Not everything needs to last forever?

So a big thing; life is a femoral, you don’t live forever. Bitcoin will last forever but your own personal life will not.

As a consequence, realizing that your own personal life is fine night is typically a good idea. But also to invest your energies towards the future, future generations that will outlive you is a very noble idea.

your kids kids kids

So big thought I’ve been having at least in terms of building the family bitcoin treasury for future generations, I almost have like zero interest in presently using our family treasury towards myself, besides simple stuff like purchasing weightlifting equipment, weights etc. And also I guess the upside is  that the barbell and weights that I buy today, Seneca could use it as he becomes a teenager, and one day he might be able to even pass down these weights to his kids and their kids.

The opposite of selfish?

You only live for yourself and the only thing about yourself your own well-being, using your own money for yourself… Your own lifestyle, it’s very selfish. The tricky thing here is that selfish doesn’t mean evil, it often just means shortsighted. 

Also the big realization is that concern for your kids and your family is different than concern for this ambiguous “world”, the way you treat your own family should be very very different than the way you conceive of random other families or kids.

So for example, thinking about money inheritance and capital, a very very simple precept that I might be able to give to Seneca:

Never sell the family bitcoin 

If we think of bitcoin as the new perfect digital capital, it is like saying that you own a hotel or prime real estate on fifth Avenue in Manhattan, on the main island in New York City, to sell a portion of that to purchase some silly thing.

The wisdom of every single wealthy family on the planet is simple: you never sell the property, but rather, you use it to leverage and lever up, and what you actually do is your leverage your capital – like taking a mortgage or loan or using your property bitcoin or real estate as collateral, in order to continue to grow the family fortune. 

The fear of every bodybuilder 

So let me use a fun analogy, weightlifting and bodybuilders, or even powerlifters. The fear of every single person is losing muscle mass, losing weight, for also… Losing their one rep maximum lift.

Another one which also ties in finances — the fear of plateaus. 

For example, let us say that you accumulated and acquired a certain amount of bitcoin. This is great and wonderful, but once you hit a plateau in which you are no longer able to accumulate or acquire morbid, this becomes extremely annoying. And therefore, we will use our ingenuity in our creativity to devise of new ways in order to accumulate and acquire more bitcoin.

The same thing goes with money managers finances, investors… The goal should be towards infinity, rather than having a certain hard set amount. This is the genesis and the origin of human desire and capital. 

For example, the way that a lot of weightlifters are very shortsighted is that they have a certain number in mind, and then they strive with all of their might power and soul toward this lofty ball… But once they hit it, they then become complacent, and stop being creative.

I’ll get the example, my very very strong desire was to atlas lift 1000 pounds, but once I achieve that goal, I kind of lost a desire. And this is not a good thing. After fumbling around, tinkering, identifies of a new way I could lift even greater weight, with less strain, and with greater leverage, this genius idea of being able to use a weightlifting dip belt, to wrap it around the center of a barbell, to essentially transform the rack pull into a glorified hip lift,  and the thing which is quite amazing is that it is actually very very easy to lift weights when you have it around your hips. The only reason I don’t think more people do this is that a weightlifting hip belt machine is not available at most gyms, and is not mainstream. I know there is a Titan fitness machine for weightlifting with your hip belt, but I also think the problem is that because there are no weightlifting competitions in which you use a hip lifting belt, it is not standardize like a bench press a dead lift or a squat.

Don’t have a number in mind

The proper answer to what your number is, should be “more“.

One thing I like about considering the whole bitcoin economy, the whole world economy is that wealth in capital is infinite. Currently, you consider all of the world’s capital being around $900 trillion, and thinking half of it is for a long-term store of value, 450, trillion, Those are big numbers.

Even if you think about the whole world economy… Being $900 trillion, and even having the ambition of owning one percent of it, this is a good goal.

How and why do we think so small?

I think the first big thing is that we must think global. The biggest problem that I think we face is that we think too insular.

For example, if you live in the states, Los Angeles America California or whatever… Realize that you actually live in a tiny bubble. Even though LA California is huge, still… If you think about it globally, you are just another insignificant dot on the world map.

Let me give you an example… I’m currently voice dictating these lines on my iPad Pro as I walk through the beautiful streets of Phnom Penh Cambodia.  once you make it to Asia Southeast Asia and beyond you will realize how much life sucks in America. Even for the rich.

For example we’re currently doing a short term stay at a lovely serviced luxury apartment here, only about $1400 a month, for light peak luxury. The largest floor to ceiling windows of all time, the best in front of staff, everything insanely brand new and wonderful.

And then I think about being back in America and LA… It is insane you’re buying these like $2 million homes which are built in the 1920s or the 1950s? Why would you spend so much money on decaying capital? 

Certainly there are many upsides of living in America, I think the biggest one is access to capital markets, access to the US stock exchange. For example one difficulty that I am having being here in Asia time is having to either stay up late or wake up at like 1 AM or 2 AM to execute certain orders on the stock exchange, in regards to MSTR stock, or more recently taking a leveraged margin option of purchasing MSTU, which is essentially an ETF which is designed to be 2X levered long MSTR, microstrategy (Strategy) stock.  And after having to wake up super super early in the middle of the night, having to stare at a shiny iPad Pro screen in the middle of the night, disturbing my sleep, feeling like crap the next day, even a funny thought:

All the money in the world is not worth losing a good nights sleep? 

Therefore I think a general idea is that it is better to be more greedy with your energy sleep and time and energy rather than being greedy for money? Because energy sleep and great physical health is worth 1 billion times more than all the money in the world. 

For example, you cannot like inject $1 million into your left butt cheek, hoping that it will give you a good night sleep. No, often the worries about finances will keep you up later tonight, ruin your sleep, and ruin your health.

Even look at Elon Musk, the economic goat, if you just give him a good look and a good stare, in his zoom calls and interviews or whatever… He looks like the worst health of his life. And Elon is notorious for having poor health because he thinks too much like a nerd, I don’t think he really understands the criticality of health. 

And also, I think everyone has his own mission critical mission for their lives. Elon’s goal is to take us to Mars and beyond, this is not my goal is it your goal therefore the way we conduct our lives should be different.

For me my primary concern is the thriving of Seneca, and also, thinking about his kids kids kids. Also for the health of my mom and Cindy, my whole immediate family.

What should I not be concerned about? 

I called this ERIC KIM‘s razor, — to ruthlessly prune away all distractions.

Let me give you an example, I have made like 100,000 times more money by just investing in bitcoin, MSTR stock, and just staying focused, rather than wasting time on text messages, email, or social media.

And I think this is a big thought: in the last like 15 years, there has practically been no financially lucrative opportunities that have ever magically come to me through my email inbox. Therefore ironically enough… I think the secret of becoming richer and wealth you’re making more money is via negativa; not using your email inbox?  

Only news now I consume is Twitter X, anything related to bitcoin. This includes following at @saylor, BTC archive, documenting bitcoin ,,, is where I get like 99.9% of my signal. The rest comes from my morning walks, Zen out, letting my mind go follow, thinking by myself for myself on myself.

a non-material existence

The thing which is always so shocking to me is the second that I settle into life when I am in Asia, I become like 1 trillion times more zen. For example, no more silly cravings for silly vehicles, possessions and stuff, no more desires for Amazon prime or online shopping or purchasing stuff. Rather, a greater focus towards thinking, pursuing creative capital, empowering ideas and thoughts? 

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The philosophy of becoming a bull:

First, ideally you would want the physiology of a bull. Big balls, ready to charge.

Funny thought: to become more like a bull, consume more bulls, aka steaks cows beef? Auction. Feast like the ancient Greeks and the ancient heroes of the Iliad; Hectacombs on hectacombs on hectacombs!

nobody has lost money on the bitcoin standard if you simply help for four years

I think being and becoming a role is ignoring short-term noise, thinking about durability longevity, thinking insanely far into the future .

For example, think about all these pessimists when they thought about Amazon in the early days, or even Tesla in the early days, when the price to earnings ratio was way off. Now it seems like the obvious bet.

I think the biggest thing that people forget about Jeff Bezos and why he was such a great leader is that he thought really really far ahead, at least 30 years into the future.

What that then means is that if you want to become a true bull … You want to have iron balls, for at least the next 30 years?

The most quickly to adapt to change

The most quickly adaptable to change:

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Change is an interesting idea. Technically, all is changed. Even if you don’t want to change, you almost cannot help but change.

For example, consider that like literally every five seconds, something in your body is changing. I don’t know too much about the biology, but I’m quite certain that like probably 1 million 1 trillion times a day, the chemicals electrical circuits, blood, hormones, molecules in our body is constantly changing.

The funny thing is as long as you’re alive and breathing, even if you don’t force it, this is what naturally happens. For example, you don’t need to force change, or resist change, it just happens. 

The Bitcoin thought

So it seems pretty self evident at this point, the bitcoin standard, all bitcoin everything is the wisest idea. For example, the most logical strategy right now is that for your family savings, your family award test, it should be like 100% bitcoin. Bitcoin is the new high-yield savings account, 60% a year.

Then, if you want to hyper charge your investing and your investments, or even thinking really big for your Roth IRA or your 401K, then what it seems then is Strategy, MSTR (the stock) is the way. I think what I like about having like 100% of our Roth IRA in strategy MSTR is that I’m like a quadrillion times certain that by the time I retire at 65, or become 65, I’m like 37 now… In 30 years I’m like 1000% certain it will be up. By a lot.

Game theory

So I recently watched a presentation that the “Fiatello” guy did for Strategy, and he mentions game theory. And also… Watching the Dylan LeClair interview for bitcoin treasuries, Dylan also talks about game theory.

The general idea is that on a long enough time span, if then what Cynthia Lummis says,  the US dollar is actually designed and engineered to inflate  buy 2 to 3% a year, although in reality it’s probably more like 15% a year. I think rather than looking at government statistics, just look at the price of eggs and beef.

Kind of a unrelated note, but there is currently an egg crisis happening in LA, because of some sort of chickenpox or something. Anyways, like literally overnight 99.9% of the egg supply was wiped out due to potential salmonella poisoning, I don’t even think you can even get eggs at Costco right now. There is also currently an egg ration at Trader Joe’s, only one pack per family per visit.

Anyways, this becomes interesting to me because if you think about a world of imperfect money, or things which are engineered to fail, or you think about things which are engineered to win,  if you think about this in a long enough time span, 10 2030 years 50 years 100 years etc.… 300 years from now, I think 300 years from now is a good time span because you can at least think about your kids kids kids, what is going to win?

21 million coins, hard cap forever… This is so fascinating.

Flywheel

So an interesting idea that Michael Saylor gives is this idea of strategy being like a huge flywheel. For example if you just take like a 1 pound weight and you spin it quickly, it is an interesting child’s toy. But if you turn that into 100,000 ton Stainless steel wrecking ball, and then you start to rotated at 10,000 RPM, it becomes a lethal war machine.

Turbo lag

So one thing that I have always been fascinated with is turbochargers. In fact, my dream as a 16-year-old was to turbocharge my 1991 Sentra SE-R, which by stock is powered by the formidable SR20DE engine.,, so when you turbocharge it it would become a SR20DE-T engine —

But what is really fascinating about a turbo charger is this issue of physics, the turbo lag. What a turbo lag is is when you stomp on the pedal, there is a short delay before it goes into full speed. What that then means is that in order to achieve higher high speed of velocity, You sacrifice a short term throttle response for a longer term gain.

For example think about quarter mile times. If you have a turbo charged car, your 0 to 60 speed is much slower, however your quarter mile speed is much quicker.

What do you want?

I think the quarter miles is probably a better indicator of performance than the 0 to 60 speed.  but also, none of these are probably a good marker because races are not linear —  typically a real race car goes through turns and winds, ups and downs, etc.  Certainly there are drag races, but still, at the end of the day the synthetic measures of performance are really not that necessary.

So if you think that you are a nation or a nation state, once again thinking about short term performance is not a good one. Why? A nation nation state should at least be thinking 300 or 1000 years from now.

Why so long into the future? Well simply because I think a nation or a nation state, what we truly desire is to last forever. Ideally, the United States of America would be around forever into perpetuity, well at least another thousand or 2000 years. Sooner or later at least in terms of like 100 billion years into the future, certainly we are going to go extinct sooner or later, but ideally we could strive to last longer.

Longevity durability is the goal 

Switching up my philosophy on fitness, I’m really into this idea of outdoor fitness. The general idea is that life is made for outside, not the indoor gymnasium.  as a consequence, our life decisions and our training should simply be done in such a manner that we train for outdoors, we live outdoors, we think outdoors. 24 seven 365 outdoor military training.

I think the reason why a lot of these aspiring bodybuilder or weightlifters or powerlifters, they fail because by taking steroids they essentially not only shrink their balls, but they increase their short term performance, for the sake of becoming impotent and not being able to bear children or fruit even beyond their 40s and 50s. My personal ideal is to have a six pack at the age of 80, or 85, and my goal is to also keep lifting weights until I die. I probably will not be able to lift 1000 pounds when I am 120 years old, but still… Aiming for longevity is great. Because even if you miss the mark, at least you can still get close.

Nothing is meant to last forever

Certainly nothing is meant to last forever, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot strive.

I think infinite durability is and should be the goal.  Therefore some new ways in which I am trying to approach fitness is toward this holy Grail;

Simple thoughts:

1. Stretching warming up, flexibility and ligament bone tendon strength and mobility is the bedrock and foundation of all fitness. And actually in fact, if you want to lift 20% more weight, optimizing for these factors is supreme.
2. Think about even distribution, and also, exercises which encourage movement walking, on your own two legs. Yoke walk,yoke lift, atlas lift, Farmer’s carry, neutral grip dead lift trap bar hex bar, neutral grip rack pull. For a long time I’ve focused on mixed grip for my dead lift in right pool, but now that I am starting to get in 1000 pound territory, maybe the wise thing is to get some straps for me to focus on pulling neutral grip, in order to prevent myself from putting too much strain and pressure on one knee, which for me happens to my right side, when I’m going very very heavy.
3. Ultimately walking is the number one goal. More recently, I am so inspired by Seneca, who loves to take the bus and the metro everywhere. and ultimately when push comes to shove, simply having the strength to carry Seneca, he’s 41 pounds now, with the heavy backpack full of books, to and from the Metro stop is a new goal.

Clothes

Also in terms of clothing, certainly nothing is meant to last forever. But because… Somethings are just too fragile, like for example I’ve gone through like at least 10 pairs of long 100% merino wool leggings, and honestly I’m just tired of continually purchasing new ones. Even though I could afford it.

And also, a random other… I think this thought also applies to cars vehicles and also your beloved iPhone. Think about it… The iPhone is engineered to only be really really good for a year or two. If you just think about this from a macro perspective, Not only is it impossible for an iPhone to last you 50 years, or even more… There is no smart phone which can actually improve overtime.  certainly there are certain things like software upgrades, which do improve your phone, but from a hardware physics perspective, impossible.

Also, in terms of a car or a vehicle, durability is your best bet. For example… Pride in my 2010 Prius, this thing will last me like 1,000,000 miles. It does not get better overtime, but it certainly doesn’t get outdated that quickly. Even what I love about the model is that there is no stupid touchscreen, Which means there is fewer distractions for me on the road.

Even if you think a lot about these modern cars, that have all touchscreen, the big issue here is that the touchscreen technology even if you get the newest model of the car is already outdated! If your screen is not up to part with the latest iPad Pro it sucks.

Even I am so shocked with Tesla cars come out how quickly they get outdated. Like for example the new new Tesla model Y that looks like a baby cyber truck, it already looks like at least 20 times better than the current Tesla model Y. As a consequence, There is like zero to little incentive at least for me to buy a Tesla because I know that it will get outdated so quickly.

I think the only logical strategy is to then only ever lease a Tesla because you know within three years it will get outdated and you won’t want the newest new version.

Or even better yet, take all that money that you would waste in the lease or financing and just put into bitcoin, or micro strategy stock, which will be accretive, not dilutive. 

I think then from a simple strategy, it seems that at least for iPhones, just find the simplest cheapest model is best. For example the new iPhone E that came out ,,, E for ERIC ha ha, certainly this is the new goat. And actually when I think about the progression of three lenses to two lenses to one lens, sublime simplification. The simplest is actually the most desirable. 

Simpler is superior

What I love about bitcoin is that you cannot simplify it any further. End of the road.

If you kept simplifying something and stripping away all the superfluous elements, at least in the digital realm, bitcoin is the only bet. Why? Pure digital energy, which has footprints in the physical realm, because you have to mine it with analog energy, but once it is mined, it exists in cyberspace forever.

Nothing is forever besides bitcoin. 

Expanding your time preference

Even a super annoying thing… Getting the newest iPad Pro M4 chip, it bends? Before going to Mexico, I shoved it in my backpack, over full with a lot of stuff, and it actually structurally bent the iPad Pro, and now, it has this insanely annoying permanent curve and Bend? I guess the upside of this happening is that once again, the realization that nothing is meant to last forever.  Not only that but nothing is engineered to last forever , besides bitcoin. 

So kind of a bad philosophy that I have… After thinking about this for a long time, assuming there is wise and there is foolish, there is courageous and there is cowardly… It seems that the truth of the matter is then, assuming that most people are foolish, what that then means is that most people don’t know what is good for them.

For example, the fault of the Austrian economists like Murray Rothsbard etc is that they say that each individual is 100% rational agent, which means that the decisions that people made for themselves, is for their best interest, even though we made sneer at them for being foolish. 

OK then assuming that the majority is right, that then means that 80% of Americans who are obese and overfat is a good thing, that the Toyota Corolla is the best car on the planet, that Starbucks Frappuccino‘s are the best beverage, and that McDonald’s hamburgers are both the best food item in that McDonald’s is the most successful restaurant of all time. And that China mainland China because she has the highest sheer number of individuals, is the best nation.

Certainly we know this is not the case. The reality of the matter is that assuming that we are the new Spartans, King Leonidas and his 300… certainly better to be a spartan 300 than one of the million Persian slaves, and also, better to be a Sparta with her few inhabitants than Persia.

Visuals

In reading the politics by Aristotle, the good idea I have is… Thinking of this notion of being a philosopher king. The general idea is that almost all of the systems are bad.

For example, according to Aristotle democracy is bad because for the most part it is governed by a bunch of poor people, without much virtue because freeman Are the only men who could actually attend virtue, because they actually have leisure.

Certainly Aristotle knows that tyranny is bad.  but I think the difficult thing is that people kind of define tyranny in an imprecise manner… a tyrant is actually an individual in which all the power resides in one person. 

Oligarchies are bad because oligarchies only imply rank based on riches. 

Then what is the direction we head towards?

I’m King Leonidas 

I was recently re-watching the movie 300 on the plane, thinking of King Leonidas, as a child, not being thrown off the cliff, and then, in the winter with the wolf, no fear just a heightened sense of things – a similar feeling, right beyond the first and the last moment with King Xerxes, the final stand.

Obvious decisions are obvious

Typically, when I’m not 100% certain about a decision, I just put on my weight vest, and I go on a long walk.

Once you have come to your decision, obvious decisions are pretty obvious.

Maybe once you have reached your obvious decision, it is like casting your spear, with your form perfect, throwing it straight into the head of Xerxes.

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Once you throw the spear, don’t look back.

ERIC

So not to invoke too much weird conspiracy theories or whatever, trying to think about this more sociologically and philosophically, I like this idea of thinking about social engineering, being a social engineer etc. 

Thank god for sociology

First, I’m starting more and more… That my studies and deep dive into sociology has actually yielded amazing fortunes.

First, ironically enough, studying sociology and teaching me to “de-matrix” myself has made me a lot financially richer. Like insanely a lot.

For example, I’m pretty certain and committed to the idea that anybody who got in early on bitcoin, like I did in 2018, when bitcoin was only $6999 a coin, you kind of needed a little bit of disconnection from reality, etc. For example, starting to unlearn ideas of currency etc., back in 2017 when I was zenning out in Vietnam  was certainly one of the greatest windfalls in my life. 

People like to talk a lot about “reality,” perhaps it is better to think about first principles physics etc.  for example, I’ve been doing another deep dive into my best friend Aristotle, and one of the greatest things about Aristotle, and honestly the funny thing is that nobody criticizes the great Aristotle, because he had his head screwed on well, the general idea is that I think the best way to profit in life is to think first principles, back to basics.

For example, Aristotle in his ethics, talks about chief goods, which essentially means the end goals or desires that we have of something.

first principles,  thinking from first principles maybe one of the greatest superpowers of Elon Musk. For example, if you think about Tesla; rather than thinking about “how to make a better car“, which is just the Toyota kaizen Way  i’m making each generation of the car about 3% better indefinitely, a first principles approach is like asking the question “what should a car be and what should a car look like?”

Other example with Steve Jobs, the original first principles thinker; when he was prototyping and imagining the first iPhone, rather than thinking by analogy, which is like how do we take a pre-existing blackberry and make it “better“, he reimagined the whole thing. He had the genius idea that it should just be all screen, And to get rid of the physical keyboard, even though people were addicted to their crack berries with the physical keys. I still remember in the early days when I was in high school, even an early college, when the original iPhone came out, people will talk about how their words per minute on the blackberry was like 1 billion times faster. But now, once again thinking about first principles, I never type anything with my fingers on my thumbs anymore, only voice dictation. Why? Voice dictation is still like 1000 times faster than typing on a keyboard and certainly your thumbs. 

I’m pretty convinced that the only reason people don’t use voice dictation more is because they are fearful of looking stupid. And this is where I have found it insanely beneficial to spend a lot of time traveling being in different countries etc., other countries they use voice dictation like almost 100% at the time. For example in Cambodia, to type in Khmer the local language takes like 1 trillion stroke so everybody has devised that it is actually much more efficient to voice dictate everything.

Also, one of the grand upsides of interacting and mingling with mainland Chinese, who often walk around the grocery store with two brand new iPhone pros that done each other, hand holding it, is that they have mastered the art of voice dictation out loud, with zero shame.

If anything, the only reason why people hate mainland Chinese people is that they wish they were them; full of zero concerns about other people their perceptions, all wearing Louis Vuitton, and they really don’t care about what other people think about them. And they’re like 1 trillion times richer than you. 

Courage of being outside, the courage of social life 

So after 10 days in Mexico, 11 days, going to see the monarch butterflies in Mexico at Valle de bravo, Mexico City, and also renting a car and driving for a few days, what have I learned?

First, ironically enough LA is kind of like paradise, especially being in West LA, Culver City. Why? First, one of the biggest issues about a lot of these great foreign countries, is pollution. In the race to industrialized, pollution is out of control. For example I love Mexico City to death, but one of the critical issues here is that There is so much pollution outside, and I don’t think there really are any laws against pollution there, so you see so many trucks without Cal converters driving around, smogging up the air. 

Second smoking. For me, one of the things I made hit the most in embody reality is secondhand cigarette smell. And this is the big ethical issue: 

Technically, when a smoker smokes a cigarette, because they are doing it through a filter, they actually are being exposed to less cancer than their secondhand smoke which they shoot out.

First do no harm unto others. This means ethically, one should not be permitted to smoke in public. Public means where there is other people who are walking around you.

Which means, ethically, it is fine for you to smoke inside your house with your windows closed or your car windows closed etc., but ethically, one should not be permitted to smoke outside in public or on the street.

What are the things which is actually insanely infuriating to me is that people have a strong sense of indignant about smoking in public like he has some sort of God-given rights to do so? Not only that but most people are kind of wimps, they are a bunch of sissies who don’t have the courage to ask a person to not smoke in public. Especially when you’re with your kid.

Actually this is a big thing I’ve personally discovered for myself is that things are now different once you have a young kid, I think in the past when people would smoke I would just take it, but now that I share the air with Seneca, it is for his sake.

Therefore, my thought on being a defender or an avenger is to simply defend those who you love, obviously your firstborn son, your wife, your mom etc.

Protect and defend those who you truly care for. 

Meat Paradise 

Going to Costco yesterday, picking up ribeye steak, beef ribs etc.… The truth is seriously in America we have access to everything. Even Amazon prime, we are seriously living in the best world of all time.

Also another random thought; the upside of living on the second story apartment building, you have access to more natural light! Nowadays the meme is for a lot of wealthy LA homeowners to build these funny two or three story mini building block Lego houses, but the great tragedy here is that when you’re on the bottom floor, you don’t have any access to natural life. Therefore the name of the game is to keep building higher, the second or third floor, in order to absorb a little bit more natural light.

Even my mom who had this very interesting idea is that why do plant humans other natural beings need water? For photosynthesis, photo like futons, the light, and to synthesize energy and power.

Also ironically enough if you think about the word photosynthesis, and that we are photographers and we shoot and we make photos, shouldn’t we integrate more light photons into our everyday life?

Photon Canon!

One of my favorite games is a kid growing up was Marvel versus Capcom, and also one of my favorite characters was Iron Man, and also war machine. They had this pretty cool super in which Iron Man can shoot a photon cannon.

Pretty cool because you could hardness the power of the sun, you could do real damage?

Also a fun idea is that actually, if you think about the genius of Elon Musk, Tesla, solar city etc. is the general idea of harnessing the power of the sun, solar panels solar panel power , as certainly the future.

Certainly the technology that we have access to right now doesn’t have enough power yet, but, it seems to be the most logical path forward.

harnessing more sun in your own everyday life?

Therefore the funny idea I have; maybe if you desire more strength power or whatever, just spend more time outside in the sun! If you’re afraid of the sun put on some sun block or a hat, but no no no you will not get sun cancer.

Certainly there are cases in which if your heritage is super super north Sweden, and your pale as a ghost, then maybe putting on sunscreen and hat and stuff is a good idea, but still, don’t be afraid of the sun, embrace it!

goals?

So, some simple thoughts:

First, still… Whenever I meet a lot of people their life goals and dreams and ambitions typically involve some sort of travel like traveling to Japan, etc. And even though traveling could be seen as a little bit superficial sometimes, I still think it is a super good idea because it will really really open up your eyes to the rest of the world, to re-challenge your typical assumptions, etc.

Second, create your own doge.  Department of governmental efficiency is literally about just cutting programs which seem kind of superfluous. Political matters aside, I do believe it is a good idea to try to cut superfluous expenses whenever possible, and therefore, it seems that it will almost always be a smart economic decision to cut costs, efficiency is all about cost cutting. 

Also, what a lot of people do not understand about Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey all these great entrepreneurs, is that in fact, they’re genius is sprung from the fact that they are masters of efficiency and cost cutting. Even Jeff Bezos, don’t forget how he would cut out Doors from Home Depot to create desks. Even apparently CEOs at IKEA all fly economy as well.

Spartan Sexiness

Some superficial things I often think about is like what is the best car, the best clothes etc., but the truth is the best shirt is no shirt, being topless or shirtless, think of King Leonidas and his 300.

Even pants and shorts, essentially know that the Spartans were all essentially in male bikinis. Even a kind of random thing is that my last pair of ex officio underwear that I purchased were the black “give N go 2.0” briefs — not the boxers, but the ones that look like a speedo.

Sublime samurai

One of my favorite visuals is this all black all Matt black samurai in full samurai armor, with some hints of gold and red tassels, from chubby cattle.

Even though all black everything all that black everything is kind of a superficial aesthetic, screw it, it’s still pretty good.

bitcoin belongs to me! 

We are all Satoshi we are all Michael Saylor

I think ultimately my great pride of owning bitcoin, bitcoin is like a bitcoin owner or a property owner, is that there is actually a deep sense of pride in owning bitcoin.

Considering that I’ve been stacking bitcoin since 2018, like at least 20 or 30 purchase orders, I guess I am really committed.

Even though bitcoin is still kind of political now, considering the US strategic bitcoin reserve act,  one of the big ideas and thoughts is that bitcoin is for the most part, pretty a political which then means, you can just bitcoin and chill, without having to stay updated with annoying news about all this ridiculous political matters and affairs. 

One of the best nights of sleep of all time… Eating a pound of beef liver, cooked perfectly medium rare, a bunch of why you ground beef from Costco, 70/30, I think hitting the socket around 7:30 PM, waking up at 7:30 AM, wow, that 12 hours of sleep? Anyways I feel reborn.

January 31, 2025… My 37th birthday! Wow, seeing it in type looks really big. Maybe I’ll be stuck at age 36, or 26, or 16 forever.

Anyways, towards my Zen training, I think a very very simple way to start life is when you wake up first thing in the morning, take your shower your bath whether hot cold or both whatever… And then when you start drinking your morning coffee tea, or maybe both, to just resist the distractions of profits loss, gains or whatever… To essentially have a practice of not exposing yourself to any information in the morning first thing in the morning, whether good or bad. This also includes checking Twitter, any news or social media, your financial accounts, your stock your bitcoin etc. 
If anything, the true ideal way to start the day is with your iPhone totally off, perhaps charging in the living room outside, off. And on top of that, if you need an alarm to wake up, just buy a standalone alarm on Amazon or something, to wake you up.

The worst way to start the day is checking your iPhone for email and notifications text messages etc.… The best mind is a fallow mind, the best mind is an empty mind. 

Why?

My thought is that with an empty mind, anything and everything can come in. With an empty mind, you let the vibrations of your own mind your own life experiences be the stimuli to strike new ideas within you.

Considering that we are all philosophers, yes you too, even Seneca at the age of four, he is already asking me a lot of questions on why things are the way it is in Korean, “weh?” The most beautiful three letter word in the English language! Why?

I think it’s hard because even now… Making it big, I’m starting to even rethink some thoughts about wealth. Practically and metaphorically I retired in 2017, when we are paying $320 a month in rent in Vietnam, and essentially Cindy and I were in a position in which I realize, we would never run out of money. Even though we ate out every single night, we’re at coffee shops all day… Our income even our “passive income”, far outstripped our expenses.

certainly things changed a lot since moving to LA, in which living expenses have gone up by a factor of 10 X, now our rent is $3200 a month, and also the cost of food due to inflation has gone up by at least 2X, beef ribs at Costco are now $5.50 a pound, whereas at the Costco business center even maybe three years ago it was only $1.99!

Anyways, certainly it is difficult to 10 X your income, leverage is difficult. But perhaps if you put your family on a bitcoin standard, you can get there.

Why 10x

My personal thought is let us say that bitcoin is like roughly $100,000 a bitcoin, what that then means is if you think ahead enough, when bitcoin hits $10 million a bitcoin, assuming that you are spartan with your money and not foolish, that means that easily, you could 10 X and 100 X your money from here. 

So let us say that you’re being paid $20 an hour, that means that actually you’re being paid $200 an hour, or better yet, $2000 an hour assuming you know how to save in bitcoin.

I had this thought maybe about three or four years ago, thinking about my friends who worked at Amazon etc., if you took your good tech salary, and just converted all your currency into bitcoin, you would have been able to retire at least five or six lifetime ago.

Now what

So it looks like the great shakedown is starting. But that then means is real life has hit the pan, and moving forward, life will only continue to become more extreme, more of volatile, more crazy.

And I actually had a thought… The reason why we new Spartans, we new Stoics, we new bitcoiners are doing so well is that actually, I think there is almost like kind of a natural selection bias which is happening here;

Those who can tolerate the most volatility, shall thrive the most.

Bitcoin will continue to be volatile, forever. And I think that’s the whole idea; those who cannot tolerate harness or even love volatility, cannot thrive. 

Living in a more extreme volatile world

Let us fast forward a bit, four years from now, 2029, when Trump is out of office. Don’t be shortsighted; no no no, there will not miraculously be some sort of savior liberal Democrat who comes in, “fixes“, or reverses everything. I think time and reality is like a one-way ratchet; when you crank up the volatility of real life and time in one direction, you cannot reverse it. 

For example, no no no, bitcoin will not drop down to $10,000 again. Or $6000, or $1000 or $100 of bitcoin. This is not how physics or thermodynamics works. 

For example, you cannot have water flow upstream, no matter how hard you may believe in it.

Bitcoin is physics

I think the hard thing for people to understand is the reason why bitcoin is such a paradigm shift is that it is the first bridge between the virtual the cyber and the real.

For example the whole notion of proof of work, the whole idea that you actually have to use real life and energy in the real world to produce, create, and mint a bitcoin, or even secure it, is a feature not a bug.

It’s kind of like producing another human life, having a child. The truth of the matter is if you want to birth a child, you need a “proof of work” in the real world, in real reality.

For example, you need a female mother, you need a male sperm, and you need the incubation phase, you cannot rush it, the mother must consume deep nutrition, you must birth the child.

And when the child is born, obviously you must nurse the child, feed the child, raise and care for the child.

You cannot digitally clone a child, or digitally birth a child, which is kind of like the whole idea behind “proof of stake”. 

Even life if you think about it, a human life, the reason it has any worth is that it is finite. Even if you had all the money and power in the world, you cannot as a man live more than probably around 122 years, certainly you cannot live 130, 150, or 1000 years. Even from a philosophical perspective — I don’t even like the idea of living that long.

Even if magically somehow we did invent something that allowed us to live to be 1000 year old, with a 26 year old body and a six pack… I think there’s a certain point in which you would just want to pull the plug. And not have to do it yourself.

Anyways, why is the mind so valuable?

First, I think raising Seneca, has been one of the most valuable and most precious things of all time. And, it has taught me more about philosophy and human nature more so than reading thousands of pages of philosophy.

For example, a simple observation; typically children never have to carry a backpack, a side pouch, anything in their pockets. Or their hands. As a consequence, they’re always running around! A child is never still and this is a good thing.

Also, a practical one; most children assuming that they’re under the age of four, do not carry an iPhone in their front pocket.

Let us see that the downside of having an iPhone or a phone in general is that once you pull it up and use it, typically it stops your movement. If you have an iPhone in your hand and you’re looking at it or working on it or checking something or reading something or listening to something, you’re not also doing a backflip.

As a consequence, a child has the ultimate mind; 100% free, present in the present moment.

If you think about it, what that that means is that a child is actually an ultimate zen master; a child is fully experiencing reality in the present moment, not thinking about the past or the future.

Certainly a child has memories; for example Seneca still remembers our experiences in Hong Kong, and that the 973 bus from Tsim Tsa Tsui (TST) takes us back to our hotel in Sai Ying Pun. And he remembers the colors of the metro lines, the blue one and the red one.

yet he doesn’t really “dwell” on the past. He is fully in the present moment, taking our Amazon boxes, asking me for tape, and creating trains of his own, connecting it to his cart, and training his constructed train all around the house.

Or he will take the expo dry erase marker marker eraser, and fly around the house like an airplane, not thinking of “utility“, or other things like that.

Even when you observe a child playing, climbing structures they’re not thinking about anything else, they’re just enjoying the climb!

How and when and why do adults get corrupted? 

They not like us!

I think one of the things which is the most shocking to me as a father having a firstborn son is that if you think about it… As a man, assuming that you have a child your first child is your son is a boy is a man, the heir to the throne, you should consider yourself blessed 1 trillion X.

Whenever you see families with three girls, no boys, you know what they were shooting for.

So this whole notion of a absentee father to his son is a very very bizarre thing. Once again, to me, even if you could take all the trillions of dollars on the planet, nothing in the whole universe is more valuable than my son. Or my relationship to him.

And this is where I think it is wise to hedge your influences from philosophers thinkers, or even zen monks who have never had a child, they may theoretically understand child’s mind, but until you have actually raised your own child, you shall never know. 

Not only that but until a man has had a son, man shall never know.

Why does this matter?

On the flight from LA to Asia, I finally had the privilege of finishing the Odyssey by Emily Wilson, excellent. In fact I’m starting to read all of her translations, even including the tragedies of Seneca.

One of the biggest ideas is Odysseus, his relationship to his son. Also what’s interesting to me is I just came to discover that actually, even though I had no idea, I guess Achilles also had a son?

Anyways, how then this becomes interesting to be is that in America at least, and in the west, we are trying to think that this whole notion of a nuclear family, husband and wife, at least two kids, white picket fence, etc. But if you think an ancient Greek times, Kings had like 10 to 20 children, I think even one of the funniest stories of Hercules is that he was somehow able to impregnate like 50 daughters of this one king?

Anyways, I say don’t stop trying. If you’re a man, try to birth at least one son. And even if you cannot, that’s OK, most likely your daughters will one day birth a son and you’re fine. A grandson having a grandson is like the same as having a son. 

Goals

So then, proceeding in our life, what is our goals?

First, certainly philosophy is a noble goal. To spend your life pioneering thoughts, ideas concepts etc., that will benefit you your wife your kids, the future of the human race is a noble impetus to life.

Even now that I think about it, I feel like I have lived at least 10 lifetimes, and I am so grateful.

In moving forward, certainly everything in life is an ululation, and that is great!

Some current thoughts:

1. How to inject more of volatility in your life, assuming that the more volatility you have in your life, the “more” better your life.
2. What is better, to have $1 million of bitcoin, or $1 million of micro strategy stock?
3. New thoughts on fitness exercise weightlifting, etc.?
4. New modes of living thinking and being? The dynamic range of living in the states versus abroad in Asia?

Ignore politics

Simple thoughts: never read the news, the only thing that you should interrogate is bitcoin, Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy news. Because the only news which should concern you is in regards to your money nothing else.

ERIC

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So in life, do you desire to be predator or prey? 

Anger

So this is a big thing, if you see some asshole smoking or if you’re playing at the park with your kid and you see somebody about to light up a cigarette, maybe we had the courage to ask him to not smoke here or there to ask them to smoke somewhere else. So I think this is a big thing; Almost like 100% of real life daily life, there is nothing which requires physical courage.

For example, almost never will you ever get into a physical fist fight with anybody. The only perhaps downsides you could experience or suffer is like verbal arguments, getting your blood pressure and adrenaline up etc.

What if aggression were virtuous?

In modern day society we are taught that aggression is not to be done. Almost everything in life and society trains us to be non-aggressive.

For example, all laws ethics and morality, it is like 100% towards non aggression.

Now the downside of this is that I do believe that there is some cases where acting aggressively is a virtue. If anything, I think the best way to develop yourself is to rethink and reconsider ethics morality etc. Beyond good and evil, beyond good and bad, do you think more critically about things.

Eagle vs Lamb

Is the eagle evil? For eating the delicious lamb? No. And also this is a big thing… Does the eagle have a bad conscience about eating the lamb? Similarly speaking, no!

Yet the tricky thing is in this world, we are taught and trained that in fact, it is more virtuous to be the Lamb than the eagle.

Now this makes sense because you can’t have a bunch of eagles running the show. You can’t have a bunch of high testosterone alpha males jostling for position all the time. Society would probably collapse.

And therefore, if you think critically about this, what that then means is that you need to teach yourself to become more alpha.

Bitcoin is the alpha asset

Assuming that you’re an alpha male, I am. I don’t think I’ve ever met a real life human being in the flesh, who is more alpha than me. In fact my whole life ever since I was a kid, my desire and desired outcome was always to become more alpha than the rest.

For example, I think I’m pretty happy that I was born very very tall, around 5 foot 11. I have never been shy about my height. I have met people who are taller than me of course, but because I myself already feel like I am the “tall” category, this has never been an issue.

Also I suppose the gratitude of being born Korean Korean American, Asian American and states is that once again, I’ve never had some sort of inferiority complex, because all the schools I went to were mostly Asian American dominated. I was part of the dominant minority. 

Also being born a man. The truth is in society, men will always be more alpha than women. Why? Physical size strength, aggressiveness and testosterone. Certainly it is a good thing to seek more equality between the sexes, in the workplace and economic opportunities etc., But when it comes down to it… Alpha wins. 

America is Alpha

America is Alpha, the US dollar is the alpha currency. There is no second best. Nobody wants a Chinese yuan, KRW or euro or British pound.

The same thing goes with metals; we only want gold. Nobody wants silver.

Also the same thing with bitcoin. Everyone wants bitcoin, nobody cares for Ethereum or anything else. I think the only thing is honestly, everybody in Ethereum community has a small dick envy of bitcoin. In 1 trillion years, Ethereum will never never never ever ever ever Supersede bitcoin. It is just not possible from a physics perspective.

Never trade the best for second best

So assuming that you have the best, the best capital the best stuff the best wealth etc., why would you ever trade it for the second best? 

Also on the collary, isn’t also the virtuous goal to choose the second best and convert it to the first best? 

Convert all of your fiat currency in capital to bitcoin

So I thought there’s a very very long time ago, the basic idea is that the smart strategy is take all of your fiat currency and all of your weak ass assets and converted to the strong assets which is bitcoin.

I thought this about like four years ago, so if you were to Amazon Apple Facebook Google meadow whatever, and assuming that you converted all your income into bitcoin, you could have retired at least 10 times over.

Now what is the big issue here? We millennials we have so much economic and financial power now, yet we are all scared. Essentially we have been beaten into submission; when we were children growing up we were told that we could do anything become anything etc., but now that we have become adults, the biggest issue is that we have become complacent, weak, maybe we drive some sort of entry-level Audi, Tesla, whatever… We have pretty good salaries at a big tech company, and we no longer have a desire nor reason to invest investigate bitcoin or invest in it.

I asked my friend Marcus in Seattle this, several years ago whether people in Seattle were interested in bitcoin or crypto or not and he said no because they didn’t really have a need to know because everyone there who is already working for Microsoft is already making good money and therefore as a consequence, they don’t have a need to know. 

Bitcoin Deus ex machina

So the way I was able to rediscover bitcoin was moving to LA, with the absurdly high cost-of-living. $3200 USD a month for rent in a two bedroom one bath nice apartment.  note, when we are living in Hanoi Vietnam in 2017 we only paid $320 a month in rent. Literally, we 10’xd our expenses for living after moving to America. 

The goal should be to do the exact opposite, to reduce your expenses by 10 X.

What’s the issue here

Take a leap of faith, take the risk.

ERIC

JUST RISK IT!

EK BLOG >

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