If I have to go on any promotional cruise or tour to promote the most critical idea, it is your sleep.
Sleep is like natural steroids, and also being a parent… For your kid to sleep well is the number one greatest blessing in the universe.
Or even better yet… Even you as an adult, for you to sleep well, might be the number one most important thing for you to optimize. Not your work your productivity your income your ability to stack ones and zeros; no, very very simple… Your ability to sleep well.
Ideas
The first big idea is only have coffee and caffeine first thing you wake up. I’ve been experimenting with this the last six months two year, with great results.
When I first wake up, I take my cold shower, I use my electric shaver to shave… Brush my teeth etc., head over the kitchen, and start pounding espresso. At this point I don’t even even count anymore, I just keep drinking espresso until I start to feel hyped and amped up.
And then I look outside of my apartment window, to see whether the sun has come out or not. Starting to rise, then I finish my coffee and water, and just head out.
Then I go to my 60 pound weight vest, strap it on, and start walking around town with my iPad Pro! The best way to start your day, every day.
What causes you to sleep poorly?
True poverty,  a real poor person… It doesn’t matter if you’re making $10 million a year… If you sleep poorly, none of it is worth it. None of the babes, the cars, the wealth.
First, all drugs are bad for your sleep. No no no, alcohol does not help you fall asleep, and not only that… It doesn’t matter what type of alcohol you consume, it will disrupt your REM sleep cycle patterns. And no no no — a glass of red wine over dinner every night is not good for you.
Also, marijuana is not good for sleep. It may help you fall asleep, but it won’t help you stay asleep — it all once again, give you weird dreams, and disrupt your otherwise healthy sleep patterns.
Also, media anything with flashing screens and light. Even a new thing I’ve been trying to do, to encourage our whole family to sleep earlier… When it is around 6:30 or 7 PM… I just try not to turn on the lights. Because artificial light, encourages you to stay up and do “productive things”.
Productivity is for slaves, sleep is for the gods!
“How did you sleep?”
Now, my new way to greet my friends around town is asking them how they slept. Often you can just see it on their faces! When people look super super tired… I asked them how they slept last night.
New thing I’ve been experimenting is when I go to sleep, I’ve been playing a little bit with the air conditioner heating thing in my bedroom, changing the temperature. For a while I was doing 74°, which was actually a little bit too cold, I would wake up in the middle of the night little bit cold. I just switched it to 76° last night, and I felt much better! Even waking up today, I feel 1 billion times better.
Optimize your sleep
Don’t optimize for your productivity, optimize for your sleep.
My simple suggestion; unsubscribe from all those stupid TV shows media stuff.
Don’t take the dope!
Honestly, I’m starting to think that media TV shows films even music or podcasts is the new dope.
For example, I live right next to the headquarters of HBO Max, Warner Bros. discovery, and it is funny… It is a pretty depressing looking building, and the whole place has such low energy, and also, when going to their corporate website, WBD.com — take a look at the corporate governance structure. And then look at all their brands. I think they own almost like 50 streaming or TV or media platforms? And then the thought…
Do all these random executives have the time or opportunity to watch all these shows? 
If anything… I think a lot of these companies are quite smart; just sell media is the new dope. The new soma, —
Let us consider, what does watching something on Netflix or HBO Max do for you? It relaxes you calms you, takes your mind off of work and things… You become best friends with all these random people and shows, etc.
Also kind of bad; anime, these shows that on for thousands of episodes, making a generation of really socially awkward kids? Who seek refuge and friendship through these anime series?
Anyways, my number one greatest privilege of Seneca is via negativa — his whole life he has never watched anything on YouTube, I don’t even have the YouTube app installed on my phone. He has never watched a movie, besides maybe the first 15 minutes of the Lego Batman movie which we borrowed as a DVD from the LA Public library, no stupid Disney or Marvel films, etc. He is currently eating about 1/ third of a pound of a Angus burger beef patty a day, like a beast boy, outstripping any other kids in his age range, in terms of height, smartness, muscle mass, playfulness and joy!
iPad is not bad
First, never get your kid a stupid Amazon prime tablet. It is almost like giving your kids the cheapest high fructose corn syrup possible.
iPad Pro or nothing.
A big thing I believe in is don’t let your kid play with stupid subpar devices. Even Seneca knows how to use the touchpad on my MacBook Pro!
Kids are not dumb.
The standard in which you raise them, is the standard in which they will rise.
For example, if you treat your kid like a genius kid, and you said the highest standards for them, and you do it with love and attention… Your kid will become a genius. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.
But, if you feed your kids Cheerios, Capri Sun, digital heroin (YouTube YouTube kids, Disney+, Bluey etc.)– your child will become subpar.
And it is very simple here; it actually saves you money!
Also… Never buy them any toys. Whether you like it or not, they will just get toys to them by osmosis through friends and family, birthdays etc. Or you could just get some secondhand free toys from the Facebook buy nothing group.
Also, one of the critical downsides I discovered about toys is the extreme annoyance of having to maintain and manage it. What that means is that let it say that your kid has all these toys and plays with it… Sooner or later you’re gonna be the one who has to clean it up! Because I hate cleaning up stuff, easiest thing just don’t give your kid the toys.
The best entertainment for your kid is taking them to the public downtown Square, letting them run around, high five and fist bump the security guards,  just take them to a local park playground, take them on a hike, even more productive taking them to the mall and not buying anything! Seneca loves the Century City mall and playing with all the new Tesla cars, stopping by the LEGO store etc. 
Why media is bad
First, none of it is grounded in reality. Second, I think there is something toxic about movies films cinema etc.… It makes you more and more disconnected from reality, and also, it is cowardly.
It’s funny whenever I look at my antisocial Los Angeles male single neighbors, with dogs, and I see them behind their closed blinds,  they’re just watching stupid HBO Max shows, or watching baseball, or whatever.
Typically with media, it reveals what you are truly interested in.
Tell me what you watch, and I will tell you who you are.
For myself, things I have watched in the past have shaped me in very productive ways.  for example the philosophy of the matrix, very very formative as a kid, I think our first watched the matrix and neither elementary school or middle school? You could age yourself or timestamp yourself if you remember your friends or kids in school all doing the bullet time bullet dodging thing.
Also, surprisingly these Netflix bodybuilding documentaries, essentially revealing to me that 100% of bodybuilders are on steroids or some sort of weird drugs.
Why it is productive to have kids
I think alive, you should never have to force yourself to do anything. Things just happen naturally, like the Taoist “wu Wei” notion.  
For example, when I was in middle school in high school, I played a ton of video games. However, once I got to college and I had a part-time job and I had to study etc.… More or less I quit playing video games called turkey, not because I wanted to be virtuous or anything… I literally had no time or opportunity. I couldn’t even play video games if I wanted to, and naturally overtime it just lost interest for me. Even a few years ago, I tried to “get back into” playing video games, and it was just not interesting. I think this is also where I quit porn, it just became a little bit boring for me;
Anyways, when you have a kid, you won’t have the time nor will you want to have the time to watch media.  it is zero sum. For example, if you have the option of watching some lame three hour movie, or an hour TV show, or spend that time to run around and play with your kid… What will you choose? Obviously spend time with your kid!  
I think for the average person will have to work, once again your time is even more limited. I have the privileges that I literally have an open schedule, all day every day, which for me, my privilege is to literally spend 100% time with Seneca, Besides the mornings which belong to me, when he is still sleeping like a champ. 
Ideas to sleep better
First, let us say you finish work or you get home or whatever, the first thing you do is you turn off your iPhone, all the way off, and you put it in a drawer. I think for myself, if I have a phone in my pocket or an easily accessible spot, I’m going to be tempted to Use it.
For example, it is obvious; let it say that you’re trying to lose fat, and then your cupboard you know you have a bunch of cookies. Obviously you’re going to eat the cookies! The easiest thing is to just throw it on the trash, or give it away.
Disable all shows
It’s funny… Now in the year 2024, we’ve seen the rise and fall of E readers and Kindle. Even though I am a huge proponent of digital books, reading PDF books on your iPad etc.… The downside is when you are using a Kindle or a reader or an iPad or whatever, or your iPhone… You’re going to get distracted by something and want to click on something. or get interrupted by a notification.
Perhaps the reason why printed books are is that they are dumb, and often they just put you to sleep. The kid in New York, I remember when I was living in Bayside Queens, when I was around maybe 11 years old, I would just read myself books to sleep. I recall very vividly… I would just choose a book tuck myself in, read, and slowly, feel my eyeballs droop, and then slowly but surely, I would fall asleep in the book with naturally fall to my side.
Even now, the reason why kids books are such a great industry is that the routine is typically, we parents read our kids books before they sleep. And the reason why printed book are good; the idea of reading a bedtime story to your kid or tablet or a screen or device is insanity; it will keep your kid up! And the goal for parents, we just want our kids to fall asleep!
In this regard, children and adults are not that different.
Time outside
Certainly everybody has a different life, life circumstance etc. But there is still many things in your locus of control.
Let us assume you have to go to the office, I simple suggestion and workflow is when you finish work, just go to the gym and work out! But if there’s too much traffic and the gym is too crowded or whatever… Either sign up for less crowded gym, or, just build your own gym at home! You got options; you could even do it in your house, your apartment, your garage, your parking spot outside whatever.
Even in LA, the Baldwin Hills scenic overlook is a great spot for a lot of people to go and exercise, all they do is just walk up but not the hill, which is great exercise! Or even a simple thing, get a 60 pound weight vest, and every single day after work, just drive there and go on a hike!
Or just sleep?
Also my suggestion is with caffeine and coffee whatever… Only consume it first thing in the morning, not even midday! If you are tired midday, just take a nap! Imagine like your body is a Tesla supercharger vehicle; all you need is 15 minutes to get you to 80%!
Or, if you have to work, just go to your car, roll down the seat, and take a nap! And when you’re taking a nap, once again, turn your phone all the way off and just put in your glove compartment.
It can wait until tomorrow
All of us are working ourselves to the ground, to meet these stupid arbitrary deadlines, like slaves. As a result we pull all nighters etc.
Even now that I think about it… One of the most pernicious things we are taught in college is to cram for the final exam. I’m starting to become more and more anti-university in disregards; now that we have ChatGPT and access to the Internet, what is the point of University besides technical training… Certainly going to college makes sense if you want to become an engineer, a scientist, design spaceships and airplanes, become a doctor or a surgeon etc. But for the soft sciences, or the humanities… You don’t need to go.
And also, a lot of people think they have to go to college to get a job. But now that you could earn $20 an hour flipping burgers at McDonald’s… What is your incentive?
A new society?
We are currently in a brave new time.
There is this cult of work, the cult of being indoors, etc.
The new true privilege is just be outside, and walk, walk around all day! To be indoors all day is a slave like mentality.
And the weird thing… We are becoming trained to prefer the indoors–
For example, one of the things I’m the most grateful about Boy Scouts is the bias to be outside. Even though we would have weekly meetings indoors, the true goal was to be outside — outdoors. And the funny thing, when we really think about the etymology here, what does it mean to be “outdoors? Super simple; out of the door. Not the place which is enclosed by a door. 
My privilege
My Spartan privilege is that Seneca never had the misery of having to be inside a daycare, a childcare center, or even these fake “Montessori” schools. 
And if you think about it… If you were the true ultimate billionaire millionaire whatever, the goal isn’t for you to be super super rich, and keep working and being productive and making money, and sending your kid to some random person to raise your kid. Isn’t the goal to be super super rich so you don’t have to put your kid into school? 
And this is the hilarious irony; we treat our children like economic goods. We think it is more effective that we try to spend our money to put our kids into daycare in order for us to work, in order to pay for the daycare. But the true ideal is to be able to quit your job or not work, in order to take care of your kid 24/7. 
Do most parents not prefer to spend 100% of their time with their kids? 
I think this is also where the cult of individualism is bad; I think nowadays when I observe, most people would actually not prefer to spend that much time with their kids. I think they like to spend some time with their kids, but not all their time with their kids. 
For myself, I would prefer to spend all day with Seneca. The only nuance is I like having the mornings to do a morning walk, workout, etc.… but besides that, to be with Seneca all day every day is my greatest joy. 
Should I make my own school?
I have a funny vision for a school; the basic idea is that all these kids, will be the ultimate free range kids, never forced to be indoors all day. Which is insanely depressing. And also poor for their health.
In fact, one of the things that I’ve discovered my friends have misery with is that they are always sick, their kids are always sick, because childcare centers, schools, even Montessori centers are just like breeding grounds for sickness and disease.
And also, the pernicious economic; apparently will still send their kids to school, or a daycare, even if the kid is coughing and sick; incentive in the motive is they don’t want to have to take care of their kid when they have all this work to do.
Avoid sick people
Nietzsche said something interesting in his unpublished manuscript, The Will To Power. What he said was for a future society, the irony is not for us to spend resources and devotion to tending to the sick, the unwell etc.… Rather, to create a greater divide and chasm between the healthy and the sick. 
Your first critical task is to take care of your child, your son, your wife etc. To have to care for other peoples kids, or “society“ in the generalized sense, makes no sense.
How was Marcus Aurelius raised?
Private tutors. Or a single private tutor?
If you were the emperor, you’re not putting your child or son in a basic ass school. Even Aristotle was the private tutor of Alexander the great.
So if you’re a child, if you consider your child the chosen one, or insanely great, certainly you would not subject your child to some basic ass education.
 even Marcus Aurelius, in his meditations talks about the gratitude he has towards his private tutors, and his father.
I suppose the difficulty here is that certainly we want our children to become great. But even Marcus Aurelius.,. his own son became a degenerate. So I suppose the optimization here is if you have the greatest blessing that your first kid was a son, you devote all resources to prime him to be 100% the best. 
More than 1 kid?
I’ve always had a vision of having two kids, our first kid being a boy or a son… And having a younger sister. Just like me and my sister Anna who I love to death. Even though  I have unconditional love and devotion to my mom, nowadays, I’ve been finding a natural propensity to engage more with my sister, through regular FaceTime calls, spending time together, and also having the privilege of Seneca to spend time with her.
Because we have to think about the future in the future generations. While our parents are critical, they are not the most important thing. Our children are, as well as our siblings, especially if they have incoming children as well.
Your kids, your siblings kids, the future?
I feel bad for all these people who end up having dogs not children … Sooner or later, your dog is going to die. Before you. You cannot leave behind your wealth to a dog.
I think this is fine, it is totally fine that some people don’t wanna have kids whatever. But when people give me that propaganda or that insane foolishness that kids are bad for the planet, nobody ever says that dogs are bad for the planet and society.
Let us consider all the harm that dogs do on the planet; the primary one is that the defecate everywhere, and even though 99% of owners are good and clean it up, the one percent of random dog poo on the streets makes it all not worth it.
Anti dogs?
What is one thing you’re not allowed to say nowadays? “I hate dogs”. It is almost like saying I hate Asians or Korean people. Although it is seems to be OK to hate on loud and rich mainland Chinese tourists.
Back to sleep
The weird thing in today’s world, is that our ideal is to become a robot. A robot that doesn’t need to sleep, and just be productive all day?
Very bizarre.
Let us consider, just read the Iliad… After a long day of hard work and warfare and combat… Both sides retire, feast on oxen, and all go to sleep.  even the gods, every single night, they retired to their immortal beds, and go to sleep!
Can you imagine, if Zeus, before going to sleep, stressed out but some sort of worked deadline, and drink caffeine or coffee or Red Bull to do an all nighter to finish some sort of meaningless task? No!
Also, the ancient greets, and even in times of battle, it seem like it was an unwritten rule that when the sunset, everyone would just lie down their arms, and then stop fighting, and just feast! There is even some stories of some soldiers, on opposite size, when the sun would go down, they will go down to the other side, and party with the other side?
War, warfare is meaningless 
Nobody likes war, nobody likes fighting, nobody likes killing, and nobody wants to be killed.
Even in the Iliad… Both sides wanted the war to be over. And it could have been over, if one of the goddesses didn’t pick up Paris in the middle of the fight. 
This is an interesting thing… Apparently in ancient times, there was this thing that if there was some sort of war, with no one inside, there would be the simple thing; you take your best fighter, I take my best fighter, we let them battle to the death, and then we just let it end!
Even in the movie Troy –one of the opening scenes in which Achilles squares off, 1v1 against that one bald steroid giant. The fight should’ve been over there and then…
The problem nowadays?
Propaganda from the media, on both sides, the middle, all of it is bad and toxic.
We tend to vilify this amorphus other;  for example, we liberals and Democrats pink Donald Trump as Hitler 2.0, and right wing conservatives as a bunch of insane neo-Nazis with guns etc. And then the right vilifies left for being a bunch of “libtards” who care about the alphabet soup and LGBTQ rights, and that were messing up our children etc.
But the thing that we do not do is engage ourselves, mano a mano, face-to-face, to another human being and have an intelligent talk.
I’ve met all human beings, radical progressive right left center mid left mid right etc.… And honestly, at all end of the day, we all want the same thing! We want love, we want to be loved, we want to be happy! Who doesn’t?
This is where it is wise to put away your phones, nowadays the iPhone is ultimate weapon. The weapon against your mind and your soul. 
What else?
I think this is pretty radical. Because it up ends the whole ethos a modern day capitalism and consumerism.
Let us notice this weird equation; you work yourself to death, to make money and more money… And use that money to do the pain through sex drugs traveling, EDM festivals, whatever. And then you continue the cycle, until you end up destroying your body your mind your soul etc.
What is the purpose of a single individual human being?
The very simple one: have a child, at least one, maybe two, maybe more if you have the chance. 
Nowadays, my new measure of wealth is whenever I meet people, seeing how many children they got, how many sons, how many grandchildren etc.
And it is not even a money thing;  if you can make your own football team or your own soccer team with all your kids, isn’t this the ultimate joy?
How many kids is enough?
If you think about the ultimate expression of understanding humanity, ideally you would have at least one son and one daughter, in order to test and understand your social logical and biological theories about life and humanity.
I think the issue here is that a lot of philosophers philosophies about human nature, without having children’s themselves. What does that means is that their philosophy is fake, not grounded in reality or lived experiences.
For example, men, who do not have at least one son to bear their name… A tragedy.
Think ancient Sparta
What I find so fascinating is that Sparta was a real place, real men real people —  and the movie 300 was actually quite historical; a lot of the quotes are directly from the history books!
And also, the simple philosophies behind it:
1. Keep a nation nation state small, and have men defend it, with their own shield and sword
- They do not create aggression on other nations states, or metal in the behaviors or the politics of other nations. You just want to be kept alone, you don’t want to bother nobody else, but conversely… You don’t want to be bothered.
Don’t be bothered by others, but also do not allow other people to bother you.
Military discipline
A lot of these new modern day podcasts and ideas on how to be a macho man I find a little bit lacking. A lot of people turn the notion of discipline to be this weird Christian self sacrificial thing. I don’t.
What does it mean to be “disciplined”? It is to be simple, direct, not distracted. Not making the modus operandi of your life purchasing new things, whether there be cars homes real estate, single-family homes condos, articles of clothing, Teslas, iPhone pros etc.
And actually… where bitcoin has given me some spartan discipline; it has actually made me more frugal, more simple, more reticent to spending money. 
Why? I will follow all access cash on hand to purchasing more bitcoin indefinitely. I would even prefer to funnel an additional $10 into bitcoin, rather than buying some loser article of clothing.
And actually… If you really did think about being greedy, being a Scrooge, or be addicted to money and wealth… The goal is to make money don’t spend it. This is why the true capitalist should actually look more Spartan in nature;  using all of their excess cash reserves for investing in buying bitcoin, never spending any money on a brand new car, $50,000 into bitcoin is 1 trillion times better than buying any new loser vehicle. Even if you’re a billionaire… The goal isn’t to buy a McLaren, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari whatever… It is to just buy more bitcoin! Even if you’re already a billionaire, rather than putting $1 million into a Bugatti, you buy $1 million more bitcoin! Super simple!
Hedonism is the enemy
Hedonism, hedonic pleasure through your penis, your vagina, your clitoris, your butt hole, your mouth your hands, your skin your body etc. Or your mind, your soul, your nose your ears your head your brain whatever.
Certainly pleasure is a good thing; but I think the problem is when we make pleasure maximization our sole life goal,  this is insanely foolish. Thus all these millennials who just want to travel to Japan, eat Omakase sushi, not be tied down by children etc.  and if you were really smart, you would not want to be tied down by a dog, which requires a lot of maintenance when you travel, putting your dog into a hotel is very expensive, almost $80 a night!
How many millennials regretted adopting their dog during Covid, now that they have another life form to take care of until they die?
The future?
The future life, the future of humanity… Isn’t this the goal?
ERIC