I succeeded. I think it was about 80% chutzpah and passion and insane drive, and 20% luck and timing.

     The first really big street photography boom 

    Individuals who made their mark include Kaiman Wong, Alamby Leung, Lok Cheung, Charlie Kirk, and ERIC KIM. And Bellamy Hunt of Japancamerahunter.com — buy JCH film!

  • The Philosophy of Time

    Prize your life, this is the only life you got. 

    The philosophy of time:


    The death of film

    I think this is something that changes a lot, once you have a kid. Or have a child a young child at home. Suddenly, your time becomes scarce, very very scarce.

    For example, in terms of time scarcity… this is so insanely critical. If I gave you a choice… Would you rather spend 30 minutes playing and wrestling around with your kid at the house or at the park… Or would you rather spend your precious 30 minutes answering Emails from childless individuals who don’t really have anything better to do?

    Also with film — fine if you don’t have kids — once you get a kid go 100% digital!

    True success

    I’m starting to think… true success is self ownership, time ownership, essentially… never having anything randomly put on your schedule without your own desire.

    For example, I learned that apparently Taylor Swift is signed to Universal Records. Which means she has no control over her time or soul.

    Also a very funny thing… apparently Taylor Swift is about my age, she’s born in 1989, I am born in 1988. I find it insanely bizarre that millions of 10-year-old girls know everything about her down to her drive-through food order?

    Sign yourself

    Anyways… I think some simple filters:

    Trust no individual who is signed to anything.

    For example, I think a very admirable thing that Kendrick Lamar did was quit top dog entertainment… And create his own record label, PG Lang. I think this is also the wisdom of a Jay-Z… The real idea of taking a real chance is to create your own label, and to avoid getting signed to any record or label… Even if they might wave a $100 million check in front of you. Because if you have to be on tour for the rest of your life like lil Wayne (via Pusha T)… Every single night performing for three hours and night, seven days a week… No sleep and rest… Do you have freedom? No!

    This is why Drake is also still a slave!

    And I think the foolish thing which people do is they trade their most valuable thing on the planet… Their freedom and self ownership, in exchange for cash, arbitrary notions of “fame“… For the sake of what?

    Time and self ownership over money.

    What is it that we truly seek?

    One of my friends, Bing who I met in Singapore… The guy I am grateful for getting me into crypto bitcoin and digibyte at the time —  he said something interesting, very wise guy, saying that what he wanted in life was material desires like a purple Lamborghini, but also… more importantly, getting respect from people.

    For example, he said that the primary issue in America is that there is no real notions of respect. For example even very very simply being in Korea, Southeast Asia of Vietnam etc.… On a very basic level, we use honorifics, when it comes to age. Be told, it feels really good! To have a young kid address you in an honorific way, warms your heart!

    You never know who is who 

    Also… I think in America one of the wise things that I’ve learned, just from myself but also echoed in people like NASSIM TALEB is a simple idea:

    Treat the janitor, the hygiene sanitation guy, the security guard with more respect than the big boss.

    And also… assume that everybody you meet is super super rich and successful and powerful and influential, irregardless of how they may look on the outside. Often times, the richest most powerful people are the most low-key, keep a low profile, and you would never expect it.

    Don’t network

    But I think the tricky thing is when it comes to human social capital… the whole “it’s not what you know but who you know”– is also a little bit misguided because technically, especially in today’s day and age, I don’t think that networking or knowing influential people is important. All you need is a website, your own self hosted blog, ChatGPT and you’re good!

    100% of the time networking is a waste of time.

    I got some experience now

    Humans are not super great nor efficient. For example just based on my experiences, I’m 36 now… Almost 0 networking events or meeting famous successful people have led to anything substantive. The only things which have led to substantive things were things that I decided to do on my own; like hosting my own workshops, creating and developing and selling my own products engaging people directly with my own email newsletter blog, platform, etc. Everything else has been a waste of time.

    Build it yourself.

    I think the biggest issues here is that when you are starting off as an entrepreneur… We do things in such a way in which we think it is the proper way. For example, when we think about business and networking… We think what it means is to get to know a bunch of rich successful people, “get your foot in the door” etc. Yet, I have discovered this is a total waste of time. 

    Your own website and blog is the foot in the digital door!

    The way that I was able to build my digital capital my fame my power my influence was very very simple… Essentially learning everything about street photography on my own, and then creating really really insanely in-depth articles, blog posts, pages, information and resources on anything and everything street photography. And the whole time, the whole endeavor of mine was guided by passion, personal interest and curiosity.

    Curiosity is antifragile.

    Lifting 1,000 pounds

    On my personal quest to lift 1000 pounds, which is beyond 10 plates on each side of the barbell, was a personal curiosity:

    How far can I take it?

    Essentially, my primary curiosity was a curiosity of the limits of my strength, my courage, my ability and potential?

    I remember the last time I was weightlifting in Westerly, Rhode Island, and an older guy came up to me and asked “what is the purpose of that? Why are you lifting like that?” I made a joke and I said, first– to augment my ego. But the second more honest answer is I’m just curious how strong I can become.

    Why curiosity is so critical

    What is curiosity? Curiosity is care, curiosity is what drives us.

    You cannot force somebody to be cursed about something that they don’t really care for. You cannot spoon feed or inject curiosity in the soul of somebody, against their own will.

    This is why a lot of Asian parents fail, when they try to force their kids to play violin, piano, or chess etc.

    Back to time

    Time is the ultimate capital, the ultimate desirable non-renewable resource.

    Another funny lesson: often the most seemingly bad movies, the ones with poor IMDb reviews are actually the best movies.

    For example, the movie “in time” by Justin Timberlake.  probably one of the best films of all time, and also, the most underrated. The reason why it is so grand and great of a film is that it creates this metaphor, this philosophical world in which essentially time is money: literally and metaphorically.

    For example, the super super rich people have 1000 years on their wrist, and hilariously enough, excuse the pun, but rich people and poor people are separated by “time zones”–

    Also in this fictitious universe, real rich people take their time and move really slowly, whereas the poor laborers, are always running, because they are so short on time.

    Time inflation

    Another funny scene: in the early part of the IN TIME film, when Justin Timberlake is working as a laborer at a factory or whatever, do you have to scan your wrist, imagine like having Apple Pay, your checking account embedded in your wrist, and anytime you wanted to buy a cup of coffee or food or whatever… You would just scan your wrist. And one of the scenes, Justin Timberlake complains “wait… A cup of coffee used to only cost 15 minutes, why is it now costing 30 minutes?” And the guy selling coffee, shrugs his shoulder and says “that’s time inflation!”

    Why it is that the only films I care for are dystopic films

    The matrix, Blade Runner, and these science fiction fiction, alternate future sociological philosophical films, why? They actually change you! 

    What is so interesting about science fiction typically it is just a commentary or a societal critique of our real society. And the thing exaggerated, in cinematic ways, or building up a universe, but in fact, it is really true to today’s world.

    Anyways, back on the notion of time… Time is labor, money is labor time.

    How renting is superior to owning

    For example… One of the things I am so grateful about renting, and having the best landlord of all time, is that when something breaks, like our all-in-one washer dryer machine from LG… And the machine doesn’t even turn on anymore, I don’t have to be the one wasting my time driving to Home Depot, trying to fix it, or finding service technicians to fix it, scheduling it etc. Rather, I let the landlord communicate with his own labor task squad, his own maintenance team, to come in and fix it, when we are not home, and I could do better things like go on a hike with Cindy and Seneca, or do something fun!

    DIY ain’t virtuous

    In America, we have this weird virtue connection with doing the labor yourself. However, there is a differentiation between hateful labor and joyful labor. For example, I would probably prefer to have a mechanic fix my car, even though I could do the labor myself, because now that I have a kid, an hour spent fixing your car could be an hour playing with your kid at the park! Here a time becomes zero sum thing, which means:

    If you only have an hour to spare, would you rather it be chatting with somebody random, spending time with somebody you don’t really care for, or doing some sort of labor you don’t really care for, or rather would you rather spend that time to do something more critical you insanely care for?

    Only spend time on people you love and care for!

    For example, if you had an hour, to listen to the problems of somebody, or, you had an hour to work out, do exercises, and lift weights… What would you choose? And assume you could only do one. Obviously work out!

    For me, my only regret in the evening is if I spent the whole day, assuming that I was in good health and strength, not working out? To me, my nonnegotiable thing that I must do every single day, irregardless of whatever is to lift weights, at least once. 

    Avoid time wasters, even the good ones.

    Life before Seneca, life after Seneca

    Life BC, life AD — I still think it is hilarious that in America, the way we categorize time is life before Christ, life after Christ.

    Life before the christos, the lord the saviour, and life after Jesus.

    For me I like to use this analogy for Seneca. Before Seneca was born, I wasted a lot of my time, in coffee shops, kind of superficial relationships, etc. Why? I had so much time to kill!

    And also good thing about having kid is that it helps you understand what is truly critical to you or not.

    Business is bad

    For example, business. Do not forget that the original notion of business was centered around being busy, “busy-ness”–

    Even the ancient Romans, otium, neg+otium–

    Negotium (business) meant the exact opposite of leisure.

    I think often times, people like to just stay busy because when you are busy, you don’t have to think about more important things in life, such as life purpose direction etc. And honestly, I think the reason why I philosophy is so critical for everybody is that if you cannot think philosophically, you’re just wasting your life.

    Even Seneca the younger stoic (Seneca’s namesake) on his essay “On the shortness of time”– or the shortness of life… Essentially that you could live a great life, even if it is a short life, as long as you use your time well.

    For example, if you had a house with 1000 marble and ivory tables, with matching golden plates, can you take that with you when you die? No!

    80 years old and dying

    Let us assume that the average human span now, I think it is about 92 years old for men, 94 years old for women. But then again you never know if you’re gonna get cancer or whatever, assume that it is 80 years.

    If you knew that you would only live to be 80 years old, with 100% certainty, how would you spend your life, the next 10 years of your life? What would you do, what would you not do?

    And also… Thinking about the mortality of our loved ones, our parents, your own mother.

    For example, my mom is about to turn 70, and let us assume that she’s going to live to be 80. How would I want to spend the next 10 years in my life with her, or without her?

    Certainly I’m happy for her to do stuff like travel, do her artwork, but also, more critically more time with Seneca, myself and Cindy, but more critically for her to spend time with Seneca. Why? There’s going to be a day in which my mom is no longer going to be around, and I would probably hope that Seneca could have some lovely memories with my mom.

    Memento mori

    I think this is also the thing… many of us live our lives, almost like we are going to live forever. Is that true? Of course not!

    And also when you’re younger… Let us even assume that you’re going to live to be 80 years old. What that then means is that you have a long life ahead of you! But once again, what if you are Achilles, and your mom is a goddess, And you are known with 100% certainty that you will die at the age of 40? Then how would you spend your life, how would you not spend your life?

    Think Steve Jobs, he died at only age 55?

    You might die today

    If you have the choice, the difference between memento mori, and memento vivre — the memory of knowing that you will die is more critical than the memory or the thought of knowing how to live.

    The angel of life and or death?

    What’s the story of why Cindy and I decided to have a kid, Seneca?

    After this incident I had a few years ago being held up at gunpoint with me just me and Cindy, before Seneca was born in Mexico City… And fortunately I grabbed Cindy‘s hand and we ran away, and we did not get popped at the back of our head. And in our adrenaline, after the incident… What was my only one regret, Assuming that I have might have died? It was very simple, not having a kid! Then immediately after the incident, we started trying, and then Covid happened, and then we stopped…  and then we did a webinar saying that kind of babies and kids were kind of immune to Covid, and then we tried again… And boom, got pregnant within a week!

    Anyways… Often it is these life or death encounters which clarify things. After this incident, I had zero thoughts about my wealth, money in the bank etc., or my fame or success or whatever. I literally had zero regrets besides the kid thing.

    Don’t die childless.

    The greatest joy on the planet

    I was thinking this morning, what is something that never loses its novelty factor? Seeing and witnessing your kid grow up!

    Also… As a man, by far a 1,000,000,000,000% gratitude thing, having a son, having at least one son, one male, one man, and especially having your first kid being a man!

    Why? Speaking from the perspective if you are a man, what every man desires is at least one male heir. Certainly when you see a family with three girls, four girls or five girls, no boys, you know what the family was trying to do. 

    And also… The whole second kid question…  honestly, if for some reason or another, we couldn’t have a second kid, I’d probably be fine because the joy of knowing that at least, our first child was a son!

    Anti women?

    I think if I think about it very very honestly honestly… If our first child was a girl… I’m sure I would love her 1000%, but secretly at the back of your head, you’re always thinking wishing and wondering and desiring, to have a boy.

    So this is my simple thought —

    If you and your wife, or partner or whatever or girlfriend, decide to have a second kid, and your first kid is a boy… Don’t push the whole second kid thing. 

    Also, if I told you that let’s say that your wife decided to have birth to a second kid, and there was a 90% chance that she might die in childbirth… Would you take the risk, assuming that your first kid is already a man? No!

    Back to time

    Honestly just throw your iPhone to the trash. Something that people don’t understand is that the iPhone is toxic; even reading one weird thing on your phone, watching one weird movie, film, news headline, TikTok video whatever… strange pornography video or picture, can infect your mind, for a few days, randomly in the middle of the day, or even when you’re about to sleep.

    Instagram is like liver pancreatic cancer

    The reason why I deleted Instagram in around 2017 and no– that ERIC KIM on Instagram is not me– the person that made my @erickimphoto Instagram account was just a faithful follower, was because Instagram started to do bad things to my mind and weird things to my mind. For example I’d be driving, in the suburbs, or the city… And at around noon, while driving, I would get distracted and think to myself “wait… did I uploaded something to Instagram today?” I caught myself thinking this, and I thought “wow, this is bad. I got to get rid of this”. And in 2017, when I had about 65,000 followers, I did probably one of the most courageous and proud things in my life, which was to delete my Instagram. 

    mental Freedom?

    Something my friend Jeffrey Lam tells me about is this notion of mind space, ideas that was not just a timeframe but, a mental space thing.

    For example, you could in theory have 12 hours of free time in a day, but as long as a strange thought lingering in your mind, you can never really focus 100%.

    I think this is called the Zeignark effect. For example let us say that you read an email that needs to be attended to… And you don’t attend to it or respond to it, and it will percolate on your mind for days, sometimes even weeks, sometimes even months. This is why I avoid my inbox, or my text messages like the plague…

    One strange message email or text message or communication thing can distract you for days on end.

    Playing cyber defense

    I also think the reason why email needs to be fixed is now, it is so easy to fake an email, ChatGPT, with bots, or generative AI, even if the person is good or bad, or even if the bot is malicious or benevolent.

    For example, let me give an extreme example, let us say you are Taylor Swift, and everybody on the planet knows your email (taylorswift@gmail.com)– let us say. If you are Taylor Swift, and you literally get 1 million emails a day, would you have the time to either read every single email, or even worse… Respond to it? No? This would be mental suicide! This is why I quit email and all messaging apps Around 2016, 2017, because honestly I was just becoming too famous, too much cognitive load!

    Dodge

    In the Iliad, when the heroes are killing each other… They do two things, obviously they wear protective armor, like shields, helmets, etc.… But if somebody throws a spear at them, or an arrow, what they do is dodge it.

    If you see an incoming spear, you are not a fool, ideally you dodge it, ideally dodging it is more effective than even raising your shield. Why? If a spear hits your shield, there is actually a chance that it might penetrate your shield, and end up either wounding you or killing you.

    I wonder if we should apply the same philosophy two things. Like if you see an incoming missile, or a spear or a bullet… You don’t take the chance. Dodge a bullet, rather than testing your bulletproof vest.

    “That little vest ain’t gonna do you I shoot from neck up”- JAY Z

    The ghost of soulja slim —

    SOULJA KIM?

    The notion of soldier, like Soulja Boy etc., and interesting thought… The notion of a “soul”, period with the notion of a soldier?

    And apparently, if you really really need people from the hood, like Crenshaw, where Nipsey Hussle got killed, the honorific to call somebody worth valor is “soldier”.

    Kind of like calling somebody boss or chief. Like Chief Keef

    ChIEF KIM! Too many Indians, not enough chiefs!

    Anyways, long story short, prize your time. This is the only life you got.

    ERIC


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  • The Philosophy of Time

    Prize your life, this is the only life you got. 

    The philosophy of time:


    The death of film

    I think this is something that changes a lot, once you have a kid. Or have a child a young child at home. Suddenly, your time becomes scarce, very very scarce.

    For example, in terms of time scarcity… this is so insanely critical. If I gave you a choice… Would you rather spend 30 minutes playing and wrestling around with your kid at the house or at the park… Or would you rather spend your precious 30 minutes answering Emails from childless individuals who don’t really have anything better to do?

    Also with film — fine if you don’t have kids — once you get a kid go 100% digital!

    True success

    I’m starting to think… true success is self ownership, time ownership, essentially… never having anything randomly put on your schedule without your own desire.

    For example, I learned that apparently Taylor Swift is signed to Universal Records. Which means she has no control over her time or soul.

    Also a very funny thing… apparently Taylor Swift is about my age, she’s born in 1989, I am born in 1988. I find it insanely bizarre that millions of 10-year-old girls know everything about her down to her drive-through food order?

    Sign yourself

    Anyways… I think some simple filters:

    Trust no individual who is signed to anything.

    For example, I think a very admirable thing that Kendrick Lamar did was quit top dog entertainment… And create his own record label, PG Lang. I think this is also the wisdom of a Jay-Z… The real idea of taking a real chance is to create your own label, and to avoid getting signed to any record or label… Even if they might wave a $100 million check in front of you. Because if you have to be on tour for the rest of your life like lil Wayne (via Pusha T)… Every single night performing for three hours and night, seven days a week… No sleep and rest… Do you have freedom? No!

    This is why Drake is also still a slave!

    And I think the foolish thing which people do is they trade their most valuable thing on the planet… Their freedom and self ownership, in exchange for cash, arbitrary notions of “fame“… For the sake of what?

    Time and self ownership over money.

    What is it that we truly seek?

    One of my friends, Bing who I met in Singapore… The guy I am grateful for getting me into crypto bitcoin and digibyte at the time —  he said something interesting, very wise guy, saying that what he wanted in life was material desires like a purple Lamborghini, but also… more importantly, getting respect from people.

    For example, he said that the primary issue in America is that there is no real notions of respect. For example even very very simply being in Korea, Southeast Asia of Vietnam etc.… On a very basic level, we use honorifics, when it comes to age. Be told, it feels really good! To have a young kid address you in an honorific way, warms your heart!

    You never know who is who 

    Also… I think in America one of the wise things that I’ve learned, just from myself but also echoed in people like NASSIM TALEB is a simple idea:

    Treat the janitor, the hygiene sanitation guy, the security guard with more respect than the big boss.

    And also… assume that everybody you meet is super super rich and successful and powerful and influential, irregardless of how they may look on the outside. Often times, the richest most powerful people are the most low-key, keep a low profile, and you would never expect it.

    Don’t network

    But I think the tricky thing is when it comes to human social capital… the whole “it’s not what you know but who you know”– is also a little bit misguided because technically, especially in today’s day and age, I don’t think that networking or knowing influential people is important. All you need is a website, your own self hosted blog, ChatGPT and you’re good!

    100% of the time networking is a waste of time.

    I got some experience now

    Humans are not super great nor efficient. For example just based on my experiences, I’m 36 now… Almost 0 networking events or meeting famous successful people have led to anything substantive. The only things which have led to substantive things were things that I decided to do on my own; like hosting my own workshops, creating and developing and selling my own products engaging people directly with my own email newsletter blog, platform, etc. Everything else has been a waste of time.

    Build it yourself.

    I think the biggest issues here is that when you are starting off as an entrepreneur… We do things in such a way in which we think it is the proper way. For example, when we think about business and networking… We think what it means is to get to know a bunch of rich successful people, “get your foot in the door” etc. Yet, I have discovered this is a total waste of time. 

    Your own website and blog is the foot in the digital door!

    The way that I was able to build my digital capital my fame my power my influence was very very simple… Essentially learning everything about street photography on my own, and then creating really really insanely in-depth articles, blog posts, pages, information and resources on anything and everything street photography. And the whole time, the whole endeavor of mine was guided by passion, personal interest and curiosity.

    Curiosity is antifragile.

    Lifting 1,000 pounds

    On my personal quest to lift 1000 pounds, which is beyond 10 plates on each side of the barbell, was a personal curiosity:

    How far can I take it?

    Essentially, my primary curiosity was a curiosity of the limits of my strength, my courage, my ability and potential?

    I remember the last time I was weightlifting in Westerly, Rhode Island, and an older guy came up to me and asked “what is the purpose of that? Why are you lifting like that?” I made a joke and I said, first– to augment my ego. But the second more honest answer is I’m just curious how strong I can become.

    Why curiosity is so critical

    What is curiosity? Curiosity is care, curiosity is what drives us.

    You cannot force somebody to be cursed about something that they don’t really care for. You cannot spoon feed or inject curiosity in the soul of somebody, against their own will.

    This is why a lot of Asian parents fail, when they try to force their kids to play violin, piano, or chess etc.

    Back to time

    Time is the ultimate capital, the ultimate desirable non-renewable resource.

    Another funny lesson: often the most seemingly bad movies, the ones with poor IMDb reviews are actually the best movies.

    For example, the movie “in time” by Justin Timberlake.  probably one of the best films of all time, and also, the most underrated. The reason why it is so grand and great of a film is that it creates this metaphor, this philosophical world in which essentially time is money: literally and metaphorically.

    For example, the super super rich people have 1000 years on their wrist, and hilariously enough, excuse the pun, but rich people and poor people are separated by “time zones”–

    Also in this fictitious universe, real rich people take their time and move really slowly, whereas the poor laborers, are always running, because they are so short on time.

    Time inflation

    Another funny scene: in the early part of the IN TIME film, when Justin Timberlake is working as a laborer at a factory or whatever, do you have to scan your wrist, imagine like having Apple Pay, your checking account embedded in your wrist, and anytime you wanted to buy a cup of coffee or food or whatever… You would just scan your wrist. And one of the scenes, Justin Timberlake complains “wait… A cup of coffee used to only cost 15 minutes, why is it now costing 30 minutes?” And the guy selling coffee, shrugs his shoulder and says “that’s time inflation!”

    Why it is that the only films I care for are dystopic films

    The matrix, Blade Runner, and these science fiction fiction, alternate future sociological philosophical films, why? They actually change you! 

    What is so interesting about science fiction typically it is just a commentary or a societal critique of our real society. And the thing exaggerated, in cinematic ways, or building up a universe, but in fact, it is really true to today’s world.

    Anyways, back on the notion of time… Time is labor, money is labor time.

    How renting is superior to owning

    For example… One of the things I am so grateful about renting, and having the best landlord of all time, is that when something breaks, like our all-in-one washer dryer machine from LG… And the machine doesn’t even turn on anymore, I don’t have to be the one wasting my time driving to Home Depot, trying to fix it, or finding service technicians to fix it, scheduling it etc. Rather, I let the landlord communicate with his own labor task squad, his own maintenance team, to come in and fix it, when we are not home, and I could do better things like go on a hike with Cindy and Seneca, or do something fun!

    DIY ain’t virtuous

    In America, we have this weird virtue connection with doing the labor yourself. However, there is a differentiation between hateful labor and joyful labor. For example, I would probably prefer to have a mechanic fix my car, even though I could do the labor myself, because now that I have a kid, an hour spent fixing your car could be an hour playing with your kid at the park! Here a time becomes zero sum thing, which means:

    If you only have an hour to spare, would you rather it be chatting with somebody random, spending time with somebody you don’t really care for, or doing some sort of labor you don’t really care for, or rather would you rather spend that time to do something more critical you insanely care for?

    Only spend time on people you love and care for!

    For example, if you had an hour, to listen to the problems of somebody, or, you had an hour to work out, do exercises, and lift weights… What would you choose? And assume you could only do one. Obviously work out!

    For me, my only regret in the evening is if I spent the whole day, assuming that I was in good health and strength, not working out? To me, my nonnegotiable thing that I must do every single day, irregardless of whatever is to lift weights, at least once. 

    Avoid time wasters, even the good ones.

    Life before Seneca, life after Seneca

    Life BC, life AD — I still think it is hilarious that in America, the way we categorize time is life before Christ, life after Christ.

    Life before the christos, the lord the saviour, and life after Jesus.

    For me I like to use this analogy for Seneca. Before Seneca was born, I wasted a lot of my time, in coffee shops, kind of superficial relationships, etc. Why? I had so much time to kill!

    And also good thing about having kid is that it helps you understand what is truly critical to you or not.

    Business is bad

    For example, business. Do not forget that the original notion of business was centered around being busy, “busy-ness”–

    Even the ancient Romans, otium, neg+otium–

    Negotium (business) meant the exact opposite of leisure.

    I think often times, people like to just stay busy because when you are busy, you don’t have to think about more important things in life, such as life purpose direction etc. And honestly, I think the reason why I philosophy is so critical for everybody is that if you cannot think philosophically, you’re just wasting your life.

    Even Seneca the younger stoic (Seneca’s namesake) on his essay “On the shortness of time”– or the shortness of life… Essentially that you could live a great life, even if it is a short life, as long as you use your time well.

    For example, if you had a house with 1000 marble and ivory tables, with matching golden plates, can you take that with you when you die? No!

    80 years old and dying

    Let us assume that the average human span now, I think it is about 92 years old for men, 94 years old for women. But then again you never know if you’re gonna get cancer or whatever, assume that it is 80 years.

    If you knew that you would only live to be 80 years old, with 100% certainty, how would you spend your life, the next 10 years of your life? What would you do, what would you not do?

    And also… Thinking about the mortality of our loved ones, our parents, your own mother.

    For example, my mom is about to turn 70, and let us assume that she’s going to live to be 80. How would I want to spend the next 10 years in my life with her, or without her?

    Certainly I’m happy for her to do stuff like travel, do her artwork, but also, more critically more time with Seneca, myself and Cindy, but more critically for her to spend time with Seneca. Why? There’s going to be a day in which my mom is no longer going to be around, and I would probably hope that Seneca could have some lovely memories with my mom.

    Memento mori

    I think this is also the thing… many of us live our lives, almost like we are going to live forever. Is that true? Of course not!

    And also when you’re younger… Let us even assume that you’re going to live to be 80 years old. What that then means is that you have a long life ahead of you! But once again, what if you are Achilles, and your mom is a goddess, And you are known with 100% certainty that you will die at the age of 40? Then how would you spend your life, how would you not spend your life?

    Think Steve Jobs, he died at only age 55?

    You might die today

    If you have the choice, the difference between memento mori, and memento vivre — the memory of knowing that you will die is more critical than the memory or the thought of knowing how to live.

    The angel of life and or death?

    What’s the story of why Cindy and I decided to have a kid, Seneca?

    After this incident I had a few years ago being held up at gunpoint with me just me and Cindy, before Seneca was born in Mexico City… And fortunately I grabbed Cindy‘s hand and we ran away, and we did not get popped at the back of our head. And in our adrenaline, after the incident… What was my only one regret, Assuming that I have might have died? It was very simple, not having a kid! Then immediately after the incident, we started trying, and then Covid happened, and then we stopped…  and then we did a webinar saying that kind of babies and kids were kind of immune to Covid, and then we tried again… And boom, got pregnant within a week!

    Anyways… Often it is these life or death encounters which clarify things. After this incident, I had zero thoughts about my wealth, money in the bank etc., or my fame or success or whatever. I literally had zero regrets besides the kid thing.

    Don’t die childless.

    The greatest joy on the planet

    I was thinking this morning, what is something that never loses its novelty factor? Seeing and witnessing your kid grow up!

    Also… As a man, by far a 1,000,000,000,000% gratitude thing, having a son, having at least one son, one male, one man, and especially having your first kid being a man!

    Why? Speaking from the perspective if you are a man, what every man desires is at least one male heir. Certainly when you see a family with three girls, four girls or five girls, no boys, you know what the family was trying to do. 

    And also… The whole second kid question…  honestly, if for some reason or another, we couldn’t have a second kid, I’d probably be fine because the joy of knowing that at least, our first child was a son!

    Anti women?

    I think if I think about it very very honestly honestly… If our first child was a girl… I’m sure I would love her 1000%, but secretly at the back of your head, you’re always thinking wishing and wondering and desiring, to have a boy.

    So this is my simple thought —

    If you and your wife, or partner or whatever or girlfriend, decide to have a second kid, and your first kid is a boy… Don’t push the whole second kid thing. 

    Also, if I told you that let’s say that your wife decided to have birth to a second kid, and there was a 90% chance that she might die in childbirth… Would you take the risk, assuming that your first kid is already a man? No!

    Back to time

    Honestly just throw your iPhone to the trash. Something that people don’t understand is that the iPhone is toxic; even reading one weird thing on your phone, watching one weird movie, film, news headline, TikTok video whatever… strange pornography video or picture, can infect your mind, for a few days, randomly in the middle of the day, or even when you’re about to sleep.

    Instagram is like liver pancreatic cancer

    The reason why I deleted Instagram in around 2017 and no– that ERIC KIM on Instagram is not me– the person that made my @erickimphoto Instagram account was just a faithful follower, was because Instagram started to do bad things to my mind and weird things to my mind. For example I’d be driving, in the suburbs, or the city… And at around noon, while driving, I would get distracted and think to myself “wait… did I uploaded something to Instagram today?” I caught myself thinking this, and I thought “wow, this is bad. I got to get rid of this”. And in 2017, when I had about 65,000 followers, I did probably one of the most courageous and proud things in my life, which was to delete my Instagram. 

    mental Freedom?

    Something my friend Jeffrey Lam tells me about is this notion of mind space, ideas that was not just a timeframe but, a mental space thing.

    For example, you could in theory have 12 hours of free time in a day, but as long as a strange thought lingering in your mind, you can never really focus 100%.

    I think this is called the Zeignark effect. For example let us say that you read an email that needs to be attended to… And you don’t attend to it or respond to it, and it will percolate on your mind for days, sometimes even weeks, sometimes even months. This is why I avoid my inbox, or my text messages like the plague…

    One strange message email or text message or communication thing can distract you for days on end.

    Playing cyber defense

    I also think the reason why email needs to be fixed is now, it is so easy to fake an email, ChatGPT, with bots, or generative AI, even if the person is good or bad, or even if the bot is malicious or benevolent.

    For example, let me give an extreme example, let us say you are Taylor Swift, and everybody on the planet knows your email (taylorswift@gmail.com)– let us say. If you are Taylor Swift, and you literally get 1 million emails a day, would you have the time to either read every single email, or even worse… Respond to it? No? This would be mental suicide! This is why I quit email and all messaging apps Around 2016, 2017, because honestly I was just becoming too famous, too much cognitive load! 

    Dodge

    In the Iliad, when the heroes are killing each other… They do two things, obviously they wear protective armor, like shields, helmets, etc.… But if somebody throws a spear at them, or an arrow, what they do is dodge it.

    If you see an incoming spear, you are not a fool, ideally you dodge it, ideally dodging it is more effective than even raising your shield. Why? If it hits your, there is actually a chance that it might penetrate your shield, and end up either wounding you or killing you.

    I wonder if we should apply the same philosophy two things. Like if you see an incoming missile, or a beer or a bullet… You don’t take the chance. Dodge a bullet, rather than testing your bulletproof vest.

    “That little vest ain’t gonna do you I shoot from neck up”- JY Z

    The ghost of soulja slim —

    Soulja Kim?

    The notion of soldier, like Soulja Boy etc., and interesting thought… The notion of a “soul”, period with the notion of a soldier?

    And apparently, if you really really need people from the hood, like Crenshaw, where Nipsey Hussle got killed, the honorific to call somebody worth valor is “soldier”.

    Kind of like calling somebody boss or chief. Like Chief Keef

    Chief Kim! Too many Indians, not enough chiefs!

    Anyways, long story short, prize your time. This is the only life you got.

    ERIC

  • The Philosophy of Time Economics

    Prize your life, this is the only life you got. 

    The economics and philosophy of time:

    1. The death of film

    I think this is something that changes a lot, once you have a kid. Or have a child a young child at the home. Suddenly, your time becomes scarce, very very scarce.

    For example, in terms of times scarcity… This is so insanely critical. If I give you a choice… Would you rather spend 30 minutes playing and wrestling around with your kid at the house or at the park… Or would you rather spend your precious 30 minutes answering Emails from childless individuals who don’t really have anything better to do?

    True success

    I’m starting to think… True success is self ownership, time ownership, essentially… Never having anything randomly put on your schedule without your own desire.

    For example, I learned that apparently Taylor Swift is signed to Universal records. Which means she has no control over her time or soul.

    Also a very funny thing… Apparently Taylor Swift is about my age, she’s born in 1989, I am born in 1988. I find it insanely bizarre that millions of 10-year-old girls know everything about her down to her drive-through food order?

    Anyways… I think some simple filters:

    Trust no individual who is signed to anything.

    For example, I think a very admirable thing that Kendrick Lamar did I believe was quit top dog entertainment… And create his own record label, I think it’s called PG Lang. I think this is also the wisdom of a Jay-Z… The real idea of taking a real chance is to create your own label, and to avoid getting signed to any record or label… Even if they might wave a $100 million check in front of you. Because if you have to be on tour for the next nine months of your life… Every single night performing for three hours and night, seven days a week… No sleep and rest… Do you have freedom? No!

    And I think the foolish thing which people do is they trade their most valuable thing on the planet… Their freedom and self ownership, in exchange for cash, arbitrary notions of “fame“… For the sake of what?

    What is it that we truly seek?

    One of my friends, Bing who I met in Singapore… The guy I am grateful for getting me into crypto bitcoin and digibyte at the time —  he said something interesting, very wise guy, saying that what he wanted in life was material desires like a purple Lamborghini, but also… More importantly, getting respect from people.

    For example, he said that the primary issue in America is that there is no real notions of respect. For example even very very simply being in Korea, Southeast Asia of Vietnam etc.… On a very basic level, we use honorifics, when it comes to age. Be told, it feels really good! To have a young kid address you in an honorific way, warms your heart! 

    Also… I think in America one of the wise things that I’ve learned, just from myself but also echo and people like NASSIM TALEB is a simple idea:

    Treat the janitor, the hygiene sanitation guy, the security guard with more respect than the big boss.

    And also… Assume that everybody you meet is super super rich and successful and powerful and influential, irregardless of how they may look on the outside. Often times, the richest most powerful people are the most low-key, keep a low profile, and you would never expect it.

    But I think the tricky thing is when it comes to human social capital… The whole “it’s not what you know but who you know”– is also a little bit misguided because technically, especially in today’s day and age, I don’t think that networking or knowing influential people is important. All you need is a website, your own self hosted blog, ChatGPT and you’re good!

    Examples

    Humans are not super great nor efficient. For example just based on my experiences, I’m 36 now… Almost 0 networking events or meeting famous successful people have led to anything substantive. The only things which have led to substantive things were things that I decided to do on my own; like hosting my own workshops, creating and developing and selling my own products engaging people directly with my own email newsletter blog, platform, etc. Everything else has been a waste of time.

    I think the biggest issues here is that when you are starting an entrepreneur… We do things in such a way in which we think it is the proper way. For example, when we think about business and networking… We think what it means is to get to know a bunch of rich successful people, “get your foot in the door” etc. Yet, I have discovered this is a total waste of time. 

    The way that I was able to build my digital capital my fame my power my influence was very very simple… Essentially learning everything about street photography on my own, and then creating really really insanely in-depth articles, blog post, pages, information and resources on anything and everything street photography.  and the whole time, the whole endeavor of vine was guided by passion, personal interest and curiosity.

    Curiosity is antifragile.

    Lifting 1,000 pounds

    On my personal quest to lift 1000 pounds, which is beyond 10 plates on each side of the barbell, was a personal curiosity:

    How far can I take it?

    Essentially, my primary curiosity was a curiosity of the limits of my strength, my courage, my ability and potential?

    I remember the last time I was weightlifting in Westerly, Rhode Island, and an older guy came up to me and asked “what is the purpose of that? Why are you lifting like that?” I made a joke and I said, first– to augment my ego. But the second more honest answer is I’m just curious how strong I can become.

    Why curiosity is so critical

    What is curiosity? Curiosity is care, curiosity is what drives us.

    You cannot force somebody to be cursed about something that they don’t really care for. You cannot spoon feed or inject curiosity in the soul of somebody, against their own will.

    This is why a lot of Asian parents fail, when they try to force their kids to play violin, piano, or chess etc.

    back to time

    Time is ultimate capital, ultimate desirable non-renewable resource.

    Another funny lesson: often the most seemingly bad movies, the ones with poor IMDb reviews are actually the best movies.

    For example, the movie “in time” by Justin Timberlake.  probably one of the best films of all time, and also, the most underrated.
    P the reason why it is so grand and great of a film is that it creates this metaphor, this philosophical world in which essentially money is, quite literally.

    For example, the super super rich people have 1000 years on their wrist, and hilarious enough, excuse the pun, but rich people and poor people are separated by “time zones”–

    Also in this fictitious universe, real rich people take their time and move really slowly, whereas the poor labors, are always running, because they are so short on time.

    time inflation

     another funny thought: apparently in the early film, when Justin Timberlake is working as a laborer at a factory or whatever, do you have to scan your wrist, imagine like having Apple Pay, your checking account embedded in your wrist, and anytime you wanted to buy a cuppa coffee or food or whatever… You would just scan your wrist. And one of the scenes, Justin Timberlake complains “wait… A cup of coffee only cost 15 minutes, why is it now costing 30 minutes?”  and the guy selling coffee, shrugs his shoulder and says “that’s time inflation!”

    Why it is that the only films I care for are dystopic films

    The matrix, Blade Runner, and these scientific fiction, alternate future sociological philosophical films, why ? They actually change you! 

    What is so interesting about science fiction typically it is just a commentary or a societal critique of our real society. And the thing exaggerated, in cinematic ways, or building up a universe, but in fact, it is really true to today’s world.

    Anyways, back on the notion of time… Time is labor, money is labor time.

    For example… One of the things I am so grateful about renting, and having the best landlord of all time, is that when something breaks, like our all-in-one washer dryer machine from LG… And the machine doesn’t even turn on anymore, I don’t have to be the ones Wasting my time driving to Home Depot, trying to fix it, or finding service technicians to fix it, scheduling it etc. Rather, I let the landlord communicate with his own labor task squad, his own maintenance team, to come in and fix it, when we are not home, and I could do better things like go on a hike with Cindy and Seneca, or do something fun!

    In America, we have this weird virtue connection with doing the labor yourself. However, there is a differentiation between hateful labor and joyful labor. For example, I would probably prefer to have a mechanic fix my car, even though I could do the labor myself, because now that I have a kid, an hour spent fixing your car could be an hour playing with your kid at the park! Here a time becomes zero som, which means 

    If you only have an hour to spare, would you rather it be chatting with somebody random, or spending time with somebody you don’t really care for, or doing some sort of labor you don’t really care for, or rather would you rather spend that time to do something more critical you insanely care for?

    For example, if you had an hour, to listen to the problems of somebody, or, you had an hour to work out exercises, and lift weights… What would you choose? And assume you could only do one. Obviously work out!

    For me, my only regret in the evening is if I spent the whole day, assuming that I was in good health and strength, not working out? To me, my nonnegotiable thing that I must do every single day, irregardless of whatever is to lift weights, at least once. 

    Life before Seneca, life after Seneca

    Life BC, life AD — I still think it is hilarious that in America, the way we categorize time is life before Christ, life after Christ.

    Life before the christos, the lord the saviour, and life after Jesus.

    For me I like to use this analogy for Seneca. Before Seneca was born, I wasted a lot of my time, had coffee shops, kind of superficial relationships, etc. Why? I had so much time to kill!

    And also good thing about having kid is that it helps you understand what is truly critical to you or not.

    For example, business. Do not forget that the original notion of business was centered around being busy, “busy-ness”–

    Even the ancient Romans, otium, neg+otium–

    Negotium (business) meant the exact opposite of leisure.

    I think often times, people like to just stay busy because when you are busy, you don’t have to think about more important things in life, such as life purpose direction etc. And honestly, I think the reason why I philosophy is so critical for everybody is that if you cannot think philosophically, you’re just wasting your life.

    Even Seneca the younger stoic (Seneca’s namesake) on his essay “On the shortness of time”– or the short of life… Essentially that you could live a great life, even if it is a short life, as long as you use your time well.

    For example, if you had a house with 1000 marble and ivory tables, with matching golden plates, can you take that with you when you die? No!

    Let us assume that the average human span now, I think it is about 92 years old for men, 94 years old for women. But then again you never know if you’re gonna get cancer or whatever, assume that it is 80 years.

    If you knew that you would only live to be 80 years old, with 100% certainty, how would you spend your life, the next 10 years of your life? What would you do, what would you not do?

    And also… Thinking about the mortality of our loved ones, our parents, your own mother.

    For example, my mom is about to turn 70, and let us assume that she’s going to live to be 80. How would I want to spend the next 10 years in my life with her, or without her?

    Certainly I’m happy for her to do stuff like travel, do her artwork, but also, more critically more time with Seneca, myself and Cindy, but more critically for her to spend time with Seneca. Why? There’s going to be a day in which my mom is no longer going to be around, and I would probably hope that Seneca could have some lovely memories with my mom.

    I think this is also the thing… Of us live our lives, almost like we are going to live forever. Is that true? Of course not!

    And also when you’re younger… Let us even assume that you’re going to live to be 80 years old. What that then means is that you have a long life ahead of you! But once again, what if you are Achilles, and your mom is a goddess, And you are known with 100% certainty that you will die at the age of 40? Then how would you spend your life, how would you not spend your life?

    Memento mori

    If you have the choice, the difference between memento mori, and memento vivre — the memory of knowing that you will die is more critical than the memory or the thought of knowing how to live.

    I think meaningful ways, and also after this incident I had a few years ago being held up at gunpoint with me just me and Cindy, before Seneca was born… And fortunately I grab Cindy‘s hand and we ran away, and we did not get popped at the back of our head. And in our adrenaline, after the incident… What was my only one regret, Assuming that I have might have died? It was very simple, not having a kid! Then immediately after the incident, we started trying, and then Covidhappened, and then we stopped…  and then we did a webinar saying that kind of babies and kids were kind of immune to Covid, and then we tried again… And boom, got pregnant within a week!

    Anyways… Often it is these life or death encounters which clarify things. After this incident, I had zero thoughts about my wealth, money in the bank etc., or my fame or success or whatever. I literally had zero regrets besides the kid thing.

    The greatest joy on the planet

    I was thinking this morning, what is something that never loses its novelty factor? Seeing and witnessing your kid grow up!

    Also… As a man, by far a 1,000,000,000,000% gratitude thing, having a son, having at least one son, one male, one man, and especially having your first kid being a man!

    Why? Speaking from the perspective if you are a man, what every man desires is at least one male heir. Certainly when you see a family with three girls, four girls or five girls, no boys, you know what the family was trying to do. 

    And also… The whole second kid question…  honestly, if for some reason or another, we couldn’t have a second kid, I’d probably be fine because the joy of knowing that at least, our first child was a son!

    Anti women?

    I think if I think about it very very honestly honestly… If our first child was a girl… I’m sure I would love her 1000%, but secretly at the back of your head, you’re always thinking wishing and wondering and desiring, to have a boy.

    So this is my simple thought —

    If you and your wife, or partner or whatever or girlfriend, decide to have a second kid, and your first kid is a boy… Don’t push the whole second kid thing. 

    Also, if I told you that let’s say that your wife decided to have birth to a second kid, and there was a 90% chance that she might die in childbirth… Would you take the risk, assuming that your first kid is already a man? No!

    Back to time

    Honestly just throw your iPhone to the trash. Something that people don’t understand is that the iPhone is toxic; even reading one weird thing on your phone, one weird movie, film, news headline, TikTok video whatever… Strange pornography video or picture, can infect your mind, For a few days, randomly in the middle of the day, or even when you’re about to sleep.

    The reason why I deleted Instagram in around 2017 and no– that ERIC KIM on Instagram is not me– the person that made my @erickimphoto Instagram account was just a faithful follower,  why is it started to do bad things to my mind and weird things to my mind. For example I’d be driving, in the suburbs, or the city… And at around noon, while driving, I would get distracted and think to myself “wait… did I uploaded something to Instagram today?” I caught myself thinking this, and I thought “wow, this is bad. I got to get rid of this”. And in 2017, when I had about 65,000 followers, I did probably one of the most courageous and proud things in my life, which was to delete my Instagram. 

    mental Freedom?

    Something my friend Jeffrey Lam tells me about is this notion of mind space, ideas that was not just a timeframe but, a mental space thing.

    For example, you could in theory have 12 hours of free time in a day, but as long as a strange thought is lingering in your mind, you can never really focus 100%.

    I think this is called the Zeignark effect,  for example let us say that you read an email that needs to be attended to… And you don’t attend to it or respond to it, and it will plate your mind for days, sometimes even weeks, sometimes even months. This is why I avoid my inbox, or my text messages like the plague…

    One strange message email or text message or communication thing can distract you for days on end.

    Playing cyber defense

    I also think the reason why email needs to be fixed is now, it is so easy to fake an email, ChatGPT, with bots, or generative AI, even if the person is good or bad, or even if the bot is malicious or benevolent.

    For example, let me give an extreme example, let us say you are Taylor Swift, and everybody on the planet knows your email (taylorswift@gmail.com)– let us say.  if you are Taylor Swift, and you literally get 1 million emails a day, would you have the time to either read every single email, or even worse… Respond to it? No? This would be mental suicide! This is why I quit email and all messaging apps Around 2016, 2017, because honestly I was just becoming too famous, too much cognitive load! 

    Dodge

    In the Iliad, when the heroes are killing each other… They do two things, obviously they wear protective armor, like shields, helmets, etc.… But if somebody throws a spear at them, or an arrow, what they do is dodge it.

    If you see an incoming spear, you are not a fool, ideally you dodge it, ideally dodging it is more effective than even raising your shield. Why? If it hits your, there is actually a chance that it might penetrate your shield, and end up either wounding you or killing you.

    I wonder if we should apply the same philosophy two things. Like if you see an incoming missile, or a beer or a bullet… You don’t take the chance. Dodge a bullet, rather than testing your bulletproof vest.

    “That little vest ain’t gonna do you I shoot from neck up”- JY Z

    The ghost of soulja slim —

    Soulja Kim?

    The notion of soldier, like Soulja Boy etc., and interesting thought… The notion of a “soul”, period with the notion of a soldier?

    And apparently, if you really really need people from the hood, like Crenshaw, where Nipsey Hussle got killed, the honorific to call somebody worth valor is “soldier”.

    Kind of like calling somebody boss or chief. Like Chief Keef

    Chief Kim! Too many Indians, not enough chiefs!

    Anyways, long story short, prize your time. This is the only life you got.

    ERIC

  • Pure Thoughts

    What is a pure thought? I thought that comes to you, first thing you do when you wake up… Without any sort of external stimulus weather reading, listening, looking.

    I’ve heard this advice before… That when you go to sleep… Charge your phone in your living room, as far away from your bedroom as possible. Better yet, just turn it off completely, or also, just keep it in your backpack. And actually let it die a little bit and drain the battery of it… iPhone sucks, is overrated, and bad for your health and life.

    Also… Throw your TV smart TV into the trash. If you really want to watch a movie film cinema etc.… I think the best way to do it is to just download it to your iPad Pro, and just watch it outside! Alfresco style!

    For example, here in Culver City and beyond… There has been a lot of events about watching movies in the park, watching movies outside… Even the antiquated notion of the drive-through movie theater is a very interesting idea; I think media has consumed outside, outdoors etc.

    For example, pro tip for parents… If your kid wants to play games on the iPad, play with your iPhone or whatever… Make it a rule that they are only allowed to do it when they are outside of the house! For example at the park, the local playground, the local nature center, etc.

    This is my tactic; any time that Seneco wants to do programming on the iPad with swift playgrounds, or play poly bridge 2, or a racing game… The rule is we have to go outside, go to the Culver City steps or downtown, and then I let him play there. 80% of the time he forgets… And ends up just running around instead.

    Bizarre media habits of adults

    OK, taking it a step further: 

    First, OK something I never understood was owning a television?

    First, if you want to watch something, why not just watch it on your laptop or better yet… An iPad Pro?

    I thought we were advanced techies? Why would a techie own a television?

    Video games?

    Video game is fine for teenagers, and children… Not men or grown adults.

    Why would you be playing PlayStation, or a PC game or steam… If you are over the age of 18?

    Rule: adult over the age of 18 should play video games.

    Video games are essentially a good refuge for kids who grow up without parental figures. Or they grow up in the hood, I’m playing video games is safer than gangbanging.

    But besides this… Video games are not becoming of us. 

    Becoming a real man 

    So the pure thought I had this morning was there’s notion of becoming a real man.

    What are my ideals?

    First, a stoic manly, spartan ethos approach and aesthetic. We are not cowards, slaves.

    The best thing to read is the Iliad, Emily Wilson translation. The best and the quickest and the easiest way to put hair on your chest.

    Ignore modern day media

    All modern day media is bad. Why? Because media is so hyper nowadays… Things are becoming more and more bizarre.

    Things are bizarre, there are no longer any divisions or boundaries, everybody gets a gold medal, everyone gets a participation sticker, everyone is made mediocre. For example, when it comes to the body, bodily physique etc.… Do not be a fool. There is obviously a clear hierarchy here. And it is not a matter of objective or subjective… Both of these are not useful philosophical ideas. Besides physics, there’s nothing objective on the planet. And subjectivity is a modern day concept which is tired.

    Achilles or Hector

    I think the two best role models for us is Achilles and Hector. The two Apex fighters warriors and men of antiquity, no and forever.

    I actually find the Iliad to be so pure, so honest, maybe the only book worth reading. This and the Odyssey. Once I am done reading the Iliad translation by Emily Wilson, I will read the odyssey translation by her as well.

    Anyways, my first thought is there is no such thing as valor without real valor, real physical valor and strength. Even the notion “valere” or “vale”, which was essentially a signature like saying “best” at the end of an email, essentially it meant “be strong!”

    All strength is good, all weakness is bad. It doesn’t matter what your domain is, we all seek strength, we all hate weakness.

    And certainly, you could interpret strength and weakness for yourself. But whether it be physical, mental, physiological, artistic aesthetic etc — strength, power, durability is supremely desired.

    Therefore, as a man, your first duty is towards strength, power, strengthening. 

    Things which strengthen you, things which don’t

     I think one of the grand clarifying things about having a child is when it comes to time and focus and mind space and zen. 

    For example, even before the birth of Seneca, I barely had enough time, mind space for myself. Now after the birth of Seneca, my time is really really insanely limited, and also nonrenewable.

    For example, I only have so many bucks to give, and anything which does not promote my thinking or Seneca, is time wasted.

    Let us assume that you caught your good 10 hours of sleep, and even talking to somebody who is full of misery, unhappiness etc.… They are strange negative thoughts will infect you in a bad way. If you were in full health and full figure… Unfortunately The toxicity of unwell people will positively harm you. And then it becomes a feedback loop… The second you are in a bad mood, it affects the mood of your wife, your kids, etc.

    Being cruel is virtuous

    I wonder if we want to become grander, we must also become more cruel.

    For example, the second that I realize that my dad was bad news for Cindy, and that Cindy did not feel safe around my dad, it was a very easy cut.

    And also, the number one benefit of stoicism is being able to conquer all of your past trauma, and not only that… Using that past trauma almost like clay, strapping it onto your body to make you bigger stronger, buffer, more indomitable.

     This is why I think so much of modern day therapy is bad; it opens up and reopens up too many bad wounds, for example… Let us say that you fell, you scraped your knee, and it takes about a week for your skin to reheat itself. Would you then take a knife, And scalp pull it back again, promoting the cut and bleeding again?! You just leave it alone, and you do not agitate if any further! 

    Or, let us say that your whole life you were just drinking dirty sewer water, a metaphor for a toxic family or upbringing. Let us say you finally leave that environment, and now you could drink Fiji clean water, do you then out of virtue, go back to the toxic place and environment, and start drinking sewer water again, just to prove something? No!

    The wisdom of Dr. Dre… You get out of the hood, and you stay out of the hood! You don’t go back to the hood to “prove yourself”.

    In fact this whole notion of approving yourself, I find it to be insanely bizarre.

    For example Achilles is 100% confident and certain in his strength valor and power. And everyone knows it. And it isn’t his ethos to go to battle just to prove how dominant he is.. He only goes back to fighting when he wants to get revenge on Hector, but besides this… Achilles wanted to retire from fighting.

    Even if you took all the wealth on the Earth and multiplied it by 100,000… It is not worth your human mortal life.

    For example, would you accept $1 trillion, if you had a 99.9% mortality rate chance, in the next three months? Obviously no!

    Human life, a long happy life along healthy life is the most desired thing on the planet. Even the ancient Greeks and good old Homer knew this. 

    So why are we trying to trade our health our strength and our well-being for money? 

    An interesting nuance with Americans versus Koreans,

    Koreans seek success as a moralistic imperative. Koreans, South Korean… They don’t really care for money… Money is simply a reflection of a Confucian literati type of success. 
    In America, money, US dollars is the ultimate mark of success. It seems in America… We valorize money for the sake of money. We don’t actually want anything else, we just want the money.

    In the American case, we want money because we think that the money will make us happy or happier? The simple mathematical equation, a simple vector: more moneys, more happiness.

    For Koreans, it is more a matter of respect. The general idea is that the more money you have, the more respect you’ll get from others.

    Funny enough Americans I don’t think we really care for respect, we just want money and happiness.

    Koreans want respect, respect from others, their peers etc.…  I don’t even think Koreans want happiness. Koreans just want respect.


    Why does this matter

  • How To Become Famous 

    The philosophy of famous and fame

    I think a critical thing to consider is that fame and money or not the same thing or equatable. Nor is it desirable to link the two.

    For sample, it seems that the foolish mistake people make is that they think of fame as a conduit for wealth. But technically… The easiest way to become wealthy or make a bunch of money is to get a job in cyber security, become a lawyer or a doctor, or even work in sanitation and hygiene, doing a “dirty job“, which could easily net you a lot of money, easily $200,000 a year.

    So then the question is … What is it that people seek, and why?

    Everyone wants to be happy

    First, it seems that what people really seek is not fame or money… But happiness. And people think of it like a simple scalar vector equation: 

    as I increase my numbers, as I increase my monies, as I increase my fame, my follower number is whatever… This positive increase will be positively equated with more positive happiness.

    What is this true? No!

    I’ll example… Let us say that you’re the most famous person on the planet, your Brad Pitt or whatever, and your beautiful wife Angelina Jolie divorces you, you become a strange from your seven children, and nobody wants to call you or interact with you anymore.

    Or even think about Russell Simmons, the former music producer who was revealed that he sexually abused all of these women, and maybe raped them or drug them or something weird, apparently his not in jail, even though he probably should, and now… He is Gained at least 15 pounds of fat, lives by himself in a mansion in New Jersey, and nobody talks to him anymore. Even though he might have $100 million in his Bank of America checking account, he is probably not happy.

    The sorcery of happiness

    I think the big issue here is we try to metricate happiness. 
    Once again, I think people hear lack some sort of critical understanding… We think of happiness like ones and zeros, commas and dollars, numbers etc.

    But some critical issues here, first we don’t realize that 99% of social media and follower numbers are just bots. I think if you waived a magical wand, in order to delete all the bots on the Internet, it would reduce the Internet population or the follower numbers by 99.9%. 

    I’ll give you example… Let us say that you see a famous person on the Internet with 1 billion followers. I bet you that 999 million of those are just bots.

    Social media inflation

    Nobody ever thinks about this, but, I don’t think anyone has ever made the connection between monetary inflation and social media inflation.

    Let us consider that it literally cost zero dollars to make a bot on the Internet. For less than a nickel, you could easily spin up 1 billion bots on Facebook Instagram Instagram Instagram Snapchat TikTok and you could create fake views, comments, likes, follower numbers etc.

     Most people are not critical and foolish. For example, obviously if you showed me your Instagram and you had 1 billion followers, in my mind I would just think well “this person is very famous and successful and rich whatever.” But once again… What if the person spent only about $2000 to get all those fake bot followers?  and hoodwink corporations to give them money and free products, because they could show off these fake followers?

    Issues

    Even if you are a social media influencer, you’re actually not making that much money. Let us say that you have 10 million followers or 100 million followers, and I asked you to promote its product to your phone, they might only give you about $5000 or maybe even $10,000… Which is not that much money, if you think that you could make more money in cyber security penetration testing.

    Then, it seems that what people then do is they desire to make their passion their living, and they think that social media is the way. It is not.

    My simple ideas only only need 300 hard-core, Spartan fans on the planet… Hopefully very committed, and also wealthy. It is more profitable to have people give you $100,000, rather than trying to get 1 million people to give you a nickel.

    True fans true followers

    I cannot really speak for other people, but I could speak for myself, from the position of being a fan.

    Who am I a fan of? Kanye West, Jay Z, electronica, Kendrick Lamar, Zack Snyder, and the like. 

    What makes me a true fan? Even though I could easily pirate their stuff for free, I decide to pay my real money for it, because for me… There is a sense of pride or ownership, or I just want to signal to myself that I really care for it.

    Also, it becomes a sense of pride and also a filter– you never know whether you really care for something until you have made a monetary investment in it… Or a financial penalty, because money talks , money is skin in the game .

     I said no the Super Bowl 

    Other side… You’ll only know the true values of the creator or the artist, based on the money they do not accept. 

     the difficult thing is that it does not easily discernible from a follower perspective… Knowing what your beloved creator decides to reject.

    Often people will just throw money at you.  and typically only fools reject free money. But then… Fools are often wise.

    Often we true fools have true conviction .  For example, probably one of the proudest things of my life is rejecting a book offer to publish my beloved 100 masters learn from the masters of photography book, I think I might have rejected about $10,000 USD, because I wanted it to be open and free. Probably one of the happiest and most proud moments of my life. Especially now that I am a bitcoin millionaire, and money doesn’t really matter that much to me anymore.

    I think this is also where it is intelligent to stick to your guns and your own values, thinking about the long-term. The only regrets we make in life is when we compromise our values, for the promise of social or economic gain.

    People are not stupid. Anyone and everyone can smell intent. For example, if you’re being nice to somebody just because you want an opportunity from them, or a potential financial payoff… They could smell it from half a mile away. However if you are being genuine,  truly genuine…  people know. And also, once you become part of a community or a city or a polis,.  word spreads.

    For example,  One of my friends and mentors, Charlie Kirk, said something very nice to me a long time ago… That he would often defend me in public or private on the Internet, saying that I have never said anything bad about anybody ever.

    And also… Now that I have enough experience under my belt, at the age of 36, starting my street photograph everything when I was only 21 years old… Wow, 15 years in the game, is this:

    You can only trust people who have defended you, and now — your kids!

    Defense, to defend, probably the most critical thing here.

    For example, reading the Iliad,  when your best friend or fellow hero or champion dies on the battlefield… What do you do? You protect and defend their body, to prevent the other side from stealing their body and stripping their armor.

    I think the hard thing is it is impossible to know whether somebody has defended you or not, whether in real life or in private… Until shit hits the fan. 

  • Funny

    I find a very funny disconnect between lived embodied reality versus the ways in which people engage with film media video games etc.

    I’ll give you example… One of my favorite fighting games or video games as a teenager growing up was tech, me and all my best friends would always play it, trying to warm up one another… Bryan Fury was my character.

    The funny thing with video games, video game characters, is that it is a true reflection of your own personal ethos for yourself. For example, the character Brian fury, I think he’s a cyborg… But regardless, he is insanely jacked, shirtless, topless, and in my opinion, by far the most dominant fighter, at least in terms of muscularity And physique.

    So essentially, when I look at Brian fury, I look at myself.

    And then you think about video games in general, how bizarre it is that you have a bunch of nerves, either insanely twig like and skinny, and nerdy, or, super fat and nerdy, or maybe skinny fat? Anyways, sitting down on their butts, sitting on a couch, with a PlayStation controller in their hands, And play the fighting games in which they are beating the crap out of other virtual players, and if you look at the video game characters, they are essentially insanely jacked, and all look like demigods.

    For example just look at the Tekken 8 lineup in terms of characters. Do I any of them look like the average American to you?

    Also, in terms of physique… Do any of the fighters, whether a man or woman, look like the real average human being today?

    Superhero films

    Can you imagine a skinny fat marvel superhero? No. Yeah look at all the people who go watch the movies… A bunch of like the fat people from the wall-E movie, really fat, essentially just waddling around… Coca-Cola in hand, and stuffing themselves with type two diabetes, and watching superheroes be great?

    Once again… Isn’t the goal to look like the superhero, or become the superhero?


    As deadly as ares

    Noisy shouts 

    .

    Low lives

    Observing traffic behavior, on foot… It seems that a lot of people who honk at you to hurry up, these guys are low lives? You could obviously tell that they are lower, poor, working class, and a lot of them… Our driving cell phone in hand?

    And sometimes they often honk at people, to hurry up and turn right… When there is clearly a sign that says no turn on right?

    So the problem is… If you’re in front and somebody is honking at you from behind… What do you do?

    The problem is when somebody is honking at you from behind, there is not a way you could honk back at them, it is almost like imagine like you’re in battle… And someone tries to spear you from behind? And you cannot defend yourself?

    Ideal thing would be to have a horn which is actually mounted on the back of your car, on the trunk… Which honks opposite; or have some sort of really really bright headlights or high beams, in the back of your car, which could shoot bright light and blind the assholes that are honking at you from behind.

    .

  • Money & Physics: Monetary Physics

    OK I think I finally got it figured out; money is potential energy, when you actually put it to work, and enact force upon it… money then becomes kinetic energy?

    Don’t hate me because I have more money than you!

    Bitcoin is the first and only true hard money on the planet, therefore… If I have more bitcoin than you, and I have not spent it… That means I am richer than you, I have more money than you

    I think which has boggled my mind for a very long time is money. The philosophy of money, economic theory, practical economic theory, etc.

    For me, I have zero interest in theoretical notions of money. To me, money is practical, and also, thinking about physics, monetary physics is useful.

    I should have majored in physics? 

    Apparently, in the early days of sociology, they called it “social physics”

    For example, I remember in high school… Surprisingly my favorite class was my honors physics class, I think I might’ve got B- in it or something… Our teacher I think he graduated from Stanford or Caltech or something… Super genius guy, at Castro Valley high, and I loved physics because it was science and math made practical, fun, and real!

    I still will never forget, we did this experiment, in which we built this catapult, and actually used real physics math, to calculate the dropping projectile, and a shooting kinetic projectile, and after a few sessions of class, after we did all the math, and we shot it… It truly did collide mid air! It was magical! 

    Movement is magical

    What is the greatest tragedy in today’s world? When your movement is restricted, thwarted. 

    As an example, what is it that we all hate in Los Angeles? Traffic! I think it is literally one of the first English words that Seneca learned by heart. 

    For example, consider how cruel it is to force adults and humans to drive in their automobile car, stuck in traffic for about an hour one way, and then going into a depressing office building, indoors, lack of natural light… And force an individual to remain stationary, not moving, in front of a cubicle a desk, an open concept thing; doesn’t matter if you’re sitting or standing or even using a treadmill… It is like you are a glorified hamster on glorified hamster wheel! 

    Injecting money into your legs

    Living in Culver City LA about 10 months now… What is the ultimate way that you could rank yourself? By what neighborhood you live in!

    Funny nuances, the second that you meet somebody outside of Culver City, who discovers that you actually live in Culver City, and how much more expensive your rent is than theirs, the attitude of people change.

    For example, $3200 a month for two bedroom one bath Culver City, versus only $1800 for one bedroom, maybe in Palms or Overland.

    Anyways, what I find personally interesting is thinking about the basic privilege of walking. In Los Angeles, the ultimate and Apex privileged is how much you could walk a day… The insanely rich and successful people that have met in LA, I can judge by how beautiful in bronze there are suntan skin is, how much time to spend outdoors, and how many steps they could put in a day!

    In fact, you could probably separate people into two camps; people who stand and walk for a living, and people who are outside for a living, versus office slaves who have to be stuck inside a glass cube cage all day. Would you rather be a spartan, or a bubble boy? Or in Blade Runner that one girl who is forced to live in that little ecosystem chamber cell, because she likes immunity to the real world? 

    What is happiness

    To me happiness is walking. Having the privilege to all, having the strength to walk, you never really realize how grateful you are to walk, until you see a loved one in a wheelchair, otherwise healthy, because of type two diabetes and sciatica.

    Or, I’ll never forget when I ruptured my tendon either in my ankle or my knee playing basketball in college, being stuck in crutches for almost 6 months, the worst.

    Injuries

    I’ve had many injuries of the years, fortunately never broke a bone in my life. Maybe it’s because I ate so much meat as a kid, and drink so much milk as a kid.

    Anyways, I am really into this notion of healing, and not that the new Deadpool Wolverine films out… The theory and philosophy of healing, superhero powers etc.

    I was watching an interview with Michael Saylor, which he talks about superhero theory, and the very very funny idea is the thought that the ultimate superpower is actually immortality, being invincible, like you cannot die. Because it would be very very simple, you just take a machine gun, step into the room and kill everybody, or you could just walk into a room with a nuke, nuke everybody, and everybody else dies but you.

    Anyways, what I find so fascinating about wolverine, is that his mutant superpower is healing, and also… The fact that he has a skeleton made out of adamantine, but the nuance is every single time he takes out his claws, it literally causes him pain, wolverine is not immune to pain, he feels pain greatly; it’s just that he cannot die from the pain. 

    So imagine a life, in which you are practically invincible, you cannot be killed… But, you feel pain like a typical normal human being, would you take this trade?

    Money

    Taking it back to money, what is money, why is this significant, what does it mean?

    Recalling before I join finances with Cindy, the work was simple: you work hard, you earn money, and then you spend it. As a consequence, before marrying Cindy, I don’t think I ever saved more than $500, or thousand dollars, because I would spend the money as quickly as I earned it!

    My justification was that I was “investing”, the general idea is that the purpose of money is that you earn it, you invested, you spend it… To continue the cycle all over again indefinitely.

    However, one which was never instilled in me was the ethos of saving. The more radical ideas that you work hard, you earn money, but you never spend it… You either put in the market, buy bitcoin, buy real estate, buy property etc. Essentially, you earn income, continue to drive your 2010 Prius, forever, never eat out, never buy new things, never buy a loser iPhone pro, etc. and also you never eat out at a loser restaurant, you quit alcohol and you never pay for $20 cocktails, you never smoke weed, you never go to a festival, you don’t go to concerts, you don’t blow your money at Vegas.

    How I learned this

    One thing I’m grateful for is that my dad was a chronic gambler, he would always gamble away the rent money, go off to Reno in the middle of the night, not come back for a week… Empty-handed. Even as a teenage kid, working really really hard as a boy at the sushi restaurant my mom worked at, maybe saving about $3000 USD in cash, and my dad saying that there was a business opportunity in LA, and that he needed the money… And then me giving that money to my dad, hoping that he would actually invest it to change his life, but once again… Him coming back, empty-handed.

    I suppose I am lucky that I was a stoic ever since I was a kid, my adamantine soul & carcass — this is how I became so tough as a kid. Anyways, it first taught me the virtues of not being foolish with money, and learning firsthandley… gambling was a positive evil. 

    Energy conservation

    Matter is not created nor destroyed, and assuming that there is a connection between Madrin and energy… Maybe the best way to think about money is monetary energy, human capital, solidified into ones and zeros.

    For example, I think the true use of money is not really materials, but human labor. For example, when you pay somebody $20 for an overpriced sandwich, you’re not really paying for the materials… The materials for your sandwich might cost you only about a dollar or two, but to get a human hand to assemble the sandwich is what causes or cost a lot of money?

    So I think when we pay for stuff, but we are really paying for is labor. Paying for human labor, and also space?

    For example, when you’re wasting money at a gym membership… What you are paying for is the privilege of being around other human beings, kind of like a private club, and also the privilege of using the equipment and space.

    I think this is where building your own home gym is so disruptive… it kind of changes everything. 

    For example, reoccurring costs is the killer here. 

    Depending on where you live, the prices of a gym membership can vary. When I was back in Orange County, crunch fitness was super cheap… I think like $30 a month? Practically free. But when you come here to LA… It looks like the average gym membership is about $120, even $200 a month? Even if you do the simple math… If you spent $200 a month in weightlifting equipment for yourself… Every month 200 bucks… This would be a better use of your money. Because when you purchased the equipment, it is your property, and has infinite potential.

    Property

    Life is a game of monopoly, go outside and cop yourself some property — MIGOS

    Historically, Nas seem to laugh also mirrors this… Most of wealth creation was from owning property. For example, if your dad bought property in Palos Verdes, 100 years ago… You would inherit a lot of wealth.

    Or those funny stories in which your great great grandfather, once upon a time purchased property in San Francisco for about five acorns, and now it is worth $5 billion… Similar story.

    I think this is gonna be a similar thing with bitcoin, right now a bitcoin is worth about $55,000 a bitcoin… And 100 years, will be worth $21 million a bitcoin. And then 300 years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if one bitcoin will be worth $1 trillion or something.

    Generational wealth is the key

    I think the big problem in today’s world is the cult of the individual. There has been a new modern day death to the family structure, the general ideas you never want to have kids.

    Having a kid is very eye-opening in a good way. Why? Once you have a kid… Technically this augments your power. Assuming “The will to power”– the will to having children, many kids, is also the will to power. Why? When you have kids, multiple kids, you augment your power.

    In the past, the general idea was children was like free labor. For example, we had a farm, having 10 kids would be useful in terms of managing the family farm. Even now, my brother-in-law and their family, having four boys for grown men… Tons of free intellectual and labor capital. They are currently building up a fine art gallery, And having intelligence and the human labor of for grown adults is great.

    The logic

    Assuming that you want to become super rich, but never have any kids… It is almost like shooting your semen into a black hole. When you’re dead, that sucks.

    I think if you’re 90 years old on your deathbed, and you have no heirs, no children no grandchildren, no great grandchildren, the ultimate tragedy.

    Body Pride vs body shame?

    An interesting observation that I’ve made in the past; why is it that you’re allowed to flex your car, but not flex your body?

    Even bodybuilders… Whenever they flex, they do it with a tint of shame?

    Certainly there is a hierarchy of bodies, more desirable bodies, less desirable bodies. 

    Generics is fake

    A big intervention: genetics is fake. Certainly there are genetic things like height, facial morphological features, etc.

    For example, if both of your parents are 4 feet tall, probably unlikely you’re going to be 7 feet tall. But your parents are 7 feet tall, unlike you’ll be 4 feet tall.

    Obviously people from different genetic heritages look different. But, if we think about the plasticity of human gene expression — obviously there is a lot we can stretch!

    Racism 2.0

    For example, I don’t really think there is such a thing as muscular strength geneticism. For example, I think the reason why there is so much African-Americans and Caucasians in sports is because there is higher steroid use amongst them… vs Asians who have a culture of studying. 

    However, even now, I’m starting to see this change. I’m seeing a lot of Asian guys, dipping into steroids, and they are insanely jacked. And I think the difference between the media and the real world is that the observation I met is when you go to the gym, a lot of the African-American guys are actually pretty skinny, typically guys  with the most mass or not the African-American black guys, but the Caucasian white guys– and once again… Steroid use amongst the white Caucasian population is very high, just watch the documentary on the bell Brothers, 2/3 of them taking steroids. If you ever grew up to an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rambo Sylvester Stallone film… You see the glorification of steroids. Also baseball, wrestling etc.

    I only trust Prius drivers 

    A new thought: who is the real rich people or the real smart people? The Prius drivers!  For example, I’ll never forget… At the $150 million mansion in Holmby Hills, seeing a white Prius pull out of the driveway! 

    And also, real rich families… all of the kids just drive Ford fusions? And even a major Tesla investor that I know, with over $100 million worth of Tesla stock, his family has base level model 3’s?

    Therefore, my great intelligence is not seeing stuff on… Would rather, how real rich people behave. Especially how they don’t waste their money. 

    Why are rich people so cheap

    This is also another hilarious irony; real rich people are actually very frugal. The hilarious irony:

    You’re so rich… Why don’t you spend money to buy that Lamborghini?

    The reason why they are rich because they did not buy the loser Lamborghini, but bought a Honda Civic instead!

    Also… The irony that people tell me:

    ERIC, why don’t you eat some of the cake?

    I tell them, “Because I don’t want to get fat.”

    And then they tell me:

    But you’re so skinny!

    And then I laugh and I tell them– “The reason I am so skinny is because I don’t eat cake!” Haha.

    And this is the great paradox, if you really want to become rich, like have a lot of money… The true goal is simple: Spartan living. 


  • NOT.

    You not like them!

    I’m cut from a different cloth, forged from steel not clay!

    Marble

    One thing I’m really into is marble. You cannot fake it. Even the fake marble stuff, although aesthetically pretty nice, there is always an uncanny valley in which you could tell us something that is fake, which makes you feel uneasy.

    For example, fake wood trim, especially in cars, I hate this. I think this is why I would never purchase any Tesla automobile with a fake wooden dash– pure ugliness.  Here I am very happy that the new Tesla model three car, especially in black, they have made the dash, a lovely monochromatic thing. 

    In Japanese aesthetics and woodworking, there is a general notion of honesty of materials; if something is plastic, don’t try to pretend that the plastic is something else! Just let it be plastic!

    Don’t try to make some thing into something that is not!

    Maybe also, the metaphor to humans is, if you are cut from a different cloth, if you are a different material… don’t try to transmute yourself into being something you are not! 

    For example, if you are bronze, no matter how hard you try… You cannot become gold! And the virtues of bronze is it is relentless, and brings black death. And Achilles preferred bronze over gold — bronze makes better weapons and armor. Gold is only for looking pretty on the battlefield, Looking like little girls, who die promptly.

    My primary sociological intervention is your personality characteristics, no matter how bad or immoral they may seem… our virtues should be amplified, rather than tamed or changed. 

    For example, for myself, I was always the ratchet, loud, high energy personality– an ego and a head bigger than life, always wanting to be the center of attention. I think society try to squeeze me into being something different, more decipherable, more predictable, etc. I think from the get-go, my personality was always more adapted to entertainment focused, media personality stuff, rather than just being another quiet programming worker bee. In fact, now that Silicon Valley is effectively dead, I am so happy I did not study computer science or programming, and just become another drone at Apple, Amazon Facebook or Google, rather, I transformed my primary passion, blogging into my living. 

    Am I the first millionaire blogger? Maybe. Certainly the first millionaire street photographer, or the first millionaire street photography blogger!

    New analogies

    I think a big issue is when we try to copy a design, something which has succeeded in the past, rather than giving it a cart launch, fresh from scratch approach.

    For example, I’m a huge fan of the Fujifilm cameras, but the big critical design issue is that with the Fujifilm X100 series cameras, they try to make it look like a Leica M rangefinder camera!

    Panasonic lumix is the way

    Perhaps a more intelligent idea and thought, is like the new Lumix S9 camera, in which Panasonic Lumix had the intelligent idea:

    If we pared down a camera, an interchangeable lens camera, a body, and made a maximally small compact and easy to use… what would it look like? 

    Et voila! The first really really small, good interchangeable lens full frame camera! I think the grandeur of Panasonic LUMIX is they are smart —

    1. First, essentially borrowing her technologies, in lending her talent to Leica Camera AG. And I think also, Panasonic Lumix gained good insight from the German Leica engineers.
    2. Let us consider the Leica Q, essentially it is like a Panasonic Lumix camera on steroids.
    3. In terms of longevity, it seems that overtime, the most robust cameras, which have lasted are the Lumix cameras. For example, the Lumix G9 camera that I got in Japan around 2017 2018, is still chugging along fine today!

    Let us not be suckered, durability is the number one critical thing on the planet.


    Durable humans, durable bodies

     One of my curiosities is watching all these bodybuilding films, because I was sucker by all this stuff, back in the day when I was a teenage kid, trying to get super jacked and muscular etc. I probably spent hundreds of dollars on protein powder and muscle milk as a kid, Money which was probably better spent on buying stocks etc.

    Something that people don’t know is that I only picked up for you when I was about 18 years old, as a high school senior graduation present before going to college, and technically I was blogging ever since I was in high school, I recall my first “Xanga” blog — and also building my own website blog my sophomore junior year in high school.

    I started blogging around 2 years before I started shooting photos.

    I suppose looking back, timing was good. Blogging was still in its infancy, and also, photography and street photography was still nascent– the early days.

    Anyways, the funny thing with timing is that the timing of things is always most beneficial to you during your own generation in years.

    For example, Seneca at 3 1/2 years old, already knows what bitcoin is! And when he was about 2 1/2, he was already creating images on DALL-E, we made a lot of funny bitcoin school buses, even before he could barely talk! 

    I think this is the reason why entrepreneurship and innovation is tricky; the principles change, the ideas change, the methods and techniques change. And we always need to give it a first principles, carte blanche approach.

    The American way

    Perhaps the first true approach is to do a blank sheet, a clean sheet, a carte blanche approach. A white paper, a blank white paper approach.

    For example, the reason why cyber truck is the best thing of all time is that Elon and his head designer, rather than just taking that Ford F150 and trying to make it look like a Tesla car, they just literally thought the whole thing from scratch, and thought:

    If we designed a truck ,,, TODAY,,, with the apex of all materials and technologies, what would it look like? And also what design elements would it not have?

    I think this is also where bitcoin is so innovative; rather than just thinking about how currency worked in the past, isn’t the more intelligent thing to leverage the Internet, computer, math, and modern day cryptography, to create a new type of “imaginary” money (all money is imaginary)?

    I think studying history is useful, don’t just blindly give fellatio to the past. Often the past was far worse.

    For example, anybody who over romanticizes vinyl records, classic cars, or even film photography… I think it’s signals insecurity in oneself, And what they do is they see some sort of godhead or legitimacy from the past.

    Also the thing with film photography, which people get suckered by that because most people cannot do it, it is seen as more valuable! But just because the photo is showing on films not making more virtuous or interesting.

    This is where the photography world, film photography, art photography world is ridiculous; it is a bunch of insecure people trying to circle jerk off one other, to augment a bunch of insecure egos?  to justify how you wasted $250,000 on a foolish private arts education, assuming your family is not a billionaire?

    Any education or higher education in which you have to go into debt to do it is never worth it.

    Back to ideas at hand

    Once again, the intelligence of a clean slate approach; with practically everything…

    1. If we could hard reset the whole world of bodybuilding, weightlifting, and fitness… What would it look like?
    2. if we erased everything about the past, and truly designed a car for the year 2024 and beyond… What would it look like?
    3. ChatGPT and bitcoin is already here and is certainly the future… how should we rethink or reimagine the whole K-12 education system?

    Searchgpt

    I would say the future of education is simply critical thinking… Just let the kids use unlimited ChatGPT, the paid premium one in the classroom and beyond, and the true goal of the future is how to be critical or how to judge and assess the veracity of things that you find on ChatGPT or Google.

    Impact, I have not used Google for almost a month now, my new experiment is just used ChatGPT whenever I am curious about something, and it is a quadrillion times superior in every single shape shape and form.

    The last bastion of hope for Google is maybe YouTube — but even the big issue is once chatGPT video, sora comes out…  and you could have ChatGPT produce infinite media, for a nickel, and also, you do not have to pay the creator…  then what?

    Also pornography; I have not opened up the terrible Pandora’s box of ChatGPT,DALL-E, virtual reality AI generated pornography… Or hentai or whatever… But certainly it seems that the hilarious irony that pornography might be more ethical;  no humans are harmed, either mentally spiritually morally ethically… The only weirdos are the guys who may be created, and consume it, or… Release their seminal fluid to it? 

    And also… Come on… How many single tech dies, who spent $4000 on Apple Vision Pro have used it at least once to try out virtual reality pornography? No shame or issues here… But certainly, it makes you rethink and reconsider the whole thing.

    What is the purpose of humans?

    On a very very basic level… Reading the new translation of the Iliad by Emily Wilson is very very useful, because the telos was very simple then; you wanted to find a beautiful wife, and have kids! No weird modern day hedonist playboy who wanted to stay single forever kind of notion. No loser George Clooney type.

    Let us not forget that Hugh Hefner, who invented the whole playboy idea, was an impotent man, a twig of a man, who was just injecting Viagra to his penis all day? Not a sign of virility.

    So first, my simple intervention is that the purpose of humans is to produce beautiful offspring. And to find yourself a beautiful mate, a beautiful wife.

    The future for your kids

    Every parent wants a more glorious future for their children! This is the impetus of every new immigrants to America and beyond. The Chinese and the Koreans, and also even the Vietnamese call America, the beautiful country!

    Ngoi my~

    Mee-gook

    Mee-gwwuh

    China means the center country, like the center of the universe. But America is the beautiful one.

    Doesn’t everyone want beauty?

    Men

    Man, what is it that we seek? A beautiful wife, a maximally beautiful wife, the most beautiful wife of all time, within our means, to produce the maximally beautiful, maximally powerful and superior children?

    And if you think about it… Man we are not so different from Peacock; we do different societal behaviors and norms, certain meeting dances and calls, in order to attract that made, once again, hoping to marry her, and have beautiful children with her?

    Hector, also had a son. And I think Achilles, if he had the chance would also desire a son. 

    Each and every man desires at least one male heir.


    Breeds of dogs & breeds of humans?

    One of the greatest things about the planet is genetic diversity. If you lived in the planet without any genetic diversity, it would be the most miserable planet of all time.

    Let us consider all the diversity there is, in terms of food, animals, climates, plants bugs etc.

    The funny thing is that on one hand we promote diversity, but on the other hand, we shun it. 

    Be different! No… not like THAT!

    Everyone looks different in the same way?

     I remember in high school… The weird goth emo kids who would wear all black, even in the hot summer, I don’t understand how they were able to wear black hoodies in the summertime at school, and it seems that they all would shop at hot topic.

    And also, kids who are into skateboarding… Why did they all look to see? Why have I never seen a kid into skateboarding who just wore Lululemon tights?

    The good thing is, there is a blurring of everything, you could literally be anything you want to be. And nobody cares. I think this is a very good thing.

    However the new ones; I think the notion of being different be predicated on assessing others, and then literally trying to be different, but rather, trying to critically assess who you are, and then, just focus on your own personality.

    For example, a sociological curiosity I’ve always had is how much of our personality is genetic or biological versus societal? Now that Seneca is 3 1/2, I have a partially good answer.

    Based on my observation, considering that also, I’ve literally almost been with Seneca 24 7, since he was born…  I think one personality is maybe 65% of the equation, and the rest of it is socialized.

    For example, Seneca in terms of his personality is very unlike me. He is more reserved, critical, and I think wiser. I am a little bit too foolish, too loud, too trusting. I think his personality is a carbon clone of Cindy.

    The nuance is that a lot of the things that I’ve been teaching him, is kind of like a social technology, like giving people high-fives, fist bumps, etc. Also, the fact that we are essentially outside all day, not in some sort of grid system.

    Cyber Beach, beach school? 

    Beach school? Kids would be a lot happier? 

    Ethics?

    Something which is not allowed to be talked about… we could talk about breeds of dogs, but not humans. 

    OK… let us apply a line of thinking to dogs, different breeds of dogs. For example, certainly a canine or pitbull would be a much better and ferocious fighter than a pug or a hotdog wiener dog.

    But the funny thing is I think all breeds of dogs could procreate with one another, irregardless of breed? 

    Genetic differences 

    Certainly with human beings, there are some families which are naturally taller, some families which are naturally shorter. And certainly there has been some sort of genetic diversification on the planet and beyond, especially when it comes a different parts of the planet.

    For example, in certain places certain humans have more bodily hair, possibly to dissipate the heat. For example, the physiology of somebody from ancient Greece would probably be a lot different from somebody from Sweden.

    Other places, we adapt to gain darker pigments to fight off the sun. It makes sense, if your family genetic heritage is from sub-Saharan Africa, logically the human body will produce more pigment to fight off the sun then if your genetic heritage was from northern Sweden, in which during the winter time you might only get 30 minutes of sun.

    Why others are confused by me

    I’m starting to feel more and more… maybe other people, they’re just a different breed than me. For example, I think of myself kind of like a canine, a K9 attack police dog, and everyone else is just a wiener dog? Or annoying poodles?

    And so then… when other people try to punk me around, I have zero tolerance for it.

    For example, let us say that you were a ferocious fighting dog, and there’s a random annoying poodle that starts barking at you! Or tries to bully you around? How would you respond? Obviously you would just want the damn poodle to shut up!

    Or I am the Gerardos, everyone else is like a Diglett or a Magikarp?

    Thinking about Achilles

    In my mind, I see myself like an Achilles. I see myself like the most handsome, powerful, dominant, ultra being out there. And perhaps it is precisely my oversized ego is where I get my power.

    I think there are a lot of sissy philosophers and thinkers who somehow think that ego is a bad thing. I think this is not the case. Your ego is almost like your balls and your testicles… would you castrate yourself because sometimes it makes you too angry– having big balls and a lot of testosterone is almost like overpower.

    For example, we think about Dragon Ball Z, Goku going super Saiyan etc.… Obviously you want the golden flaming flowing hair, and the ultra power of going super Saiyan! But let us say that with the ability to go super Saiyan, there were also some downsides like sometimes you cannot tolerate the power? Would you sacrifice it? Of course not!

    Niagara Falls would make a great bitcoin mining rig 

    Kind of like a raging river, Niagara Falls; would the point be to simply cut it off … or wouldn’t a more intelligent strategy to be to harness it like putting a water electricity damn thing on it, harness the hydropower, not to cut it off?

    And this is my critique about modern day times, it seems like a lot of people are trying to do is to castrate the source, rather than channel that energy for positive constructive good things!

    Don’t castrate yourself!

    For example, the ego should be something augmented, amplified and magnified, but also concurrent channeled in such a way which could be empowering and useful for others?

    How?

    So can we use the ego in a constructive or positive way?

    First, a non-competitive spirit… just compliment everybody you see! Even if somebody is taller, more good looking, handsomer, richer, more successful, buffer than you! When you see somebody with a great physique, the correct strategy is to compliment them and acknowledge them!

    Second, to harness and channel your ego and your energy and your physiological power towards writing, producing text, making videos, podcasts etc.… Sharing ideas, irregardless of how unethical they may seem.

    If anything… I’m starting to think more and more, the only interesting ideas are the unethical ones. Or the ones which are shunned by mainstream modern day society.

    To me, the only good ideas are the bad ones. When an idea seems right, and it seems to make sense, typically it is bad and or wrong.

    Follow your values

    When it comes to values, there is no right or wrong, there are simply authentic to yourself, or not.

    For example, my values and beliefs in open source, entrepreneurship, and empowerment through photography are true. Why? I grew up poor, single working mom waiting tables at Japanese sushi restaurant for nearly 20 years, and also almost went homeless twice. A lot of your own personal narrative forms who you are.

    As a consequence, I think the idea is not too shroud who you are, your own personality etc., but rather to magnify it!

    Magnify your personality!

    For example, I’m a very inquisitive, curious person, and I’d like to chop it up! I like to be friendly!

    Funny enough… I try to be friendly to everybody, but people who are standoffish, or bizarro, they react to me in very bizarre ways. But should I suddenly shut down my friendly personality because other guy is a cowardly poodle? No!

    ERIC KIM PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

    Ever since I was a kid, what was my great gift? Being a great entertainer! I am literally the most entertaining person that I know, I’ve only met maybe two people in the flesh who outperformed me.

    Maybe it is a form of social conquest, trolling around, having fun etc.! Maybe it is that I seek to be the biggest dick in the room? 

    But it’s supposed to question is, why do I care? Why do I care to be the biggest dick in the room?

    Not sure? Maybe the desire to dominate is in my DNA?

    How I became the street photographer 

    Whether you like it or not, all street photographers, especially young ones are disciples of ERIC KIM. How and why? I essentially created a metaphorical Bible or textbook or encyclopedia and ultimate resource for anything revolving around street photography. Why?

    100 lessons from the masters of street photography

    It was always my number one goal to be the number one street photographer on Google, to become number one in street photography. As a consequence, my laser like eyes and focus was insanely simple; do everything I could do to become number one on Google for street photography. And the strategy was very very simple, create the most in-depth articles blog posts and information for everything street photography! It took me nearly a decade, but I did it! After that, other domains to conquer.

    But the funny thing is in today’s world… certainly Google is relevant, but now that ChatGPT is coming out with their own search engine, which is in my opinion at least 1000 X more intelligent, google should be scared, very scared. 

    What is the future?

    Obviously it will be ChatGPT and AI, open AI.

    Let us consider… AI and cars. Besides the vanity object, the ideal is for your car to be 100% self driving, and this is where Tesla is a great bet; one should think of Tesla like artificial intelligence company with wheels.

    Because the truth is, if you compare the ride quality of any Tesla car and any Toyota, the Toyota is superior and almost every single shape and form, besides speed. A Tesla is very very uncomfortable, the springs are too harsh, the ride quality is inferior to even my 2010 Prius!

    For example, if you wanted a car with the ultimate ride comfort, you would probably purchase a Lexus vehicle, or maybe a Mercedes? 

    Even though I love Tesla and Elon Musk to death, the cars feel pretty cheap. If you wanted the best car, probably get a Lexus LS.

    Autopilot is the killer feature

    But anyways, the really intelligent strategy is to purchase the cheapest base level Tesla car, with the most basic options, and just purchase auto pilot. I think auto pilot for about $8000 is the best deal of all time; it is like having your own personal driving slave that doesn’t need to be fed, paid, never gets tired, is always ready.

    Even the new Google pixel that comes with the new pro Gemini AI… If your life runs on Gmail, it is kind of the game changer.

    If you can’t beat them join them 

    Even Apple is lagging behind in artificial intelligence, the new Apple Intelligence looks pretty lame. Super smart that the Apple team decided to integrate with open AI to integrate ChatGPT into her services; if you can’t beat them, join them. 

    Rather than Apple trying to create a ChatGPT copycat, simply to integrate or offer ChatGPT services on the iPhone is the smart way.

    I guess Google has had a bit of a headstart; she was in the AI game for a very long time. And this is where Google to pivot to focus on AI is a good idea. 

    So what will be the purpose of humans now?

    In a brave New World of ChatGPT, AI etc.… What is the purpose or the significance of humans?

    The first step is to transfer all of the tedious tasks from humans to ChatGPT. Or AI.

    For example, the greatest innovation of TurboTax is having that new AI that automatically has you categorize all of your expenses. Oh my god, this was literally the most hateful thing about doing my taxes, having to categorize all of my different deductions. But now, what would otherwise take me about eight hours, takes me about eight seconds when you connect TurboTax with your bank accounts.

    I love TurboTax!

    And this is where the future of things become interesting; all these things in the past which we had to do inefficiently slowly and begrudgingly… we should just let AI do it, and we humans do more meaningful things. 


    Slave Work, Master Work?

    I think this is the future; let AI be the new slave, and you, the flesh bound human being, you do the human creative work!

    The ultimate disruption 

    ChatGPT is one quadrillion times more productive than you. This is a big deal. Why?

    What that means is that the purpose of us humans is not productivity. We can finally unchain ourselves from the leashes of this ridiculous notion of productivity. 

    How do the gods of mount Olympus live?

    The gods, who live at ease. 

    You fools, the point of life is not to give fellatio to hard things, hard lives, etc. We should be like Zeus, with the mighty thunderbolt, the gods lived in supreme ease.

    This is also the funny thing is that when a lot of people retire, make a bunch of money or whatever they are lost… they don’t know how to embrace or live a life of ease; they’re still trying to grind their nose against the grinder, because for their whole life, that is what their life was? 

    I would say emulate the gods of the Iliad, ancient Greece. Read the new Iliad translation by Emily Wilson, I purchased it in the iBooks store, reading on my iPad Pro and I love it!

    Ethos

    I suppose that the primary thing here to consider is the ethos of human humanity, reasons of living etc.

    I think for too long, the whole ethos of humanity was to maximize productivity, income income earning potential, money and capital and capitalism etc.… but once again, if bitcoin, AI and ChatGPT can do it better than you, by 1 billion fold,,, what is your new life ethos?

    Risk free returns

    Assuming that you’re a big contractor, and you’re building a new skyscraper or commercial real estate or whatever, what is the goal? To create income producing property, and to eventually cop a profit?

    However the great issue here is the cost to capital; the startup costs and the initial investment is too high! As a consequence, let us say that you invested $1 billion to build this new commercial real estate… You eventually have to find all these tenants to sign a lease, occupy it, pay the lease or the rent, and maybe in 20 or 30 years you can make a positive profit? 

    Assuming that bitcoin is digital capital, digital land, digital real estate… The cost of capital is practically zero, you just have to sit and vest, I can almost guarantee you that you have a 0% risk over 30 years. And I can almost guarantee you with 100% clarity that bitcoin will go up in the next 30 years. 

    I also like the notion of bitcoin being digital real estate because nobody checks their home price on Zillow 10 times a day, reacting to short term increases or decreases or volatility.

    Why is bitcoin so volatile?

    It is a feature, not a bug!

    First, you could trade bitcoin 24/7, 365, every millisecond. 
    Let us consider how insane this is… It is the year 2024, we live in the future, and traditional markets are closed on the weekends? This is 1 trillion times bizarre.

    Assuming that the real world was like a science fiction film… Can you Which economic trading doesn’t happen on the weekends?

    So this is why bitcoin is so volatile and always goes up and down, almost randomly because it is always trading! I wonder if the volatility of other assets and stocks are a lot less because simply you can’t trade it on the weekends.


    Flesh future

    I’m pretty sure that almost 99.9% of men, assuming that they have an iPhone, probably watches porn every single day, almost 100% certain at least once a week or once a month etc. Or better yet, if you want to see whether your friend watches porn or not, ask to see his laptop, and to see whether they have a torrenting or VPN application installed on their MacBook laptop– utorrent, Trasmission etc.

    Or, if they have the brave browser on their phone, Google Chrome incognito etc.

    Almost every single person I know who works in tech, knows how to program or code whatever, all use pirate bay.

    Anyways, once again another bizarre thing; one would never watch pornography which is centered around ideas, souls, personalities, etc. It is always the flesh, the human body!

    Why did it in modern day times, we are trying to deny the human body, and trying to promote instead, one’s “personality” and “mind” and “soul”– ?


    Build your body

    Become a body – builder ,,, obviously without the steroids!

    ERIC


    All injected hormones are bad hormones

    Unless you have cancer, HIV aids, and is literally a life or death thing.

    EK


    Things to learn

    I think for myself, I have a passion for learning. Why?

    First, lot of things about life and society are confusing to me; for example, a recent thing I learned about the Z boys, in the drought during the 1970s caused everyone to not have water in their pool, so these kids who would just jump fences and skateboard in the empty pools of people in Venice Beach or whatever… this is where the pipe, skateboarding thing came from? 

    Also from a random Jay-Z interview that I learned… why is it that in hip-hop culture, guys would wear beanies, baggy jeans, and wear Timberland cold weather work boots? I think he said that it was for drug dealing, in the cold New York winter… And also probably would bag your pants you could hide a gun. 

    Black timbs all on your couch again!

    Also… The reason for the Lamborghini scissor doors on the Lamborghini Countach, was originated by the fact that the early models of the Lamborghini, because the reversing ability was too dangerous, they invented the scissor door mechanism so you could put up the scissor doors, and reverse your car, without hitting it! But now that we have reverse cameras and stuff etc.… there’s really no more reason to have scissor doors anymore. 

    So maybe, the next Lamborghini you buy… forgo the scissor doors!

    Don’t trust fashion

    Also why is it that yoga leggings became a fashion trend for women in LA? Simple… You never know when you want to do yoga, so the optimal strategy is to just always wear yoga leggings, so you could jump into class whenever you want to!

    Also, I think a lot of the fashion trends for gay guys were simply a signaling thing; let us say I am gay and I am not sure whether you are gay or not… Therefore I would adopt a certain fashion style, talking style, or bodily gesticulation ideas so I could signal that I am gay and you’re also gay. 

    Code words.

    Documentaries

    1. Pumping iron, the classic documentary with Arnold I think it’s on Amazon prime TV?
    2. Stronger better faster, documentary about steroids, watch it on Apple TV+ just pay the 10 bucks
    3. The legendary Z boys documentary of skateboarding

    What to experiment with?

    There is literally no downside to fasting or intermittent fasting. About 90% of modern day metabolic diseases can essentially be fixed by fasting. Type two diabetes, type three diabetes (Alzheimer’s), obesity, exhaustion, etc.

    My simple suggestion: stop eating breakfast and lunch, and if you’re hungry just drink some water, black coffee with nothing in it, or green tea.

    What is the best time to break your fast? Treat it like Ramadan… Only ever eat after the sun goes down. This makes for a dynamic workflow; because certainly the sun changes during the winter or the summer. 

    Also, assuming that it is not against your religion… I also recommend everyone to do 100% carnivore diet, and besides meat, red meat, goat lamb beef, pork is also good (achilles roasted a hog to feed his guests), bone marrow, beef ribs, backbone, etc. for greens just eat arugula, kale, watercress.

    Quit sugar

    Quit all sugar, the real stuff that fake stuff, even the fake “good” sugar.

    There is no biological reason you need to consume fruit, fruit is just candy with a good conscience.

    Also start vegetables, it is just poverty food; people would eat starchy vegetables or rice or white rice to avoid dying.

    Also a theory… Perhaps the reason why in Asia white rice was so prized was if the rice was white… It was a hygiene thing; you knew that there was not any maggots, or insect in it, or things which could cause you to get sick and die.

    60 pound weight vest

    Titan.fitness , and just walk around all day! Just buy a cheap sun hat on Amazon for 10 bucks, and sun block up! 

    Also, I believe every single man, each and every single man should own at least one great barbell. Buy the Texas power squat bar, if I did it all over again I would buy the monsters Squat bar!

    IPad Pro

    I think Apple should do a commercial with me, just using the iPad Pro, no case no pencil (eric@erickim.com)–

    I’ve become an icon in Culver City, I’m the dude who just walks around all day, with his iPad Pro. Most people have never seen me even use an iPhone. 

    Voice dictation is the future, there is no reason to text message or use your thumbs in the year 2024, the only reason people don’t use voice dictation is that they feel it is socially weird?  But why should you care?

    This is where the next new wave of innovation is simply conquering social expectations, social fears. Allow yourself to be aberrant and different. 


    What to read

    1. The bitcoin standard
    2. The Iliad by Emily Wilson
    3. The Odyssey by Emily Wilson

  • JUST FIX IT, JUST MOD IT.

    Some capital thoughts:

    OK, it seems that what a lot of us seek is maybe fulfilling a curiosity gap, purchasing something because we think it will boost our happiness, etc. But is this ever the case?

    No!

    At the age of 36, I’ve achieved all my life goals, pretty much purchased everything I’ve ever really wanted, and this is my big lesson:

    No matter how good the stuff you purchase, sooner or later, you will quickly tire and bore of it. 

    Perhaps it is human nature. And this is how we were hardwired.

    However, I think the pernicious effect of consumerism and maybe capitalism is that we have this false belief, this false reality that purchasing XYZ will make us “happy”, or give us everlasting bliss. 

    Or, that having ex amount of income or money in the bank or whatever will make us “happy“, or give us a feeling of security? 

    Male vs Female capital

    This is what I generally observed; through money in capital, women seek a sense of security, belonging, or to be appreciated or desired?

    For example, if you look at all these sexy girls on Instagram or whatever… Or women who spend too much money on clothes, what is it that basic? Acceptance, to be perceived as beautiful, to be desired or desirable.

    Also it seems that with women, the desire of purchasing a home, a single-family home a condo whatever, is a sense of security.

    For men, it seems that we think of as a form of power, power augmentation, and maybe what we conflate is power with happiness?

    What if… power and happiness were not the same thing? But different? 

    What if the fact was in order to become more powerful, you had to become more unhappy? Or conversely… That the most people were actually the least powerful?

    Question; would you rather be the unhappy dragon, or the happy cow?

    How to switch things up

    My neighbor, successful Silicon Valley, google employee, about my age, single, no kids, not yet married, has a girlfriend, seems that he just treated out his old Audi S3 sport for a Porsche 718 sport. And it is funny… Although the engine or the exhaust of the Porsche sounds way cooler, in terms of aesthetics, not much of a difference.

    Actually, the more I look at the Porsche 718,  the more I hate the design. The rear end of it looks terrible!  and assuming that you’re a normal human being who always parks their car nose in, butt out, what that means is almost 100% of the time, you’re going to be staring at your car from behind.

    My personal thought is the best designed Porsche car from behind is certainly the Porsche 911 with the singular blade light. And it also seems that the new Porsche 911, which I think might have a hybrid in it, has a more aesthetic looking tailpipe design.

    Anyways, the problem with design is as good as the design is, it will never less. For example, even my film Leica MP, black paint, fully mechanical, mechanical perfection, with the Leica 35mm f2 Summicron Lens — yeah it is super nice, and essentially the design is perfect ; it is probably the perfect design because it is 100% mechanical, you don’t need a battery for it to take pictures, or operate. The only battery thing in it is the light meter, which is insanely useful. The film Leica M-A does not have a light meter, which almost seems more like a aesthetic exercise, not a practical one. Having a built-in light meter is insanely useful.

    Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

    This is why I still think that the film like a MP camera is the most best, the most supreme, because you don’t want to be taking the light meter out of the camera, very much how Rico foolishly got rid of the built-in flash. The Ricoh GR II with the built-in integrated flash is still probably the best one, I think about all the great photos I saw with it, using the built-in flash. The Ricoh GR III/X also insanely great, but still… It seems that the wise optimization is making a little bit bigger, and put back in the flash, rather than just trying to make it super super small, but getting rid of an insanely useful thing, like the built-in flash.

    Kind of like if you’re a man, and you’re trying to “lose weight”, and you decide to chop off your penis in your balls in order to “lose” a pound. Not a good idea.

    Simple ideas

    I think what we humans have a joy in is change over time, or before and afters.

    For example, who is happier? The guy who starts off with the salary at $40,000 a year, and gets a pay raise to $80,000 a year? Or to the guy who makes $1 billion a year, and then his income is reduced to only $10 million a year? Obviously the person in the second scenario is in the far superior economic financial position, but will probably feel miser miserable compared to the guy with a more modest income, who had a massive jump!

    And this is also the funny thing… It is all relative! For example, when I was in college, $3000, $5000, $7000, $10,000, were an unfathomably big number to me. But now, I’m chasing 1.2 million, 2.5 million, $10 million and beyond.

    Also, I guess it’s good that I’ve built a more stoic mindset when it comes to money, for example, if I randomly see my bitcoin balance dip $200,000 or $300,000 down, it doesn’t really bother me that much, whereas in the past, even seeing my money go down $500 or $1000 dollars was like being kicked in the balls. 

    Wise economics

    Very very simple, if you want shits and giggles, never buy anything, either rent it, test drive it, maybe even leasing it might be a better idea. Why? Instead of dropping $80,000 on a brand new car, to just lease it for two or three years, and get it out of your system, might be a better bet than Pissing away all that money that you could otherwise put into bitcoin, and have it 1000X from here. 

    Also, I think one of the joys I have on living very very close to two car dealerships is that I always walk by the cars, and the funny joy is I don’t really feel like I have the need to actually own it; because I could just look at it, it feels like I metaphorically own it!

    For example for a while there was a cyber truck here, and I will look at it every single day, and even the cyber truck, as much as I love it, I eventually bored of it. Even now, I used to be super super excited when I would see a cyber truck on the road, And now, even though it brings a small to my face, it doesn’t bring me the insane excitement that it did before.

    All

    I think this applies to cars women, your bank account account balance balance etc.

    No matter how good grand perfect or whatever… Sooner or later you will bore of it. 

    For example, in regards to women… No matter how beautiful the woman is, sooner or later, assuming that you only got with the woman only for her beauties… Assuming that you just wanted to bet her indefinitely, I could almost guarantee you 100% that After a few fun nights, you will tire and bore.

    Same thing with owning that Lamborghini; I actually had the realization, now that the Hurucan and the Aventador has been outdated and replaced… None of the new Lamborghinis have any appeal to me, practically zero. What I then realize is the whole time, I didn’t really care for the Lamborghini so much, as for what it stood for,  ultimately the only reason why Lamborghini was cool in the first place was because of Kanye West. And as much as people like to ignore, all modern day rappers are all disciples of Kanye West. Even Travis Scott, who was the most raging success, was discovered by Kanye and promoted by Kanye.

    Even apparently Adidas,,, who apparently asked their contract with Kanye because of Kanye‘s controversial “antisemetic” remarks, they are now selling his Yeezy sneakers at a 70% discount!  it shows that I guess then Adidas… They are a bunch of scumbags, and they don’t really support anti antisemitism, – if they really really cared, they would just throw all of the unsold Yeezy supplies into the furnace, because it would be unethical to in for a profit. So ultimately, guys, all corporations and companies, and publicly treated companies have no morals and ethics, why?  if Adidas truly truly did support the Jewish community and if Adidas was truly anti-Kanye West for his anti-Semitism they would never ever ever continue to sellthe Yeezy sneakers, even to  sell off the unsold supply. The ethical thing would have been to either burn or shred the unsold Yeezy supply. 

    How to switch it up

    Very very simple thoughts: first, before selling your car or trading it in for something new, just wash your car, and wax it! Also a very very simple modification you could do to your car is to purchase some Matt Black paint primer, rust oleum, or a shiny glass black paint, and just spray paint your rims either a mat black, gloss black, or satin black. 

    Also ironically, the best mod you could do is removal! For example, just buy some goo gone,  and the debadge your car, get rid of all the emblems! This is what I did to the 2010 Prius that I inherited, and aesthetically I love it so much more without the emblems! 

    Also if you have an old car, get rid of the tent. You know sometimes the older cars when you have the low quality tent, in the tent becomes purple and starts to bubble? Yeah I get rid of that. Also that you really do have a race car or sports car, if you wanted to go faster, get rid of the power steering, air conditioning, And also the radio. And if you really really wanted to be a race car, get rid of all the sound deadening, interior stuff, rear seats, etc. And you could tidy up your engine bay just clean it up!

    If you want a very very simple modification, just purchase some 3M matte black vinyl wrap, and just wrap your car! To wrap your car is very easy, it is just like a big sticker! My suggestion is just do it over some accents and small parts, not the whole car. Why? Even if you purchased the best car wrap on the planet, and have it installed by the best person on the planet, you take care of it with the best sprays cleaning supplies and products, and always keep apart in the garage whatever… Lifetime on these things are maybe 3 to 7 years tops?

    And this is where I’m still a bigger fan of real automotive paint; assuming that you take care of care of a good paint job it might last maybe 20 years? Even 30 years? Assuming also it is a white paint job? And also don’t be a fool; black paint, even the best black paint never lasts, even if you have the best Mercedes car, or BMW or Lexus, sooner you will get the paint scratches, and when it is 100° in LA, you’re going to wish that you did not have that car. And if you do a simple physics test; let us say you live in Arizona or Las Vegas, if you have a black car in the dark sun it will probably not last you 20 or 30 years.

    Then I suppose the question is how long do we want these things to last anyways? Do we really want them to last forever, or are we secretly waiting for it to break, either intentionally or unintentionally, to give us an excuse to “upgrade”?

    Upgrading is a scam

    Some low-key unethical behaviors from Apple; she wants you to trade in your old iPhone, at an 80% loss, to upgrade to her newest most mediocre device, which will also probably be outdated in a year or two? 

    Typically what I see a lot of people do is that they will find a reason to “upgrade” their phone by giving their old phone to their sibling, parents, etc.… But once again guys, this is a very foolish decision.

    My simple thought is the only purpose of an iPhone is for FaceTime and Google maps. This, the iPhone is really quite a mediocre device. 1000,000,000,000 times better to have a iPad Pro, if you really want to be productive.

    In fact, what is the modern Day iPhone Pro? Not a camera, if you really cared for photography you would purchase a standalone digital camera. If you really wanted to increase your productivity you would just buy an 11 inch iPad Pro. Maybe the iPhone, iPhone Pro, is just a mobile pornography device or perhaps a mobile distraction device? 

    True happiness

    My recipe for happiness is simple; sleep 8 to 12 hours a night, walk 30,000 steps a day, maximum time outside all day, never be stuck in doors, to play with your child with full vigor, to lift weights at least once in the day, to have a loving family, too fast all day and to only break your fast right before it is time to sleep, and to essentially have strength vicar and power all day long!

    “Heem”

    In Korean, there’s this notion of “heem”– which just means vigor or strength.

    Also, the notion of getting sick, like the common cold “gam-gee” is meaning that you lost your “gi” (the Chinese call it your “chi”).

    The significance of it is that when you catch a common cold, it essentially you lose your strength, your power.

    To me, the only thing I hate in the world is feeling tired, exhausted, weak, without vigor.  And even a simple thought; I think for a lot of men, the goals to get super super buff, super jacked, insanely muscular arms, whatever… Or to hit a certain inches for your biceps, your arms, to hit certain numbers for your lifts, to hit a certain weight, to hit a certain body fat percentage, whatever… But ultimately, the most critical thing here is having insane vigor, audacity, strength, and power! Physiological power. Nothing else matters.

    This is where that takes away from your physiological is bad. For example, would you eject your seminal fluid, immediately before attempting to lift 1000 pounds? Probably not.

    Also — no boxer would smoke weed, consume alcohol, taking any drugs or downers, immediately before the big fight! Even something I’m not sure… I don’t even think a boxer would drink coffee right before the fight? Why? Even something I discovered with public speaking, the worst thing you could do is to consume caffeine or an upper or a downer right before a big speech. Better to just drink a bunch of water and do it sober. Why? I’ve had an espresso before giving a public talk, or doing a workshop, or drinking coffee before workshop… And once I actually get into action, I become too stimulated, too much adrenaline. 

    Apparently there are a lot of musicians, orchestra people, people in the band or whatever who all take these muscle relaxants, or these downers, or calming drugs before getting on stage to deal with stage anxiety… But this is also a bad idea because it will make you a bit slower, and you will lose your edge.

    Water is best.


    What if everything you believed in was false?

    After watching the bigger stronger faster documentary on steroids, very eye-opening. Everyone is on some sort of steroid or drug! Even jetfighter, in the Air Force, “go pills”– they take it like candy! Also, an interesting history of science book and medicine, “Blitzed”– outlined how the panzer Blitzkrieg nazi tank operators, were essentially all high on cocaine and meth, in order to drive their tanks straight for three days without food rest or stopping. Even apparently, Adolf Hitler was high on all these drugs, and even had his own private doctor prescribe him all these anti anxiety pills and medicines —

    And you see this in show business all the time — all of these super successful media personalities end up overdosing on heroin cocaine, or end up committing suicide? Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams?

    All media is bad.

    This apparently happens a lot to child actors, think of Degrassi Drake — i’m sure being part of the whole whole factory of Nickelodeon at such a young age, was probably traumatizing. I would not be surprised if the truth was even the rapper Drake was sexually abused as a child.

    This is where it is wise to assume that all show business is evil; never let your kids get into it, not for any sum of money or fame!

    Facts

    Let us do some simple mathematics, calculations, and thought experiments: let us say that for living, you depend on YouTube advertising. And you want to maximize your views your clicks, your walk-throughs, etc.… Certainly it will be your best interest to create things which are maximally controversial, Crazy, insane, as well as bad.

    Also this is where we could consider Instagram for young girls almost like child pornography; if you are a young teenage girl, or even in your 20s, what maximizes views clicks followers etc.? Obviously things which are more sexual in nature. Very very creepy, let us see your daughter is on Instagram, and you have single 50 or 60-year-old men  calling her watching her videos, looking at her pictures, certainly you will not like that.


    Physique is overrated

    I’m starting to think, perhaps physique is overrated.

    Why? Men and women who chase physique, will sooner or later do weird stuff.

    For example —  men who see physique will eventually start injecting their butt holes with steroids. Women who seek physique will eventually start injecting their lips, their faces, also their butts.

    Why do we care for physique so much?

    Curious question… Why is it that we seek physique so much? 

    Physique is the same thing like the exterior of your car, “All show, no go”.

    I think my theory is that appearances physique is marketable. For example, let us say you have a sports car, and you have done no exterior modifications, and you have a “sleeper” car. 

    Now a lot of people, they would spend all their money to modify the exterior of their car. Why? Because it is the only thing that will help you get likes on social media. Also, when you are on the road, it is the only thing that people could see. 

    But the reason why when I was really into modifying my car, I only cared for engine mods was because when you’re driving your car, you could only feel the “butt dyno”– for example, change over time, let us say you install a new short ram intake, headers, exhaust etc.… You will feel a difference in performance, but if you do some sort of exterior modification, you cannot enjoy it while you are inside your car driving.

    The correct strategy

    I think in life, the best and the most correct strategy is it is better to take a $2000 sports car, and slowly modify it, rather than already purchase a $100,000 vehicle. If your end objective is to maximize your pleasure happiness, and fun, this is the best bet. 

    For example, don’t buy the loser Porsche 911 convertible, just buy an old Mazda Miata, 1990– 5 speed, manual, no air conditioning no power steering – and feel free to thrash it around as you like!

    This is why I’m so happy with the 2010 Prius I got; I feel zero recompense on spray painting the rims, changing it up, and fucking around with it!

    I suppose this is where the upside of cheap and free is; for example if you really wanted to become a fashion designer, just buy some insanely cheap clothes or free clothes, and take some heavy duty scissors and cut off the sleeves, make it a crop top whatever. Even apparently nowadays, the trend is jean shorts, ”jorts”– which is very very easy to do if you just took your old jeans and just cut off the legs!

    Fashion?

    Fashion means how you make yourself.

    Facere– to make.

    The simple bifurcation of fashion:

    With clothing and fashion, are you trying to highlight your beauty, or hide your ugliness? 

    For example, it seems that the whole genius of LA girls just wearing leggings all the time, especially when they just wear white leggings, is for them to show off all their body parts, legally. 

    If you’re a man, legally you do not need to wear a shirt when you’re out in public. So if your man, spend zero money on T-shirts, shirts, etc. I think the best thing to wear is a tank top, assuming you have to be somewhere indoors or whatever… But a simple thing you could just do is just take your old T-shirt, and just cut off the sleeves! 

    Crop top it?

    Even a simple idea; I see women do this all the time, is wearing a crop top, showing off their belly and belly button. 

    A simple thing you could do as a man is to to make your own crop top! It seemed that when I was a teenager growing up, everyone was so anti-gay, only gay guys were crop tops, to signal that they were gay. But now, You could do anything you want!

    If anything, more interesting for a straight guy with a kid  to be wearing a crop top in public, obviously signaling he is not gay — assuming that the kid is biologically his, assuming that she has a wife,

    Even something funny and disruptive I did at my old gym, was when I was about to lift a really really heavy, I would roll up my shirt, and expose my belly button, and even my nipples, and nobody ever said anything! And I think some guys at the gym might’ve thought I was gay, but then when I would chop it up with the women at the gym, they would be confused?

    The best life

    It is my personal belief that the best life involves and revolves around being outside all day, walking around all day, on your two feet all day,  without having to sit down or be indoors

    And also, what is heaven on earth? A happy family!  

    Assuming you’re trying to maximize your happiness joy and pleasure in life, the obvious strategy is to have at least one kid. Ideally two; ideally a boy and a girl, in order to maximize and augment your human experiences. Certainly raising a boy and a girl is different.