Come and get them!
The Greek phrase “Μολὼν λαβέ” can be transliterated into the Latin alphabet as follows:
So, “Μολὼν λαβέ” is transliterated as “Molōn labé.”
All news is fake news!
”Content marketing”— Google, Google Adsense, YouTube as a platform is the bad guys here NOT Donald Trump or these weird alt right guys.
In today’s fragile uncertain world… What’s real? What’s important?
The first thought is you are real, you are important. You are the most critical thing in the world.
One of the big issues in today’s world is that nobody is allowed to posit themselves as an end into themselves. What that means is this:
typically what people believe is that you must sacrifice yourself, all of your resources whatever for the sake of humanity and other people. One is not allowed to invest all your time resources energy and money into advancing and elevating yourself.
For example, venture capitalists. The goal and purpose and telos is to invest money, seed capital or whatever into these foreign, non-human companies. 
However, companies are not real. Even the notion of company companion is somebody you share bread with.
Why not invest in individuals — real life human beings?
Or better yet, why not invest in yourself?
My personal take is that the problem here is religion, ethics, modern-day religious thinking. Most of the planet is governed by a form of Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam etc.… Even a lot of these “atheist“ people are essentially still in line with the Benjamin Franklin, protestant work ethic mode of living and thinking.
For example, if you look a lot of Caucasian Americans, whose family have been here for several generations, even though they’re not religious, they don’t go to church, they don’t believe in “God”, they still have protestant work ethics; they work hard, they save money, they spend a little bit money on themselves here and there, but for the most part they invest towards their kids their families their communities etc.
Even Fernandinho Galliani on his treatsie on money, DELLA MONEYA; he talks a lot about God, the creator, the deity whatever. So even we should take the opinion of Galliani with a grain of salt, because anybody who tries to justify their position by invoking God or whatever– it is typically a sign that their opinion is a bit feeble.
But it’s written in the Bible!
And yes, the Bible is just a mishmash of different early Christian father writers, and if you think about critical theology, or philology… You must understand and realize that this was all written by fallible men. 
Honestly, I think the number one critical skill in today’s world or in general is critical thinking. Critical comes from Greek KRITIKOS, which essentially means judge, to judge, to weigh. 
So for example, we often get words a little bit confused. We misconstrue different words like “critic”, “criticism” with hate etc.
For example, we talk about criticism, typically we think of criticism like people just saying bad things about us or concepts etc. But, I think you could be a critic, a loving critic. The art of critique is to simply look at something, more objectively, without any hate or vitriol, and to just judge something for what you think it is. 
For example, somebody who is buried in the annals of history; Tacitus on the Jews. Tacitus, one of the early Roman historians, I think reading him is interesting because honestly, he just states his opinion, gives credit where it is due, gives pros and cons, but also speaks his mind. 
For example, when he is talking about the people of Judea, and is trying to outline them their cultures etc., he says both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. He praises Jewish people for their industry their courage their power, but also Obviously is diametrically opposed to their customs, their beliefs, which were weird foreign and anti-Roman.
In fact, I think if we critically think about Judaism, Jewish people, the descendants of Judea, it seems that the only historical thing we could really understand is that these people were the descendants of Moses. So the best way to think about Judaism as a religion, or even thinking about Christianity is to think that it was essentially a religion invented by Moses, to solidify his people, to strengthen them, And for them to persist.
Think Moses.
And also, Islam. Yeah yeah yeah we are all politically correct and whatever, but I think the critical thing is to understand Mohammed as a real life human being, the visions that he got from God were probably just some sort of hallucinations he had while in a cave, and think that the religion of Muhammad, Islam, is essentially a religion invented from a single man, Mohammed.
I remember the kid, I was bit confused; growing up Roman Catholic, Korean American, in the Liberal Bay area… I was a bit confused that if there was one God, how is it that there were other gods in the world?
Also things which were very confusing to me; Jesus was Jewish?
Also something that I’ve been discovering and rediscovering more recently, learning that in fact, the Bible starts off with the Jewish Hebrew tour Bible, I think the first three chapters of the typical Christian Bible is just Genesis and the ones in the original Jewish Bible?
 so the reason why we have so many thinkers who are Jewish Jewish American Israeli etc. is that the Jewish culture is slated towards critical introspection, thinking. For example if you’re curious, whenever you see a famous author writer influencer or whatever, just open up ChatGPT, the premium one, and ask whether they are Jewish or not, or the history of their last name.
In fact in one of these anti-Semitic texts which was sponsored by Henry Ford, and Henry Ford was overly anti-Semitic, there is this article titled “the subtle art of changing last Jewish names”, and in fact, studying the genealogy of last names is super interesting because in fact, a lot of these “Jewish” sounding last names are changed in order for Jewish people to assimilate into America, American culture, different countries etc.
For example, John Stewart I believe is Jewish American, and change his last name to sound more “American”. The same thing goes with Dr. Kirk Douglas, whose family immigrated from I think Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe Jewish people, and also changed his name to sound more “American”.
Also a weird fellow, Bob Dylan, I think his original name is Andrew Zimmerman, he is Jewish American. 
Even things that I didn’t know and understand is that Jerry Seinfeld, the whole Seinfeld show, which I watched a lot as a kid of reruns and stuff like that is essentially a story about Jewish American culture in America?
Who are the best thinkers? The ancient Greeks, the ones who came before Socrates. But still… we should take the opinion of the ancient Greeks with a grain of salt because even them, were greatly influenced by the “gymnosophists“ – gymnos in ancient Greek means naked, essentially imagine these weird hippie naked Indian people from India, who would share their sophistry or their philosophy and thinking with others.
I think a lot of early Greek thinkers like Heraclitus, Democritus etc. their thinking was hugely inspired by the gymnosophists, from India… that is why a lot of these pre-Socratic thinkers have philosophies which sound very Buddhist in nature.
OK, it is 2024– we live in insanely advanced world, how is it and why is it that we still think so basic? 
For example, it’s still befuddles me that people still take religion literally — don’t people understand that religion is all just a metaphor?
Assuming that there are no gods, no afterlife, no “immortal soul”, whatever, then the simple question is how do you wish to live your life? 
And also, what are you doing with your life? How are you using your energy time and metabolic resources, to build something beyond yourself?
Health, wellness. How does it matter and what does it mean? 
The first simple thought is the quality of your thoughts, your ambitions your hopes and your dreams, your entrepreneurial spirit is rooted in your health, your body, the physical. No no no, the “mind “, doesn’t exist, it is just a fiction.
> In mens sano, alma sano.
The “saw “, is simply an offshoot of your body. When your body dies, your soul also dies.
If your body is healthy, your bodily composition your health is healthy, your mind will be healthy. People who have mental disease, whatever, the big issue is that their body is sick.
For example, I think about my father and my dad, and he was a very sick man. I have a low-key suspicion that maybe he caught syphilis somewhere? I actually recall that he had a lot of anal issues, and I still remember when I was pretty young, maybe I was 11 years old or 10 years old or nine years old? Then my mom bought him a douche, to clean out his bowels?
A lot of people who have bodily and physiological disease, end up getting mental disease. I think ultimately, I’m not 100% certain, but ultimately my dad I think either God or advanced his schizophrenia? Seeing fake images ghosts and visions, etc?
Schizophrenia I think in Greek just means split mind. This is an overly simplistic way of thinking about the mind because the mind cannot be “split”, according to these basic notions.
My personal theory is when one catches some sort of disease, syphilis, other ancient diseases whatever, it does weird stuff to your mind. Even Friedrich Nietzsche towards the end of his life descended into madness, he lost his mind his body his soul, was taking care of by his sister until his death.
There are some competing theories on how and why Nietzsche went mad.  One theory was he was gay and caught syphilis from another guy, and apparently there is a spurious connection or correlation, not causation, of being gay, syphilis, gay sex and syphilis?
I think this is probably false because apparently Nietzsche was madly in love with this one woman, who did not requite his love, and therefore if you look at his writings, he is very very salty about it… therefore a lot of his anti-women misogyny thoughts maybe is because he couldn’t get the girl of his dreams? 
Philosophers acting badly
The reason why it is important and critical to think about, and consider the personal life of thinkers, their physiology, their muscle mass composition, their body fat composition, their height and stature etc. is that ultimately, the question we must critically think about is this:
The philosopher as a human being… how does his physiology body and mind soul affect his writings? 
For example, Nietzsche apparently had quite poor health his entire life, and I think a lot of his personal writings is for him to personally grapple with his poor health. He apparently traveled around a lot in Italy, Europe, to find an ideal climate for his poor bodily constitution.
Even NASSIM TALEB – the only modern-day thinker philosopher worth following… apparently he always grew up as kind of a fatty boy, and I think a lot of his thoughts on diet health physical exercise etc. should be taken with a grain of salt, because I think he is still addicted to carbs, squid ink pasta? 
One of the +1s that I give to Jack Dorsey, apparently he is like me! He just eats one meal a day, maybe the difference is that I eat 100% carnivore diet, only beef and lamb, aiming for 4 to 5 pounds of meat every single dinner, and if you look at Jack Dorsey, it doesn’t seem like he lifts weights. 
Bad thing that I love to do whenever I visit peoples homes is always love to open up the fridges and look inside. Sometimes ask for permission, sometimes I just do it; because… If you see what is inside the fridge or freezer, you get to know a lot about about them.
For example, for the most part, I put zero faith in anybody who shop at Trader Joe’s. Why? Trader Joe’s is just snacks with a good conscience.
Also, I put zero trust in anybody who drinks Coca-Cola, Coke zero, or talks about “calories”. They obviously have no idea about any human physiology. 
Also in terms of how the exercise, how frequently the exercise etc.; I’ve learned to distrust anybody who goes to the gym, or anybody who uses Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube etc., because… Any fitness influencer who uses Instagram, or any social media platform, what they are trying to do is maximize their followers and views, and sooner or later, they’re going to dip into the gummy bears, a.k.a. steroids.
I have certain ideas for myself. Essentially I want to look like a Greek demigod, Achilles in the flesh. I think I’m there.
For example, I look like Brad Pitt in fight club but on steroids. Much more muscular, with the same lean low body fat percentage. I’m not sure what my body fat percentage is at right now, but I could definitely see my suspect. This is where measuring body fat percentage is Inaccurate, just pinch your belly fat and see whether you could see your abs.
Very simple. Intermittent fasting, no breakfast no lunch, only a 100% carnivore dinner. Quit vegetables, starches, carbs, fruit and fiber, fake sugars real sugars milk dairy etc.
No no no, you don’t need a “balanced diet”. This is just a basic line of thinking for mediocre people who don’t have the courage to experiment and try out the extremes.
The faucet of this notion of calories is propagated by the Coca-Cola corporation, who wants you to keep drinking more their diabetes water, even let us reclassify all timers as type three diabetes, purely something that you get infected with according to what you eat and what you drink.
Another really big scam that I’ve discovered, especially living here in LA, is this ridiculous notion of “alkaline water“. Anyone who believes in that nonsense is a fool.
Also talking to a truck delivery driver, he told me that apparently, bottled water is actually more expensive than gasoline?
A very simple thought, for this year or the New Year’s or in general… Only drink tapwater or filtered water! And don’t get one of those loser Hydro flask things, I think a simpler solution is to just drink out of the water fountain, just drink tapwater at the house, and if you want a portable bottle get the path water bottles, they are very cheap, Think maybe only $2.50? And you could reuse them! They are very lightweight, I like it in matte black.
The reason why I think it is important to read biographies of people you are inspired by, or learning more about their eating living habits is that a lot of who we are is predicated on what we put into our bodies. 
For example, I am very inspired by Elon musk but I also take him with a green assault because he is too addicted to alcohol, and Red Bull. Also it seems like he is a fatty boy, he thinks too “scienticism-y”– which means he doesn’t understand hormones, and that drinking Red Bull and drinking alcohol is a bad idea. I think a real entrepreneur, a true innovator should be quite sober. This means no drugs no alcohol no Red Bulls.
I also love Kanye West, and also Jay Z, but both of them are out because both are alcoholics.
When I was in Providence Rhode Island, I randomly met one of my fans on the street, and he told me that he recently returned from Afghanistan the front lines or something, had some sort of PTSD, and street photography was his therapy. He told me he was also addicted to all the drugs, all the bad ones and I asked him… “Which drug is the worst”? He told me: the worst drug is alcohol.
I think the big problem in today’s world is that now in today’s world, anywhere you go besides maybe the Middle East, drinking alcohol is the standard. To not drink alcohol, for some reason you’re the weirdo?
This is why if next time somebody tries to pressure me to drink alcohol, I’ll just tell them I’m Muslim. And also a lot of people ask me about how I’ve been doing my intermittent fasting so religiously the last seven years; I just joke and say for me it is Ramadan every single day!
Let us consider all the people who die from alcohol, either from alcohol overdose, or drinking while driving. I think the reason why alcohol is still legal is because for the most part, people have a good time with it, there’s a lot of advertising money behind it, think about all these fat guys with beards and tattoos who watch Football and basketball, drink beer and get fat, and jerk off to other guys being physical and masculine.
Also, the ancient Greeks. Dionysus, Baccaus was the Greek god of drunkenness, and wine.
It seems that wine was a critical part of ancient Greek society, as it was for the Romans. And in modern day times, wine is considered the peak of luxury and success. But don’t forget, wine will make you fat, wine is just sugary grape juice with alcohol with a good conscience. And no no no, all that fake science about reservatrol and one glass of red wine being a healthy thing for you is fake; it is centered around fake science and statistics which I think, was bankrolled by an individual who was trying to sell reaervatrol supplements? 
If people want to be vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons, I think that is fine. But all this fake nonsense about eating meat or being a carnivore as being “bad for the planet”, or “unethical”, I find as nonsense.
 For example, all of these fake virtuous begins to go to Trader Joe’s and buy all this vegan candy and microwavable food; that is so much trash and pollution for the environment, and I don’t even care about the environment that much, and also I’m a Boy Scouts eagle scout. So don’t get at me with all this fake virtuosity of saving the planet and whatever.  
Al Gore, didn’t he make a bunch of money from saying that an inconvenient truth and that the polar cats are going to melt and we were all going to die? 
also, I believe James Cameron, the guy who produced avatar and the titanic and made a bunch of money is also best friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is peddling all this fake propaganda about eating plants is good for the environment whatever, in order to pedal his billion dollar P plant protein powder company?

In today’s fragile uncertain world… What’s real? What’s important?
The first thought is you are real, you are important. You are the most critical thing in the world.
One of the big issues in today’s world is that nobody is allowed to posit themselves as an end into themselves. What that means is this:
typically what people believe is that you must sacrifice yourself, all of your resources whatever for the sake of humanity and other people. One is not allowed to invest all your time resources energy and money into advancing and elevating yourself.
For example, venture capitalists. The goal and purpose and telos is to invest money, seed capital or whatever into these foreign, non-human companies. 
However, companies are not real. Even the notion of company companion is somebody you share bread with.
Why not invest in individuals — real life human beings?
Or better yet, why not invest in yourself?
My personal take is that the problem here is religion, ethics, modern-day religious thinking. Most of the planet is governed by a form of Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam etc.… Even a lot of these “atheist“ people are essentially still in line with the Benjamin Franklin, protestant work ethic mode of living and thinking.
For example, if you look a lot of Caucasian Americans, whose family have been here for several generations, even though they’re not religious, they don’t go to church, they don’t believe in “God”, they still have protestant work ethics; they work hard, they save money, they spend a little bit money on themselves here and there, but for the most part they invest towards their kids their families their communities etc.
Even Fernandinho Galliani on his treatsie on money, DELLA MONEYA; he talks a lot about God, the creator, the deity whatever. So even we should take the opinion of Galliani with a grain of salt, because anybody who tries to justify their position by invoking God or whatever– it is typically a sign that their opinion is a bit feeble.
But it’s written in the Bible!
And yes, the Bible is just a mishmash of different early Christian father writers, and if you think about critical theology, or philology… You must understand and realize that this was all written by fallible men. 
Honestly, I think the number one critical skill in today’s world or in general is critical thinking. Critical comes from Greek KRITIKOS, which essentially means judge, to judge, to weigh. 
So for example, we often get words a little bit confused. We misconstrue different words like “critic”, “criticism” with hate etc.
For example, we talk about criticism, typically we think of criticism like people just saying bad things about us or concepts etc. But, I think you could be a critic, a loving critic. The art of critique is to simply look at something, more objectively, without any hate or vitriol, and to just judge something for what you think it is. 
For example, somebody who is buried in the annals of history; Tacitus on the Jews. Tacitus, one of the early Roman historians, I think reading him is interesting because honestly, he just states his opinion, gives credit where it is due, gives pros and cons, but also speaks his mind. 
For example, when he is talking about the people of Judea, and is trying to outline them their cultures etc., he says both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. He praises Jewish people for their industry their courage their power, but also Obviously is diametrically opposed to their customs, their beliefs, which were weird foreign and anti-Roman.
In fact, I think if we critically think about Judaism, Jewish people, the descendants of Judea, it seems that the only historical thing we could really understand is that these people were the descendants of Moses. So the best way to think about Judaism as a religion, or even thinking about Christianity is to think that it was essentially a religion invented by Moses, to solidify his people, to strengthen them, And for them to persist.
Think Moses.
And also, Islam. Yeah yeah yeah we are all politically correct and whatever, but I think the critical thing is to understand Mohammed as a real life human being, the visions that he got from God were probably just some sort of hallucinations he had while in a cave, and think that the religion of Muhammad, Islam, is essentially a religion invented from a single man, Mohammed.
I remember the kid, I was bit confused; growing up Roman Catholic, Korean American, in the Liberal Bay area… I was a bit confused that if there was one God, how is it that there were other gods in the world?
Also things which were very confusing to me; Jesus was Jewish?
Also something that I’ve been discovering and rediscovering more recently, learning that in fact, the Bible starts off with the Jewish Hebrew tour Bible, I think the first three chapters of the typical Christian Bible is just Genesis and the ones in the original Jewish Bible?
 so the reason why we have so many thinkers who are Jewish Jewish American Israeli etc. is that the Jewish culture is slated towards critical introspection, thinking. For example if you’re curious, whenever you see a famous author writer influencer or whatever, just open up ChatGPT, the premium one, and ask whether they are Jewish or not, or the history of their last name.
In fact in one of these anti-Semitic texts which was sponsored by Henry Ford, and Henry Ford was overly anti-Semitic, there is this article titled “the subtle art of changing last Jewish names”, and in fact, studying the genealogy of last names is super interesting because in fact, a lot of these “Jewish” sounding last names are changed in order for Jewish people to assimilate into America, American culture, different countries etc.
For example, John Stewart I believe is Jewish American, and change his last name to sound more “American”. The same thing goes with Dr. Kirk Douglas, whose family immigrated from I think Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe Jewish people, and also changed his name to sound more “American”.
Also a weird fellow, Bob Dylan, I think his original name is Andrew Zimmerman, he is Jewish American. 
Even things that I didn’t know and understand is that Jerry Seinfeld, the whole Seinfeld show, which I watched a lot as a kid of reruns and stuff like that is essentially a story about Jewish American culture in America?
Who are the best thinkers? The ancient Greeks, the ones who came before Socrates. But still… we should take the opinion of the ancient Greeks with a grain of salt because even them, were greatly influenced by the “gymnosophists“ – gymnos in ancient Greek means naked, essentially imagine these weird hippie naked Indian people from India, who would share their sophistry or their philosophy and thinking with others.
I think a lot of early Greek thinkers like Heraclitus, Democritus etc. their thinking was hugely inspired by the gymnosophists, from India… that is why a lot of these pre-Socratic thinkers have philosophies which sound very Buddhist in nature.
So you know how you can more or less indefinitely increase your total amount of $USD dollars in your bank account ,,, can you also do that with health?
For example you can make your bank account go from $0 to $100, $1000, $10,000, $100,000 to $1,000,000 to $10,000,000 to $100,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 etc…
Maybe health ain’t a spectrum from 0-10, but can be increased indefinitely?
For example your health can be like debt — -$10,000 in health, or -5,000 in health, or 0 health, or positive — $1,000 in health, $10,000 in health, or $100,000 in health or beyond?
Or you can become worth $1M, $10M, $100M, $1T, $100T in terms of health and beyond?
The grand vision.
Become the best version of you
The text titled “Bitcoin Thoughts” presents a wide-ranging, personal exploration of various topics, notably focusing on Bitcoin, its key players, and the cryptocurrency world, while also touching upon broader themes of wealth, investment, lifestyle, and philosophy.
Overall, “Bitcoin Thoughts” is a blend of personal finance insights, philosophical musings, and lifestyle reflections, centered around the evolving landscape of Bitcoin and the broader implications of wealth and success.
Back in the bitcoin game: 20 bitcoins, Matte black. 
So Square, the company that you see at every single hips or coffee shop with the iPad and the little white square payment thingy, the company company is called block now, their website URL is block.xyz
So certain things which are quite interesting:
First, block, which is now the parent company they own the cash app, which is very popular in the African-American community, they own square, which essentially runs all small coffee shops and boutique places, and also, they are heavily invested in bitcoin. The head honcho Jack Dorsey, Probably one of the most underrated entrepreneurs of all time, who is also the founder of Twitter… Is really big into bitcoin. Even the last time I checked his Twitter profile, I think his biography signature was just a bitcoin icon, and maybe a lightning bolt, which signifies the lightning network. The lightning network for bitcoin, lightning.network,  is essentially an additional layer or innovation, I think it may be came out in 2014, that makes bitcoin transactions insanely fast, near instant, and also, for you to buy a very very small fraction of a bitcoin, .00000001 percent of a bitcoin or whatever. 
First and foremost, bitcoin is not real money. It is fake money. Now that we got that out the way, what can we extrapolate from this?
First, if Jack Dorsey, the head honcho of block, which owns square the cash app etc.… And also they have a partnership with Coinbase, and I think they have connections with Gemini a popular crypto platform, I think what that means is then, bitcoin has viable future.
For example, ChatGPT 4, the paid premium one, only 20 bucks a month, might be one of the best financial research tools.  Why? It is very good and effective at scraping financial data, in seconds, without having to click fucking Google content marketing ad advertising spam bullshit.
for example, do you member for a minute Tesla was accepting bitcoin to buy Tesla cars? Doing some research, apparently Tesla owns 9,720 bitcoins — $300 million dollars USD roughly of bitcoin.
It gets even more interesting, other entities which own more bitcoin than Tesla: 
Micro strategy, which is based in Virginia, apparently they own 189,000 bitcoin, under the CEO Michael Saylor.
Binance, the infamous CZ who took down FTX, and also Sam Bankman Fried – their total holdings are over 580,000 bitcoin. That is roughly $18 billion worth of bitcoin. Not only that, but, apparently the largest wallet on their platform holds close to 250,000 bitcoin, which once again, might be worth roughly 9 to $10 billion USD as of this writing. Assuming bitcoin is roughly $32,000 a bitcoin. But, if and when bitcoin pops higher, breaks at $50,000 a bitcoin mark, the $65,000 bitcoin mark, and I am pretty certain it’s going to break the $70,000 or $75,000 bitcoin mark… Once again this number will balloon like crazy.
Apparently the Winklevoss twins own an estimated 70,000 BTC — that is a lot. Around $2 billion worth of bitcoin.
Or, Tim Draper who owns around 30,000 bitcoin. Even crazy is when Tim Draper bought all of those bitcoins, which was seized by the US government, I think bitcoin was somewhere at the range of $300-$800 USD a bitcoin? Shame on me for being a fool, I’m not going to be a fool twice. 
I personally got into the bitcoin game at around $6000 a bitcoin, which was funny enough considered high at the time. I rode it up 10X, all the way up to 60,000, $65,000 a bitcoin. 
The tricky thing about bitcoin is that it will be more difficult for it to go up 10 X, 100 X, or 1000 X in price. The price increases will be more steady and gradual, you’re not going to see a pop like crazy like a Dogecoin or any of those other meme coins.
The fool believes that the highest mountain that exists in the world is the highest mountain he has personally witnessed or climbed himself. – Lucretius, Roman poet philosopher thinker
One of the big problems that we cannot use the past for future predictions. Nor can we use our current position to predict the future.
For example, these fucking idiots who text while driving. The thought is this: “I have successfully driven while driving and text messaging for the last 10 years, and therefore I shall never die.”
But the funny thing is this, one day later, there could be a drunk 18 wheeler, and while you are distracted for half a second, boom you dead.
Once you’re dead, you cannot regret texting while driving.
Also, the big issue is that you could be the worlds best driver, the world’s best texting while driving driver, the best driving while slightly higher or drunk driver or whatever… But even if you were 100% sober and focused, you can still get into a car accident that will kill you, and even potentially kill your kid.
Therefore as a consequence, it is critical to consider and think, don’t do nothing that will potentially cause your own personal death, or the potential death of your own kid.
Once again, to quote TALEN and his insanely insightful book “antifragile“, let us consider the turkey fallacy. Let us say that the highly esteemed turkey economist, with double PhD is from Yale and Harvard school economics and business, shows a graph in which the farmer has been steadily feeding him and all the other turkeys well for the last 30 years, and my following this graph chart, will continue to Feed the turkeys well. What the turkey doesn’t know, and the turkey clan doesn’t understand is actually the next day on Thanksgiving, they will all be slaughtered for a delicious Thanksgiving feast.
Perhaps one of the most useful things about studying sociology as an undergraduate at UCLA was statistics, my statistics class. Even my high school, Castro Valley high school in California, I remember my senior year I had the option of taking AP calculus or AP statistics, AP statistics seemed a lot easier, and I hate math, and it seemed to involve less math, so I decided to do statistics instead. In fact, it was surprisingly one of my most fascinating Classes and moments, even as a highschooler. Why? I remember I learned about this notion of a “outlier”, in that in fact, if there was an outlier in the data, what some sneaky people would do is just subtly erase it, or get rid of it.
The reason why I found this a bit weird, unethical or strange was this; what if you, you as individual were an outlier, should a statistician just rub you out? 
Or for example, all of this nonsense about diet health physiology etc.; they say that you have to eat carbs and starches and all this other BS in order to gain muscle, but I have been 100% carnivore for the last five years, making immense gains. No protein powder, no creatine, 100% beef, top sirloin pecan Anna, beef ribs, ground beef, lamb leg roast from Costco etc.; not only that but I don’t consume whey protein powder, and I exercise and lift weights while fasted, I never eat anything before lifting weights. The only beverages I drinking include tapwater, filtered water, and just straight up black coffee. No other BS.
As a result, this is the most Demi got my body and physique has looked, at the age of 35. I look far sexier and more beautiful today than I was in my 20s.
And also stronger. I pause it, I might be the strongest person in the world, who doesn’t take steroids, 100% all natural all natty, once not even protein powder!
1,000 pound atlas lift.
What I love about bitcoin is that it is legible. Everyone knows what a bitcoin is, even Cindy‘s mom knows what it is! It is easy to remember, it rolls off the tongue easily, and the icon is great; the big ass bright orange icon, with the B and two stripes through it. I guess spot the logo from a mile away.
What about bitcoin is that it is cool and sexy. All of these other crypto losers want their fake alternative coin to become the next bitcoin; but why not just buy bitcoin instead?
I am extremely wary of any alternative coins, coins which are not bitcoin. Why? What I find so interesting is the mythology of Satoshi; yes, a real human being, probably not like Binsky in which he is a distributed entity of several people. It seems that Satoshi is just a real life person, I don’t think he is Japanese because his English is too good. Just look at the email list server email correspondences that he wrote, his English is too good. Having spent some time living in Japan abroad, no real life Japanese person is that fluent in English.
I don’t think it really matters. Why? His original bitcoin white paper is so elegant, I think it is only six or eight pages long. This is the simple heuristic:
a good paper must be a short paper.
For example, Thomas Pikkety’s “CAPITAL”– mix for a great doorstop, not a good book. Why? When a book is too long, full of all these fixed statistics etc., it is typically assigned that the author their argument is actually not very strong or robust. Why? Most fools think that the more pages, the more information, the more graphs etc. means for a better idea. This is not true. Would you rather have 1000 Honda Civic, or one Ferrari?
Or would you rather have 10,000 Corolla, or one Lamborghini Aventador with the scissor doors?
The reason why I put no faith in any economist or constipated thinker is that their theories have zero to no connection in real life with their real life lifestyle or mode of living. 
For example, whenever I meet anybody, whether an economist, business school person, professor etc., I always like to ask them, “what car do you drive”? why? I find this information to be insanely critical, because your car actually says a lot about you.
 For example, I put zero to no faith and give no respect to anybody who drives an Audi, either a baselevel Audi like an Audi Q3, or an Audi A3, anybody who drives some sort of SUV, Mercedes SUV, etc. Even anyone who drives a Mercedes car or any German car Porsche etc.
Also, no faith in anybody who drives or owns a Lamborghini Huracan; if your Lamborghini doesn’t have the scissor doors, you’re just driving an expensive Honda Civic.
Why? Real successful people I Found Dr., Ford fusions, if they have a family a white Honda Odyssey, or individual successful people and Doctors Dr., Honda Civic, or even seeing the $150 million mansion in Holby Hills across the Holby park, just a simple white Toyota Prius. 
In fact, if you really wanted the supreme luxury car, and to be super low-key, the best car is probably a Hyundai Genesis G90; maximum luxury, and nobody has any idea what it is.
Or even more simple, I met  a private security guard who does private security for one guy he quoted as “having more money than God“, and said that he just drives a BMW 7 series. 
In Los Angeles, car culture of the world, fake rich people seem to drive these cars: mercedes-benz AMG G wagon, all matte black, murdered out, all black everything.
Also, any sort of Mercedes or BMW SUV. 
The tricky thing is that we evaluate the value of a bitcoin based on the price of the US dollar. But this is the tricky thing; if the price of bitcoin goes up or down in ratio to the US dollar, is that a sign that the US dollar is getting stronger or weaker?
And I suppose ultimately the question is this; in the future, what will be the more valuable acid to have? Bitcoin or the US dollar?
There is this phenomenon in bitcoin called the “halving effect”. The idea is that every four years, the mining difficulty to mind bitcoin becomes astronomically more difficult. As a consequence, every four years there is a big shift.
Thinking eight years from now, that is two more halving effects, technically Seneca will only be 11 years old, still very young, I am very certain that the price of bitcoin is going to be higher than it is today.  
Lamborghinis are for losers!
Let us note that the word Lamborghini and loser will start with the capital L.
I think the sex and allure of  Lamborghinis is simply from the suicide scissor doors, or the Lamborghini billionaire doors.
Essentially the Lamborghini Countach.
Therefore, the Lamborghini Urus is a fake Lamborghini, it is just an Audi Q8 with a body kit.
The Lamborghini Huracan is also a fake Lamborghini, it is just an Audi R8 with a body kit.
Even the Porsche 911, Porsche 911 GT3 RS whatever, it is essentially a Volkswagen beetle turbo on steroids.
Also Ferrari; even now today, I don’t really understand the appeal. The cars are not designed that interestingly, but it seems the only reason people want it is for the chrome prancing horse icon?  
You will never see a Ferrari without the Ferrari emblem in the back. I would maybe only ever respect a Ferrari owner or driver if they intentionally debadged their car, and really really really tried to make it look not like a Ferrari. 
Well, wellness. Health. I think it is actually all the same word in ancient Greek (-hwelh*)– or something.
Dimitri wealth is sleeping 8 to 12 hours a night, having a happy family, good bowel movements, maximum time outside in the direct sun, bright and cherry moves, a beautiful muscular body with low body fat percentage, smiling a lot, shooting the shit with random people, joking around, being like a big kid!
Kids care about playing, having fun, physical exercise and adventures, they have little interest in money they don’t even know what it is. Only society indoctrinates them to care about it. 
Ultimately then, perhaps ultimate goal is to just become like a kid, become like a child! A life of fun, adventure, conquest, bright blue seas, beautiful yellow light, beaches, Malibu, Cabo, Mexico and beyond.
ERIC

For example, consider how insidious overdraft fees are, credit cards, credit card debt, APR, almost everyone I know in LA has a large amount of credit card debt?
Also, a really big problem is that banks finance homes and cars and other things, which once again, further enslave people into debt.
Money thoughts:
The joy of speculation:
So the first thing I find really interesting and fascinating is thinking about money, the limits of money, wealth, etc.
For example, Seneca once said, “Nobody ever thinks to themselves, what if I am already too rich?”
Simply put, my thought of the proper limit of money is once you have enough money to pay rent, utilities, and trips to Costco to buy meat, then, the positive utility of money diminishes. That is, sometimes having too much money is a positive distraction and burden; a lot of people who are too rich have issues diversifying and investing their money because they have no idea what to do with it.
If you want to invest in my fund, just shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com
So a very simple crypto hedge fund idea is this: 90% of your money in bitcoin, 10% in chainlink, or the opposite; 90% of your money and chainlink, and 10% of your assets in bitcoin.
The reason why I find this to be such an interesting and dynamic hedge, to quote TALEB is this –
How can you take a maximally risky and speculative bet, that is both “safe”, reducing risk, and also maximizing upside?
The first thought that NASSIM TALEB had was never put more than 10% of your life savings into one single investment or acid. For example, I heeded his words of wisdom, and when Cindy and I had around $250,000 of savings, I only put 10% of that into Digibyte and Bitcoin — around $22,000, I bought some bitcoin at $6000 a bitcoin, and I think I bought some digibyte at one cent or two cents a digibyte — and eventually I rode it all the way up to around $250,000 worth of investments, one bitcoin hit an all-time high at around $60-$65,000 a bitcoin. I did some swapping here and there, consolidating my digibyte back into bitcoin, a good move, I speculated and played around a little bit with Dogecoin, rode it up, eventually consolidated it back into bitcoin, etc.
More recently, I wired $125,000 back into my crypto account, and bought more bitcoin.
People seem to hate the volatility of crypto, but I love it. Why? Perhaps for myself, I thrive off of high intensity, and adrenaline.
Also one of the upsides of growing up poor, seeing my mom go through bankruptcy twice is that actually… I have almost close to zero anxieties when it comes to money. I’ve lived super poor before, on the brink of being homeless, as a kid, and that is what naturalistically made me so stoic.
The reason why I don’t trust or give any heed to people like Tim Ferris or Tony Robbins is that it seems that once upon a time, both of them were super depressed, fat, losers, planning ways on how to commit suicide and kill themselves, and how to do it gracefully. Tony Robbins was the fat depressed one, Tim Ferriss was the suicidal one.
I think it is very courageous that Tim Ferriss outlined the story of when he was an undergraduate at Princeton, he actually took out books to plan his own death, reading books on suicide and how to kill himself, and how to do it in a graceful manner, but fortunately somebody found out, had an intervention, unfortunately Tim didn’t do it. I don’t think anybody should ever commit suicide, under any costs.
Anyways, I think the reason why it matters is that when people try to commit suicide, or have been severely depressed in the past, in high school middle school college elementary school etc.… that trauma stays with them.
For myself I am a unique case; I experienced severe and potentially destroying trauma as a kid, for some reason, those experiences actually made me stronger. How and why?
First, think I was fortunate because of random life things. For example, a formative time in Bayside queens in a very safe community, hanging out with my friends Spencer, Aditya, Jonathan etc and living like free range kids, at the ripe age of 11 to 12 years old, and also some great mentors along the way, Troop 11 in Alameda California, my Boy Scouts troop leaders, my coach Greg Lowe who essentially became my Mr. Miyagi private tutor and father figure guide, who taught me life lessons through tennis.
Also fortunately, the good timing; my mom moving our family out of Alameda, which was bordering Oakland; even though Alameda is a nice town, it borders Oakland, and so even Alameda high school was full of a bunch of these ghetto kids, gangbangers and bad influences. I went to high school at Castro Valley High, a very nice school with no drama, good teachers and good AP classes, eventually I was able to get to UCLA as an undergraduate, which helped accelerate my roadmap to success.
Along the line, meeting Cindy, then just another person I met my freshman year, at our Korean American Catholic club called Kyrie — later traveling the world with her, dating her, marrying her, and now having a kid with her, Seneca at age 3 years old.
Anyways, I have a lot of people to think, especially my uncle, who essentially helped my mom so much financially, and also my sister, for her private art school lessons, in order to get her into fashion school at Otis in LA, my sister eventually dropped out, but randomly through an apartment party, met her then future husband. Fortunately my sister‘s brother‘s family is very prosperous, opening up a fine art gallery in LA (VEFA)– will keep you updated with this, but anyways, our family is pretty set.
In the long run, everything works out just fine!
I think it is critical to have a good dose of criticality when it comes to the opinions of others, even your spouse. I think we should always respect and lend an ear to the opinions of others, but ultimately, it is you who must be staunch, and perform things and your life in accordance with your own personal beliefs.
When people say “you’re not listening to me!” what they really mean to say is “how dare you not obey me!”
The funny retort is people who get angry at us for not listening to them… aren’t they committing the same critical flaw of not listening to us?
My New Year’s resolution is actually to become MORE close minded, more staunch in my beliefs.
People don’t know but I’ve been trading stock ever since I was around maybe 15 or 16 years old, my sophomore junior year in high school. I remember actually investing really early in Adobe stock, because I used Photoshop and I found it to be a good tool. I actually made some money in high school, investing my life savings which was maybe around $1500 USD, maybe I will also get Seneca into trading at a young age.
Anyways, it was good learning and education because it taught me how to deal with ups and downs, and also losing it all.
The reason why I am so bullish about bitcoin is that I have a strong faith That you’ll never go down to zero. The reason why I would never put my money anymore into “alternative coins” [ALT COINS], or coins is that there is a high likelihood that a lot of them will go down to zero.
For example, I think when the biggest scams in the cryptocurrency space, is Ada Cardano. They have set up a fake foundation with the .org website, with a bunch of fake people, fake talking heads and suits, nobody has any idea what they’re going to do or what their product is, I think a huge profit can be made by shorting it. I’m pretty sure that Cardano will go down to zero.
Also, all these other weird alternative coins, only things that even have any nominal value include bitcoin, Ethereum, chainlink. 

Why chainlink? First and foremost, chainlink isn’t really a crypto, it is like a new technology. I think of chainlink more like the next Google. Even the ex Google CEO ERIC Schmidt is on board. 
Bitcoin is fascinating because ultimately, everybody knows what it is. To quote Galiani, on his treatsie “on money“, Galiani once said that the word “ducat”, rolls off the tongue quite beautifully, I also see that the word “bitcoin“, also rolls off the tongue quite beautifully. 
Ultimate test: even Cindy‘s mom, a Vietnamese refugee immigrant can pronounce bitcoin in her “broken English“, and knows what it is. She says “I know what bitcoin is! It is the fake money!” Haha — true.
I think the reason why this matters is you don’t want to be sitting on your butt, 10 years from now, Seneca will only be 13 years old still very young… and kick yourself in the butt for not taking a bold risk, and something you believed in, a decade ago. Jeff Bezos calls this the “regret minimization framework“. 
For example, some moderately regretful things I’ve done the last two years is selling some bitcoin, converting into worthless US dollars, in order to “alleviate“, some financial concerns. But, moving forward, 2024 and beyond, I think the goal should be to become more staunch, more unyielding, More close minded. 
MOAR BITCOIN!
20 BITCOINS; MATTE BLACK!
People say that being open minded is a virtue, but I’m starting to think, maybe not. Why? Do you want to be open minded about Adolf Hitler and Nazis? Or the new Nazis? Or alternative right wing weirdo conspiracy theorists, who want to hijack the American government, and promoting anarchy?
Also, I’m very close minded for these weird anti-fascist, loser skinny fat, fakeass woke, anarchists; they all have iPhones, watch YouTube, jerk off to porn on Google incognito late at night on their laptop or their phones, use piratebay and private VPNs– no capitalism, no consumerism, no pornography.
Trust no man who secretly watches porn.
The really big issue at hand is that a lot of these people, men specifically, I don’t think we should trust most men. Why? A simple thing; it is true, the behavior of men and women is polar opposite. 
For example, women do not start gangs, or become gangbangers. This is reserved to only men.
Or another example, the difference between a woman bathroom and a male bathroom; in any bathroom, for example let me quote Galbi King — my new favorite Korean barbecue place in Los Angeles, only $26 a person, look at the difference between the men’s restroom and the women’s restroom. The men’s restroom has all these dicks graffitid on the walls, scratches on the window, graffiti on the walls, graffiti made with knives in the mirrors etc. Go to the women’s restroom; nothing.
This is the tricky thing about sex and gender; sex is biological, gender is sociological. Therefore as a consequence,  people foolishly discount the differences of sex.
For example, I think it has to do with testosterone, testes, the male hormone. The reason why I distrust all these weird hormone replacement therapies is that why not just be natural? For example, I think it is actually normal to be LGBTQ? But once you inject hormones into yourself, not good.
For example, to inject any sort of external hormones to change your sex, is a patently bad one; we shame people for doing testosterone injections and steroids and stuff, why not the same consistency with these weird sex changing hormones?
Some personal tips I recommend is stop using Google, either use bing.com, or just use ChatGPT, the premium one. Stop using Google.
In fact, I think Google, YouTube, YouTube shorts whatever is the real bad guy here. Think about all these weird conspiracy theorist people, who platform themselves on YouTube etc. And with enough wikipedia’ing and googling, you’re gonna eventually fall victim to weird conspiracy theories.
Also, put zero faith in TikTok, it is owned by mainland China, Tencent corporation —  if you’re on TikTok, or promote TikTok, you’re pro mainland China, not good.
One thing I found very interesting about Donald Trump was he was very anti-TikTok, wise idea. Why? The way that one nation takes over another nation is through soft coercion, soft propaganda, sneaky propaganda.
For example, RIOT games which is owned by also the Tencent mainland Chinese corporation – they own league of legends, and a bunch of other games; this is essentially their low-key way of taking over the minds and the souls of the American youth.
Also the really big issue here is that a lot of these big tech companies are in bed with mainland China, this includes Apple, all of her phones and products are produced by Foxconn in mainland China, I think Google is trying to dip more into the mainland Chinese market, compromising their ethics by censoring the Tiananmen Square incident, And I am certain that Mark Zuckerberg wants to get into Maitland China as well; his wife is Chinese American, and I think Mark also taught himself Mandarin.
I think a big issue at hand is that this New World, this New World order is not about nations or nation states anymore, but rather, individual rich oligarchs. What that means is individuals, doesn’t really matter your nationality, just trying to augment their wealth. Their private wealth.
I find this to be very greedy, and also, unpatriotic. Anyone who tries to dodge taxes, I find this to be very bad behavior.
OK all these weird theories aside, what now? 
First, think digital real estate, not physical real estate. I think still nowadays, the internet is still a massive untapped market. Let us consider, to own a .com domain is only maybe $12-$20 a year, which is less than one dollar or two dollars a month. Let us consider that even if you buy a $3 million house in all cash, your property taxes will still look like around $12,000 USD a month.
The reason why it is so difficult to think digitally is that we disdain the digital, we prefer the physical. But, if you think about the greatest drivers of wealth created the last 10 or 20 years, it is all technology, digital, internet.
For example, Amazon web services, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
So the first very simple thing you do is build your own website, blog, or web platform. My simple suggestion is try to enter a field or market in which you could do all the work and labor yourself. For example, I do not know how to code, and honestly speaking I have zero aspiration to learn how. But, writing and blogging and vlogging is second nature to me, I don’t even have to think about it. Therefore, it seems that perhaps the most intelligent strategy is to identify your archimedes lever, and maximize your leverage intelligently rather than trying to get good at something you’re not that good at.
I would say the simplest strategy is first figure out what your passionate about what you love, and what you’re really good at, which others find difficult. Then, doubling down or 10X’ing down on it. 

Then, the best way to move the world or change the world is to exploit your leverages to the maximum!
ERIC
I have a funny theory; I wonder if the weather or climate of a certain day and time and place influences and effects investing behavior?
For example, when I bought or consolidated a lot more of my assets into bitcoin and back into bitcoin, I ensure to do it when the weather was insanely good, lots of beautiful light on my face and my naked body, that good mood was a good inspiration for making a big bet and a big trade.
So just think, when you’re about to make a big trade, how is the weather? Is it better to invest when the weather is good or bad, or something else?
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You don’t gotta focus so much on doing stuff which is “useful” to others:
Rather… do things which you feel like doing for the sake in itself!
Your own personal code of ethics:
The best way to change the world, reality everything is first, with thought. Your ideas, you were thinking etc.
First, start walking in order to think. 
I find this to be such an interesting idea because what we typically believe is that for some reason, we think we could just use our mental power or “willpower”, to stimulate our thought and thinking?
However this is not true. Thought, thinking, thoughts only arise in us in the process of walking and moving around.
Physiologically speaking, the only thing that really exists is our body. Our body as in our cranium, caput, head, brain, eyes, ears, chest and legs and hips, feet, arms, the blood in our bodies, the electrical impulses in our body etc.
The “mind“ is just a fiction. All of the mental ailments we get are simply an offshoot of bodily, physiological issues.
For example, any mental health is simply a body health issue.
For example, anyone with chronic migraines, headaches, tension headaches, etc.… I think the origin of these issues is bodily, skeletal, muscle. If your chain to a desk all day, staring at zoom for eight hours a day, not moving around much, certainly there will be unnatural attention in your neck your jaw and your spine, and because that is all connected to your head and your brain, it might be a trigger for headaches and migraines.
Solutions then include yoga, hot yoga, massages, acupuncture etc. And no, don’t do chiropractors, it is the world’s biggest scam. 
Trippy told, acupuncture is a pseudoscience which means all of these nonsensical notions of “meridians” are not critical. However what is interesting is that it works.
Having done acupuncture with Cindy a bunch of times, especially when we were in Providence Rhode Island, half of the benefit of doing acupuncture is that you just take a nap, lie down and do nothing, don’t use your phone or listen to anything, just lie down, in the heated room, with a heated blanket, a chance to do nothing. It is difficult to do anything if you have a bunch of needles sticking into you.
Also, I have a theory about acupuncture is that it is almost like hormesis;  I know that in terms of my bodily physiological response, when people stick those acupuncture needles in certain parts of my legs and my body, I can actually feel my muscles twitching and release. My theory is that a very very small “harm”, is actually stimulating to our bodies? Just like coffee, coffee is a poison, but in certain doses, the poison is a stimulus to us.
The great man is stimulated by poison. 
Something I have had a difficult time finding or discovering is a critical line of inquiry in regards to thinking, thought, the philosophy of thinking. 
Why think, what does it mean to think, why does it matter?
First and foremost, thoughts govern the planet. For example, almost everything in life and in the world, is predicated on notions of thought and thinking. No thoughts, no future. 
For example, it looks like Tesla is about to conquer the planet. The new redesign Tesla model 3 is mind blowing. They made the steering wheel more beautiful, they made the interior design supply me beautiful; an integrated curve, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive would be proud!
Also I think that ambient lighting thing inside the car is super cool. Some people might think it is gimmicky, but I think it is awesome! I remember when I first saw the integrated lighting dash board thing in some Mercedes cars, and I think there is something to be said about light, light therapy; colors affect our mood. Is it James Turrel who does the light art stuff?
For example, anyone who says that colors don’t matter is a fool. Would you want the interior of your house to have bright red walls? Probably not if you don’t want to scream bloody murder inside your home.
Or, for people who say that color don’t matter, would you want to wear an all green outfit, with bright pink fuchsia accents and shoes? Probably not.
Still in 2024, I am still shocked; it looks like cars run the planet. What this means is that it seemed that maybe 60% of our economic activity is around producing cars, selling cars, buying cars, design cars etc.
For example I look at Hyundai, it is insane… also the new Genesis Berlinetta concept car — also, the new Hyundai Grandeur and AZERA— like a futuristic Rolls-Royce for the future!
The other day, it was free! The LACMA, LA Center for modern art, had this really insanely epic art exhibition, imagine like Legos and hot wheels on steroids; it was titled metropolis II, and imagine like a K-NEX erector set, 1100 custom designed mini matchbox hot wheel cars, with this perpetual machine moving all of the cars in traffic and buses and rails, stacked on top of one another. Conjured ideas of that old-school 1920s metropolis film, in the future where everything is that, flying cars etc. or also, a vision of a utopic-dystopic science-fiction future, kind of like Blade Runner, or that one futuristic movie that Bruce Willis was in.
I love this exhibit so much because it’s stimulated my mind, and also, Seneca’s mind was blown! I think I rated as the best art exhibit of all time. I could probably watch it for hours, and not get bored.
If you’re in LA, Southern California whatever, I think it is a critical experience you must go to in person. Also what makes it a great exhibit is that it can be enjoyed by both children and adults, all ages. It is essentially a microcosm of cities, urban living, traffic and cars. The ultimate takeaway point: 
We all think we are so unique and individual, and special, based on superficial things whether we drive an orange sports car or whatever, but in fact, we are all just the same! A bunch of lemmings!
So I was born in 1988, and I attended UCLA as an undergraduate, I started in 2006, graduated 2010. I wish I got into Bitcoin earlier in 2009, when my roommate Kevin told me about it, I think when he first saw it on Reddit. He said that we should both put about 100 bucks into it and see what happened. I shrugged my shoulders and said “Meh — nah, probably a scam”. If I do the math, 100 bucks, I think at the time somebody spent 20,000 bitcoin to buy a pizza on Domino’s or whatever, the infamous $500 million pizza, basically… What would 100 bucks times a penny be? How many Bitcoin could that have purchased me? And what would it be worth today?
In life it is fine to make a mistake, and make a regret. But not twice. This is why and why I’m going back into bitcoin. Join the 10+ bitcoin club! 
No twice regrets.
Anyways back to sociology, I think the reason why I think it is such a phenomenal framework to understand the world and society is that I think all of this is just a sociological phenomenon. Society, capital, capitalism, living lifestyle whatever… I think about 80% or 85% of it is based on certain sociological principles. 
Also, to understand the market, economics, I think it is all sociology. To understand human fear, scams, fraud etc. 
Also, I think studying sociology has made me unlearn a lot of the BS. To quote Karl Popper, via NASSIM TALEB– the idea of falsification, subtraction, or the general idea that in order to become more wise, you just gotta subtract delete or get rid of foolishness, nonsense.
For example, conspiracy theories. Only fools believe in them. Even if they are real, it doesn’t even really matter.
Therefore a great advancement in ourselves our thinking etc. is subtracting deleting or getting rid of weird conspiracy theories from your brain and your mind. 
Pro tip: kit ChatGPT app on your iPhone iPad, and don’t be a cheapo; subscribe to the paid premium edition only 20 bucks a month, and start doing these type of searches:
Common misconceptions about XYZ
Or
Help me debunk some conspiracy theories about XYZ
For example, common misconceptions about Catholicism, Judaism, Islam etc. Or the Quran.
Or help me debunk theories that Jewish people run the world blah blah blah. Or that Hitler, according to operation paperclip, was in fact never killed or captured, but ended up being shipped to Antarctica to live in a bunker, where he really died.
My overall critique about Google the Internet YouTube, podcast, etc.… Essentially all these fools who think they are so wise… Strange fellows like Alex Jones, even people on the left or the right or the middle or the right, alt left, and anarchists all of them… All of them are fools. 
My simple tip or heuristic is this: trust no man or women on YouTube, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, podcast, etc. Especially if it is supported by advertising or them trying to sell their own products.
In fact, I think the interesting thing is when you actually make your money your fortune from some other random independent thing. For example now, I’m currently building my Empire Fortune and crypto, cryptocurrency. Therefore as a consequence, I have 100% free reign and freedom and independence to just talk about whatever is on my mind, irregardless of whatever. 
***
To me the grid is an interesting metaphor for a lot of things. The grid could be standard conventional thinking, “rules” and regulations, a lot of of the modern day BS.
I think primarily my superpower in life is my ability to disdain ignore and find ridiculous all of these “rules”. In fact, at least in real life, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody as interesting as myself. The only other interesting people I think, or maybe Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kanye West. To me actually they are very relatable.
Come on… It is 2024, you’re still on Instagram? To me Instagram is like eating McDonald’s hamburgers. Not proper.
Also, I’m still a bit confused… why don’t more people photographers just start their own private websites and blogs? And no no no, do not use squarespace it sucks. Also fun dirty secret, maybe about four or five years ago I got an email from Squarespace, saying that if I converted my whole website and blogging into Squarespace they would give me $15,000 or something. It was the easiest no I ever said in my life. Honestly speaking, I don’t even think I do it for $1 million? Unless there is something the updated which is really good. Maybe I would do it for 100 million?
To somebody who says they cannot be bought out by money, you’re just not offering them enough money (TALEB)
To me the reason why I find the photography so critical is that ultimately we are visual creatures. What sells cars? Design. Design marketing, the idealized concept of something.
Design is God.
Once again the new Tesla model 3, I think it actually looks 500 times cooler than any other Tesla car out there. And I’m glad that I am a late adopter, and I was not one of these unfortunates who bought an early model Tesla model model 3 or any other Tesla car. In fact, a lot of the Tesla cars are already starting to look dated. For example the original Tesla model S is outdated, even the slightly newer Tesla model S cars, that don’t have the yoke steering look very outdated. I feel bad for those people who spent a lot of money on the infamous Tesla P 100 D, to only see it dated by the plaid. And now, I’m pretty certain that sooner or later the plate is going to be replaced and outdated by something else too.
Or even another basic thing; people who bought the Tesla model 3 in the early days, with the chrome trim.
Even the Tesla model X, the newer versions look far better. And have a unique color.
To me the most important thing in a car is the steering wheel, because you look at it all the time, then the interior and dashboard, and also the back of the car. And also specifically the door side driver side entrance, and also the rear left passenger side door, where I get in and out and load Seneca into his car seat and the car.
Technically the front of the car is not that important, because if you park in a spot like a normal person, you never look at the front of the car. You almost ever look at the back of it.
Also in terms of the car, the steering wheel is the most critical thing because he used it all the time. To me for a Tesla car, either yolk steering or nothing. Even the new Tesla model three the steering wheel looks really cool. Also the new cybertruck the new steering wheel looks very cool. 
Also a subtle thing I learned when researching Ferrari, doing the 3-D modeling tours of inside the car, it is actually very interesting to me that the Ferrari logo is a bright yellow background with the prancing horse in black. Having that emblem on the steering wheel inspires confidence.
Maybe this is why Ferrari is superior to Lamborghini; technically if you think about it, the Lamborghini is just a very expensive Volkswagen Passat. The Lamborghini Urus is just an expensive Volkswagen Touareg.
The Ferrari is interesting because it is still to a certain extent, a purebred. Ferrari is Ferrari, owned by Ferrari, not some other weird parent company. And also I think it is good that Ferrari is its own stock ticker - RACE. Typically I never trust a thing which is just a subsidiary of another thing. 
A simple way to live life, and to make an impact or whatever is to just share your thoughts. It is funny because people say all this ridiculous things like “That is just your opinion!” The best response: “Of course it is my opinion! That’s why I said it!” Opinion, opine, just means to think.
This is where philosophy is very useful: people think that there are certain notions of “facts“, especially in the realm of statistics, but probably the most useful thing of studying sociology, is understanding that statistics is just a scam. I learned from Cindy (cindyanguyen.com), in her book and dissertation, that the notion of statistics comes from the state. The general idea is that statistics was a measuring tool invented by the state in order to track measure progress, something that the French colonists and colonial administrators did when colonizing Vietnam and her other territories, and also, what the Chinese communists did under Mao Zedong, and also the Vietnamese communists also did. The general idea was this:
In order to track the legitimacy of something and the progress of something (let us not forget that the notion of “progress“ is a feeble modern day notion)– is that we gotta track the growth of something in numbers.
Do you remember in BRAVE NEW WORLD, when in the beginning of the book they talk about how they were able to distill human birth human children in test tubes then said — Progress.
So therefore let us not forget, the notion of “progress“ is not a distinct one. It is a modern one. 
I don’t trust nobody who either has some sort of loser Apple Watch, Fitbit tracker, has Instagram, or applies any metrics to their life. The only metric I find useful is maybe increasing your one repetition maximum in your weightlifting, simply as a measure to know that you’re increasing the weight. But besides that, things which are bad include weighing yourself on the scale, because you don’t know how much of that is body fat adipose tissue, how much of that is skeletal muscle mass, and even other things that people don’t talk about… how much of that weight is bones, sinews, blood and water?  
A simple New Year’s resolution is this year, throw your scale in the trash, donate it or whatever, and never weigh yourself.
Both men and women are foolish: they track weight as a measure of their self-worth. But, the goal is to increase skeletal muscle mass, and decrease body adipose fat tissue. This is something that scale cannot do, the closest thing is either a fat caliper, or just look at yourself in the mirror. Pinch your belly fat, or look at the fat in your face, or, you want to get rid of the infamous fat rolls in the back of your neck. Something that I see that Kanye West has.
“It is simple: if it jiggles, it is fat.”- Arnold S
It is weird, in today’s world, in America at least… we truly do have the greatest system for independent thinking and thought. Here unlike other countries, you will not get jailed for sharing your opinion. Even the most politically liberal or advanced countries in the world pale in comparison to America.
The problem though here is that all sides, all parties, all individuals are “nudged“ either into the left or the right, even this notion of being apolitical or being an anarchist or whatever is also just another lemming sheep mentality.
Or another words, put zero faith in anybody who watches any news, doesn’t matter if it is NPR, Fox News, Al Jazeera whatever. The simple heuristic is this: if it is being funded by advertising, Google Adsense revenue, it is not to be consumed. 
Only trust things that you are spending your real money on. This means, stop using Google. Google is a “free” service, and the way they make money is by sensationalism and banner advertising. Even nowadays I’m stopping to use Google Maps, having those annoying square advertisements that pop up when I’m driving, I almost feel like that is borderline unethical. Why? It distracts me from driving, I wonder if it will lead me to getting into a car accident one day? Google, whoever did that I google, Google Maps team whatever… Shame on you.
Apple Maps is the inferior product, but at least it is not supported by advertising. Get rid of Google maps use Apple Maps instead. 
No more Android, Samsung etc.
The quality of your thoughts are simply an offshoot of the quality of your bodily physiological health.
For example just think; if you only sleep 30 minutes a night, for days or weeks on end, what do you think will be the quality of your thoughts? Optimistic joyful and happy? Or weird, morose, dark?
Or other thoughts, imagine like you’re in heroin addict, or hooked on some sort of meth. What will be the quality of your thoughts?
This is why I trust no thinker or individual who partakes in drugs, alcohol and weed. Although both are quite mainstream now. Why?
A lot of people are alcoholics, and a lot of people also apparently do a lot of writing and production of music and artwork when they’re drunk, which is bad. Even Kanye West, he is a low-key alcoholic on and off, I think he said all the anti-Jewish stuff when he was drunk. And on Twitter. Being drunk and on Twitter at the same time or Facebook, not a good idea.
Also weed– weed is so mainstream now, it is not really seen as a big deal. But I also think it is foolish that some people think that weed has no effect on your thinking. Even Kendrick Lamar, his only vice is maybe Froot Loops and Captain crunch cereal.
“You let the meds talk I let my soul talk ayy!” – Kendrick
The reason why we should not trust any artists, rappers, musicians or whatever who are addicted to drugs any type of drugs, and yes, weed marijuana is drug… their thinking will not be pure. Their thinking will be too overly saturated with the weird effect of drugs, anti-depressants, uppers and downers whatever.
Even Elon Musk, I rate him highly, but if you read the Walter Isaacson biography on him, he will discover that he drinks too much alcohol late at night, and just drinks Red Bull to stay awake. Not good.
Heavyweight since 1988 — my best man Justin Lee
Am I the only millennial I know who doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke weed or take drugs? And have never been to a concert, EDM thing, etc.?
The only concert ever went to in my life was by myself, to a Yeezus  concert at the Oakland Coliseum, Kanye performing live. The coolest thing of all time.
A very weird trend I have discovered is this weird trend: get a bunch of tattoos, drink a bunch of craft beer, wear sunglasses and some sort of trucker hat, wear flannel, drive some sort of big truck or whatever, and to make the purpose of your life to just drink exotic craft beer?
To quote Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon, did you go to his personal website and look at his about section, he said he was never into watching sports and drinking beer because it just made you stupid and fat and lazy.
Even the ancient Roman and Greek philosophers thought it was a bad idea to drink wine, too much wine. The Greek Dionysian
God Baccaus was the God of wine drunkenness and the dark.  he was the original Satyr; essentially imagine these weird goblins with goat horns. Or imagine the original “furry“.
Don’t trust alcoholic, drug addicted thinkers, artists, producers whatever.
No more Pollock, Basquiat etc.
Is the purpose or end goal is to increase the quality of your thoughts, the productivity of your thoughts in order to become richer, to earn more money? No.
I think the ultimate goal is to become wiser, more critical in order to become more powerful. Power is simple.
I have an intervening thought: in order to stimulate your mind, you first gotta stimulate your body. That means, extremely heavy weightlifting to get your blood and your mind flowing.
A very simple one is purchased weightlifting equipment on the internet (Titan.fitness), just work out at home, in your backyard front lawn, even you’re off the grid parking lot in the back of your apartment which I am doing right now.
The very very simple thoughts to exercise and fitness is do exercises and lifts which promote standing. Or walking. Upright exercises. This includes Farmer’s carries, dead lift walk, squat walk, Atlas lift etc. Also, heavy sandbag carries, just order the 400 pound heavy sandbag on roguefitness.com or on Amazon or titan.fitness
The big issue at hand is a lot of these exercises at the gym and in traditional mainstream media has to deal with some sort of sitting or pressing motion. For example bench press, floor press, dump press, decline, seated military press, seated dumbbell press etc. But the critical flaw of these exercises is that they are all done while sedentary or lying on your back. And the big downside of this is that it doesn’t promote your walking or your posture, which might be the two most critical things.
I also thought to myself, what is it that causes the most amount of injuries? Any sort of pressing motion. Once again, bench press, shoulder press military press etc. There is almost virtually no injury that happens with any lifting motion, caring motion, or walking motion.
99.9% of injuries I have witnessed at the gym, other guys including myself typically has to deal with the benchpress, which I think should just be eliminated.
I know a lot of guys who have had injuries, back injuries, upper back lower back spine whatever injuries, from dead lift or other traditional forms of weightlifting. I say:
No more deadlift, only rack pull.
The easiest way to do rack pulls, or any sort of elevated lifting walking exercises is using some sort of power rack, squat rack, or even getting some cinderblocks from Home Depot. Essentially if you’re tall, elevating the barbell off the floor.
Also one big thing that I’ve discovered, the great upside of not going to the gym anymore is that I’ve been exercising more in the authentic and honest way; I’m not lifting weights anymore to impress other people, I’m just there to use weightlifting as a philosophical tool to think better, to think stronger etc.
Ultimately I believe that the goal of weightlifting and all of these exercises is to become stronger, more courageous and more audacious in order to aid you in your entrepreneurial ventures. 
Once again, if we think about all this from a socioeconomic perspective, entrepreneurship is the end goal. 
The end goal of philosophy thinking etc is not to make money, but rather, to excel and exceed in life. Also happiness. Everyone wants to become happy, or happier, even Aristotle says happiness is the only thing that men seek for the sake of itself.
People always think that having more money will make them more happy, but this is not true. Often having more money can make you more miserable, as often having more money causes more stress anxiety etc.
Who will watch the watchmen? – Juvenal
For example, let us say that you had $100 million in your Coinbase account, your bitcoin wallet whatever. You will probably end up using some sort of super secure password to lock and secure your assets. But the stress and the anxiety and the fear of having your phone stolen, your identity stolen etc. is even larger. And also the richer you get, the more you become a target to theft, identity theft, real life theft, even physical violence thread. Never forget the story of when Kim Kardashian tweeted where she was at, in Paris, and abruptly got held up at gunpoint from two mast robbers, demanding her jewelry and her pearl necklaces and diamonds, otherwise they would shoot her.
“What do you want me to do, drive around in a bulletproof car and with some tints”? – Kanye
For example, the one story of a guy who has maybe $200 million worth of bitcoin in a super secure crypto wallet, but he made the password to complicated that he already has two failed attempts, and on the third attempt, if he messes it up, he will lose his bitcoin forever?
And this is actually the funny irony: often times when we try to make things too secure, we actually end up fucking over ourselves. 
This is where I am still all about having simple passwords which are easy to remember, rather than using a third-party password app, because even though these third-party password apps are good, often there are always thinking issues. A good intervention actually is the new Apple secure strong password thing, but still… iCloud doesn’t always work seamlessly. Therefore for your truly critical things, Having some sort of practical strong that you could remember is good.
I think this is where the ethos of being  I still Spartan warrior demigod is that it seems that the richer more successful more famous you become, the more security you end up getting, personal security guards bodyguards whatever… And as a consequence, you end up having less freedom in your life?
For example, I was randomly doing research on David Geffen, and apparently during the Covid pandemic he was just hanging out on his $10 billion yacht, chilling out. Apparently a lot of people were envious about this, but truth be told… I would prefer 1 million times more to be walking out in the real world, off the grid, rather than being stuck on a boat? Because even if you are in the worlds best boat, still, You cannot walk for three hours straight and not get bored.
Living on land is better than living on the sea.
The best way to empty your mind is to delete Instagram, delete Twitter, even delete email in Gmail from your phone. Delete YouTube podcasts etc.
Even music, modern day music. Even in music somebody is trying to sell you something. Maybe we should go back to the ancients, the ancient music, the ancient arts. Listen to dead composers, Beethoven and Mozart etc. Why? They’re not trying to sell you Lamborghinis or other nonsense.
For example, as a kid growing up, no kids, nobody in my friend group ever aspire to have a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or a Porsche car whatever. Think the only modern day trend to desire these cars are predicated on what rappers say.
Or other things, do you remember when it was really popular to get “dubz” on your car? Which are essentially 20 inch chrome rims, with spinners attached? Then it was 21 inch rims, 22 inch rims, 30 inch rims whatever. Now the trend is actually going opposite? A lot of these overlanding vehicles, taught to me by my brother-in-law John Narciso one of the head designers at Black rhino and wheel pros is actually, the new trend is for the actual rims to become smaller, and the tires bigger. And more lifted off the floor. And as John told me, Overlanding vehicles are the new rice rockets. 
Rather than adding obligations to your life, seem to remove or delete or subtract obligations from your life. This means, don’t take on more work, more contracts, more obligations. Rather seek to subtract all obligations to close to zero, even with the promise of a lot of money.
In fact I almost feel that is easier and better and more straightforward to make the big bucks speculating in cryptocurrency, crypto, and the market rather than just seeking some sort of consulting gigs.
For me, the big advancements I perceive in the future include AI, crypto, chainlink, bitcoin, openAI and Microsoft, ChatGPT and beyond.
What am I anti-? I am short Apple, Google. If you look at Google Bard, the Google ChatGPT competitor, it is at least 100,000x times worse than chatGPT 4. For example I asked Google Bard who ERIC KIM was, and it said that I was a landscape and travel photographer? Terrible. 
To me, technology and the future is all about optimism, happiness and joy. If we want brighter more glorious future, we need optimism. The hope of a beautiful future, blue skies, clear skies, lots of sunshine, pure joy.
ERIC
I just toured equinox, and was very unimpressed. It is like an LA fitness with a better conscience. Also you know it is not a good gym because the barbells suck. 
This is how and why I discovered, ultimately, perhaps the most critical thing with weightlifting is the quality of the barbell. Texas power bar squat bar, or if possible, get the monster squat bar. This is something that will outlast you, and also maybe something you could end up passing down to your children?
My greatest joy and proud moment will be the moment in which Seneca will be able to lift my Texas power squat bar! 
A random story; the other day, now that LA is actually starting to get pretty cold during the winter time, we decided to try to figure out how to turn on the gas furnace heater thing. It is this “cozy” brand, the machine looked at least 20 years old, but we thought that it would be a good idea because our apartment could get pretty cold late at night, and especially early in the morning, considering that I’ve been waking up at weird times like 3 AM, 3:15 AM, 3:30 AM, sometimes a bit later like 4:30 AM, 4:45 AM, or 5 AM.
Anyways, we lit the gas furnace thing, the pilot light whatever and it seem to work OK, but the other day when I woke up at 3:30 AM, and turned on the gas furnace thing, I just went in to take a shower, in order to warm up the apartment while I was taking a shower. My hope and expectation was the moment I would get out of the shower, I would be greeted by a lovely warm apartment.
Then what happened next was the carbon monoxide poisoning alarm thing started screaming, which abruptly woke up Cindy and Seneca, at 3:45 AM. I rushed out of the shower, and smelled all this toxic gas in the air. We rushed to open up the windows, I turned off the heater thing, and also quickly tried to turn off the pilot light in the gas heater machine.
Anyways long story short, we ended up being OK, but still… The super scary thing was that in fact let us say that we did not change the battery for the carbon monoxide poisoning thing. Also as a pro tip, you should definitely change it right now, just order the weird battery on Amazon. It might save your life, the life of your kids and your wife.
A lot of people never change the carbon monoxide poisoning alarm battery thing. Imagine a worst-case scenario if I had accidentally kept on the gas heater thing overnight, which is actually quite common, Cindy Seneca and I would have all died in the middle of our sleep. Therefore after this fucking crazy thing, I feel like I got a second chance at life.
Or even worse, the thought that what if, I had accidentally left on the gas, the carbon monoxide poisoning alarm thing wasn’t set up correctly, and I just left the apartment for my typical walk? That I come back home to a Seneca in the Cindy Who both died peacefully in their sleep?
Anyways, thinking about it… The simple thought is to swallow all the vermin, and chew on the glass shards to avoid saying doing anything bad or harmful, especially to your wife.
Stoicism is certainly a philosophy which is beneficial to everybody. But for me, I think ultimately, perhaps stoicism is more tailored for men, a masculine philosophy?
For example, if you’re married or in a serious relationship, a thought is that you as a man, should put on your metaphorical bulletproof vest, and take all the hits. Take all the splash damage, you’re strong enough for it. Assuming that your health points your HP is at 100%, the abuse the verbal abuse from others might only kick you down to 80%. Just think of yourself like a level 99 paladin from Diablo II; you got your legendary armor, your legendary helmet, greaves, body armor, shield, and also you have some healing potions. Apply this mentality to yourself. 
This is where I really like this Diablo II analogy to real life; playing Diablo II as a kid was very influential on me. Maybe it is a good idea that we apply this video game analogy to real life.
Currently I am living in Culver City, which I consider the closest thing to Paradise in Los Angeles. And as a consequence, I am at the epicenter of screenland. 
Everyone thinks Hollywood is where all of the action is, but they are wrong. It is Culver City. For example, Amazon prime, Amazon prime studios, Jeff Bezos and Amazon… All of it is produced at the Culver Studios, which is owned by Michael Hackman, And the lot is huge. I walked by it, around it, and it looks like it is at least the size of 10 football fields.
Also, the culver theater, the little cute movie theater next-door, is actually owned by Amazon, Amazon prime, Amazon prime studios, Mr. Jeff Bezos.
Even Apple, Apple TV+ or whatever… They are becoming the new finance years for all of these epic movies. For example the new killers of the flower moon film with Leonardo DiCaprio was being rolled by Apple. The same thing goes with the new released Ridley Scott Napoleon film. 
I’ve been randomly doing some research about David Geffen, he is probably the most successful and important figure in both the movie media and entertainment industry. I think his net worth is $10 billion? And nobody knows who he is or what he looks like?
Anyways, the reason why I think he is such a critical figure is that he made his fortune through movies, movie production, DreamWorks, Shrek etc.
Also, Sony pictures, yes, the same Sony company that makes cameras and TVs and stuff. They own the whole Spider-Man franchise. Both the animated one and I think the other ones? And also the video games? 
I got a free three day trial pass at equinox, and several things I find interesting: first and foremost, there is a lot of people who go there. Like, a lot. And, I think they charge $350 a month for membership. Seems like a good moneymaking institution.
Why do people like equinox? Everyone criticizes and critiques how it is so expensive, but, the reality of the matter is that I should load of people have a membership. If you just do some basic math, let us say that equinox has 500 members or so, Maybe 2000 members, all paying $350 a month, that is a lot of money. I wonder if each institution brings in close to $1 million a month just in membership revenue?
Anyways, I think the reason why a lot of these gyms and fitness places are so popular is that a lot of people don’t really know what to do at the gym, and the reason they like to do a class or course is that they show up, and just do something. I think a lot of people lack the knowledge of how to exercise, or maybe the lack some sort of critical philosophy behind the purpose of exercise? And as a result, they just like being told what to do. However for myself, it is antithetical to my nature. I am 100% tolerant to everyone and everything, the only thing that invokes my fury is when people tell me what to do and what not to do.
Never trust a fitness person who cannot lift more than you.
Now that I have achieved my 1,000 pound atlas lift, ain’t nobody can tell me what to do. Nobody has the balls, the chutzpah, the guts to do what I have done. Or even attempt it.
Actually if I really think about it, in the whole world of fitness, the whole planet and internet; am I the one with the most courage, audacity? Even the gold gym Venice Beach, which I already conquered, is supposed to be the bastion and apex of weightlifting on the planet, but even there… all these guys were taking steroids… they’re actually not that strong?
Am I the strongest, non-steroid person on the planet? 
Very simple ones: get a pair of Vibram five finger shoes, honestly the only reason people don’t wear them is that they look weird. But, the true act of manly courage is to wear your Vibram five fingers probably in publicly, and ironically enough… more recently, I’ve actually got more compliments on my Vibram five finger shoes than I ever did with any of my cool Nike sneakers?
The reason why I find Vibram five finger shoes so critical is that honestly, I wonder if 99.9% of foot pain, knee pain, back pain, and hip pain is simply because people are not going barefoot. Technically the best pair of shoes would just be some sort of reinforced, waterproof socks. The Vibram five fingers is not perfect, but it comes pretty close. 
The best argument I have for using the five finger toe shoes is this: you know all these stupid shoes with these very thick souls, they are essentially like condoms for your feet. And our feet are just like our hands, but on the other side. In fact, I have a theory that our feet actually might have more intelligence than our hands. Have you ever tried to text message during the winter time with gloves on? Imagine doing that with your shoes.
Also a funny thought; you know all these stupid HOKA shoes, or Adidas ultraboost shoes, with 3 inches of foam on the sole… Can you imagine having sex with a 3 inch thick condom?
Everybody is always telling me the virtues of buying a house, a single-family home, owning property, owning your own house whatever. But, I personally think this is some sort of suckers game. Why? Even if you own the property, and you paid it in all cash, you still have to pay property taxes, home insurance and other maintenance things, which could actually cost you close to $3500 a month, the same price as rent!
As of now, especially considering the fiasco that I had with the gas burner furnace thing; I have almost close to zero interest in ever buying a house, single-family house, maybe even a condominium? Why? For me, my true passion and ambition is to live off the grid, to adventure, to explore, and have nothing in my way?
Is your home your slave, or are you a slave to your home? 
As long as you think you have to renovate something whether your kitchen, open up a wall, etc.… you are not free. 
Ionos.com or bluehost.com and install wordpress.org. I no longer recommend wordpress.com, ever since they somehow deleted my old wordpress.com account, because of some strange policy I violated which I’m not even sure what I did?
People always talk about land ownership, real estate ownership whatever, why doesn’t anybody ever talk about digital content website platform ownership? And no no no, squarespace is bad. You are still a slave to their platform.
Essentially the simple heuristic to know whether you own your platform or not is whether or not you could access the FTP server, via filezilla or any FTP management tool. Whether you could self post your own media files, your own dropbox.
The two most critical things in the planet include your time, and also your freedom. Most people don’t have access to either.
Anybody who has to be stuck in a car, doesn’t matter if you’re driving all a or Lamborghini, you’re still a slave.
Then, the goal is to unchain yourself from all obligations, all metaphorical grids.
Self-employment is the way. Sole proprietorship.
EK
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More fire incoming!
He with the most audacity is the happiest!
ERIC
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Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.
The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.
Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
Demigod physique. 
And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 
“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.
Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.
Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?
When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”
In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 
Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 
I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 
In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).
ERIC
FIN
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Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:
Never stop innovating.
Cinema and film as a great stimulus, aid and teacher for photographers and visual artists alike.
Cinematography and life lessons:
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Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:
Never stop innovating.
Cinema and film as a great stimulus, aid and teacher for photographers and visual artists alike.
Cinematography and life lessons:
The most two critical things in life:
Avoid death, don’t do anything that might cause your traumatic death, whether it be sleeping with the gas heater on, dying in the middle of your sleep, going skydiving, regardless of how it is, zip lining whatever, roller coasters, amusement park rides, texting while driving or even driving and talking on the phone.
Also, not trying to feed your kid in the car while you’re driving, even when stopped at a red light.
Also, disease. Anything like getting an STD, aids etc. Don’t have coitus with anybody besides your wife. Also as a funny tip, if you ever plan on going to the strip club, or the club, or anywhere that you might get tempted… just rub one out real quick in the bathroom before you go, to avoid doing anything dumb.
Also, to quote NASSIM TALEB; just avoid death, or irreversible permanent disfigurement. Don’t do nothing that might cause you to become,
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First, start walking in order to think. 
So something I have not really came across yet is the philosophy of thinking. Why think, what does it mean to think, why does it matter?
First and foremost, thoughts govern the planet. For example, almost everything in life and in the world, is predicated on notions of thought and thinking. No thoughts, no future. 
For example, it looks like Tesla is about to conquer the planet. The new redesign Tesla model three is mind blowing. They made the steering wheel more beautiful, they made the interior design supply me beautiful; an integrated curve, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive would be proud!
Also I think that ambient lighting thing inside the car is super cool. Some people might think it is gimmicky, but I think it is awesome! I remember when I first saw the integrated lighting booth thing in some Mercedes cars, and I think there is something to be said about light, Light therapy; colors affect our mood. 
For example, anyone who says that colors don’t matter is a full. Would you want interior of your house to have bright red walls? Probably not if you don’t want to scream bloody murder inside your home.
Or, for people who say that color don’t matter, would you want to wear an all green outfit, with bright pink fuchsia accents and shoes? Probably not.
 still in 2024, I am still shocked; it looks like cars run the planet. What this means is that it seemed that maybe 60% of our economic activity is around producing cars, selling cars, buying cars, design cars etc.
For example I look at Hyundai, it is insane… Also the new Genesis Berlinetta concept car — also, the new Hyundai Grandeur and AZERA– like a futuristic Rolls-Royce for the future!
The other day, it was free! The Lacma, L A Center for modern art, had this really insanely epic art exhibition, imagine like Legos and hot wheels on steroids; it was titled metropolis II, And imagine like a Connex erectors set, 1100 custom designed mini matchbox hot wheel cars, with this perpetual machine moving all of the cars in traffic and buses and reels, stacked on top of one another. Conjured ideas of that old-school 1920s metropolis film, in the future where everything is that, flying cars etc. or also, a vision of a topic science-fiction future, kind of like Blade Runner, or that one futuristic movie that Bruce Willis was in.
I love this exhibit so much because it’s stimulated my mind, and also, Seneca’s mind was blown! I think I rated as the best art exhibit solution of all time. I could probably watch it for hours, and not get bored.
If you’re in LA, Southern California whatever, I think it is a critical experience you must go to in person. Also what makes it a great exhibit is that it can be enjoyed by both children and adults, all ages. It is essentially a microcosm of cities, urban living, traffic and cars. The UltimateUltimate Takeaway point: 
We all think we are so unique and individual, and special, based on superficial things whether we drive an orange sports car or whatever, but in fact, we are all just the same! A bunch of lemmings!
So I was born in 1988, and I attended UCLA as an undergraduate, I started in 2006, graduated 2010. I wish I got into bitcoin earlier in 2009, when my roommate Kevin told me about it, I think when he first saw it on Reddit. He said that we should both put about 100 bucks into it and see what happened. I shrugged my shoulders and said “meh — nah, probably a scam”. if I do the math, 100 bucks, I think at the time somebody spent 20,000 bitcoin to buy a pizza on Domino’s or whatever, the infamous $500 million pizza, basically… What would 100 bucks times a penny be? How many bitcoin could that have purchased me? And what would it be worth today?
In life it is fine to make a mistake, and make a regret. But not twice. This is why and why I’m going back into bitcoin.
anyways back to sociology, I think the reason why I think it is such a phenomenal framework to understand the world in society is that I think all of this is just a sociological phenomenon. Society, capital, capitalism, living lifestyle whatever… I think about 80% or 85% of it is based on certain sociological principles. 
Also, to understand the market, economics, I think it is all sociology. To understand human fear, scams, fraud etc. 
 also, I think studying sociology has made me unlearn a lot of the BS. To quote Karl Popper, via TALEB– the idea of falsification, subtraction, or the general ideas that in order to become more wise, you just got a subtract delete or get rid of foolishness, nonsense.
For example, conspiracy theories. Only fools believe in them. Even if they are real, it doesn’t even really matter.
Therefore a great advancement in ourselves our thinking etc. is subtracting deleting or getting rid of weird conspiracy theories from your brain and your mind. 
To me the grid is an interesting metaphor for a lot of things. The grid could be standard conventional thinking, “rules” and regulations, a lot of of the modern day BS.
I think primarily migrate power in life is my ability to distain ignore and find ridiculous all of these “rules”. In fact, at least in real life, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody as interesting as myself. The only other interesting people I think, or maybe Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Kanye West. To me actually they are very relatable.
Come on… It is 2024, you’re still on Instagram? To me Instagram is like eating McDonald’s hamburgers. Not proper.
Also, I’m still a bit confused… Why don’t more people people just start their own private websites and blogs? And no no no, do not use square space it sucks. Also fun dirty secret, maybe about four or five years ago I got an email from Square space, saying that if I converted my whole website and logging into Square space it would give me $15,000 or something. It was the easiest no I ever said in my life. Honestly speaking, I don’t even think I do it for $1 million? Unless there is something the updated which is really good.
To me the reason why I find the photography so critical is that ultimately we are visual creatures. What sells cars? Design. Design marketing, the idealized concept of something.
Design is God.
Once again the new Tesla model three, I think it actually looks 500 times cooler than any other Tesla car out there. And I’m glad that I am a late adopter, and I was not one of these unfortunate who bought an early model Tesla model model three or any other Tesla car.
To me the most important thing in a car is the steering wheel, because you look at it all the time, then interior and dashboard, and also the back of the car. And also specifically the door side driver side entrance, and also the rear left passenger side door, where I get in and out and load Seneca into his car seat and the car.
A simple way to live life, and to make an impact or whatever is to just share your thoughts. It is funny because people say all this ridiculous things like “that is just your opinion!” The best response: “of course it is my opinion!” Opinion, opine, just means to think.
This is where philosophy is very useful: people think that there are certain notions of “facts“, especially in the realm of statistics, but probably the most useful thing of studying sociology, is understanding that statistics is just a scam. I learned from Cindy (cindyanguyen.com), in her book and dissertation,  that the notion of statistics comes from the state. The general idea is that statistics was a measuring tool invented by the state in order to track measure progress, something that the French colonists and colonial administrators did when colonizing Vietnam and her other territories, and also, what the Chinese communist under Modon, and also the Vietnamese communists also did. The general idea was this:
in order to track the legitimacy of something in the progress of something (let us not forget that the notion of “progress“ is a feeble modern day notion)– is that we got a track the growth of something in numbers.
I don’t trust nobody who either has some sort of loser Apple Watch, Fitbit tracker, has Instagram, or applies any metrics to their life. The only metric I find useful is maybe increasing your one repetition maximum in your weightlifting, simply as a measure to know that you’re increasing the weight. But besides that, things which are bad include white yourself on the scale, because you don’t know how much of that is body fat adipose tissue, how much of that is skeletal muscle mass, and even other things that people don’t talk about… How much of that weight is bones, sinews, Blood and water?  
Both men and women are foolish: they tracked weight as a measure of their self-worth. But, the goal is to increase skeletal muscle mass, and decrease body adipose fat tissue. This is something that scale cannot do, the closest thing is either a fat caliper, or just look at yourself in the mirror. Pincher belly fat, or look at the fat in your face, or, you want to get rid of the infamous pet rules in the back of your neck. Something that I see that Kanye West has.
It is weird, in today’s world, in America at least… We truly do have the greatest system for independent thinking and thought. Here unlike other countries, you will not get jailed for sharing your opinion. Even the most politically liberal or advanced countries in the world pale in comparison to America.
The problem though here is that all sides, all parties, all individuals are “nudged“ either into the left or the right, even this notion of being a political or being an anarchist or whatever is also just another lemming sheep mentality.
Or another words, put zero faith in anybody who watches any news, doesn’t matter if it is NPR, Fox News, Al Jazeera whatever. The simple heuristic is this: if it is being funded by advertising, google Adsense revenue, it is not to be consumed. 
Only trust things that you are spending your real money on. This means, stop using Google. Google is a “free” service, and the way they make money is by sensationalism and banner advertising. Even nowadays I’m stopping to use Google maps, having those annoying Square advertisements that pop up when I’m driving, I almost feel like that is borderline unethical. Why? It distracts me from driving, I wonder if it will lead me to getting into a car accident one day? Google, whoever did that I google, Google maps team whatever… Shame on you.
Apple Maps is the inferior product, but at least it is not supported by advertising. Get rid of Google maps use Apple Maps instead. 
OK… all I want to do is a simple $125k transfer through JPMORGAN CHASE — why the fuck is this shit taking 3-4 days??? To have some lackey have to manually approve it… even though I did all this bullshit verification over the phone?
Short Chase. Short traditional banks, short all the banks!
Money thoughts:
Notes to self —
Notes 3
Accordingtosome,
these bodies, which add dignity to the awkward appear ance of people, have also come to provide the superi ority which is a source of the most considerable satis faction, as I have already indicated.
even kings owe the greater part of the veneration of their sub jects to the external magnificence which always sur rounds them. Deprived of these trappings, kings would
retain only powers and gifts of mind which they had formerly; they have come to realize that the reverence
shown them has been greatly reduced in such circum stances.
Women constitute half of the humai race and exist .only, or in large part, solely for our propogation and breeding.
They do not have any oth( value and merit than the love they arouse in men.
because this attribute is almost entirely derived from beauty, women have no greater duty than to appear at tractive in the eyes of men.
How useful they ‘are as ornaments is attested to by common consensus.
Propagate and breeding
more useful” and “less
useful” are relative terms, and that they are measured
according to the different conditions of different peo ple* **”
there is nothing more useless than bread for one
who is sated.***
Davan- zati asserts, that:
an egg worth half a grain of gold would have kept Count Ugolino from starving
to death, even after ten days in his tower prison. All the gold in the world
would not have matched it in value.
dear and cheap are relative terms.
To just live is easy !!!***
A LIFE WITHOUT PAIN, DISCOMFORT OR (LIMITED) SUFFERING IS NOT A LIFE WORTH LIVING?
Now that winter is upon us … at least for myself, I hate the cold. To me, the cold is evil.
Yet when I’m in a position in which I feel *no* cold at all … no pain, no discomfort during the cold winter months, for some reason … something in life feels lacking?
I think the subtle nuance is this:
The pain, discomfort or whatever you feel has to be of a *LIMITED* duration.
For example feeling pain, discomfort whatever for 5 seconds, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour is fine. But not *prolonged* and continual and nonstop pain, suffering, discomfort.
Or in other words, cold weather training (working out topless during the winter time) for short durations like 15 minutes is fine, assuming you rush home and take an insanely hot bath or shower to warm up again, but to do it *indefinitely*— a bad idea.
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Everything is an emotional reaction and emotional behavior, why is this seen as a bad thing?
Philosophically, the only one who perverted the notion of emotion and instincts was Socrates. Why? He created this new pseudo religion of rationality above everything else, which is a patently bad idea because it does not permit for intuition, the Dionysian.
Some issues:
It seems that the big “bad guys“ are actually the big corporations like Apple, which produces iPhones in mainland China, Foxconn— and also maybe Amazon, which it seems that nowadays, 99% of the products come from mainland China.
Google… are they in mainland China? Not 100% sure, but it seems that certainly they want to be.
Facebook, meta, Mark Zuckerberg I think also wants to penetrate and get into mainland China. Let us consider that Mark Zuckerberg‘s wife is Chinese American, and also Mark studied Mandarin.
Even a lot of silken Valley tech, Andresen Horowitz, a lot of people on the board of directors are either from mainland China, 1.5 generation Chinese, in between mainland China and America etc.
America is funny because on one hand, we are by far the strongest military on the planet, at least 1000 extra stronger than mainland China. What, I think we have at least 1000 military bases all around the world, in China only has one? Somewhere in Africa?
What China, mainland China has going for it is production. It seems the swap is this:
America says: Let us produce and manufacture all of these things and goods and consumers items in mainland China, we will let you pollute your own land, then we will import it and sell it in America, and we will enjoy your products, your cheap wages, and we will also enjoy our unpolluted environment.
China goes:
OK sounds good. We don’t really care about the environment that much anyways, as long as some of us could get rich, and some of our people can also become richer.
“White people make money don’t spend it, I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”. – Kanye
Thinking about money:
“Money sets the whole world in motion” – Publius Syrus
Do you know when people say that money makes the world go round? This is true.
So what is money anyways?
First, money is fiat, faith-based. Fiat currency.
Currency is an interesting word and term because it evokes the feeling of water, movement, river streams and tide pools.
So first of all, let us consider the notion of “income streams“. There’s this notion of “passive income”, I think first popularized or maybe coined by Tim Feriss, in his four hour work week. But I believe there to be a myth of passive income which means, income is and must be active. You cannot just sit on your butt and collect rent.
Also with rent, rent money is funny because even if you’re collecting rent, there’s a lot of work management you gotta do. For example, you have to fix and maintain your properties, make sure that your tenants pay their rent money, do background checks, deal with vacancies etc. It is one of those things that we as renters feel that the landlords have all the power, but in fact, assuming that you’re already wealthy, you actually might have more power as a renter than a landlord. Why? If you have a very good apartment and it is rent controlled, technically according to NASSIM TALEB you have greater optionality.

What that means is that you have a privilege to live somewhere, not an obligation. In theory you can leave whenever you want, and you’re not behelden to the property.
In regards to the ancient Greeks, I think they may be the best model because starting from Roman times, their society already started to seep into degeneration, degeneracy. Even during Homer’s time, Homer was already saying that the ancient Greeks were falling into degeneracy, even when he was writing the Iliad.
I am currently reading Politics by Aristotle, and I find it to be a really fascinating read. Essentially what he says about household economics etc., as well as his thoughts on substantive versus speculative finance, real versus fake finance. He essentially says that real finance has to deal with animals and fruits of the earth, everything else is just imaginary.
Also, his thoughts on slavery. Essentially in ancient Greek times, the ultimate goal was to have the laborers, slaves, craftsman, mechanics do all the dirty work, and the true nobleman and free man would just use all of his time and leisure for building virtue, philosophical thinking, and participating in politics, the politics of the local city state, the polis.
In modern-day times we always think about politics like it pertains to international politics whatever. But the original term politics referred to the polis, the immediate city-state. It was not focused on foreign affairs.
What I like about Aristotle and his writings is that he’s always talking about the ideal, and talks a lot about studying from the best of the past and the current, in order to formulate his thoughts. Also his writing is straight simple and clear, and very authoritative. For example, he quotes Plato and his Republic, and straight up says: “Plato is wrong.” Almost as hilarious and ballsy as when Nietzsche said: “Plato is boring.”
Two things: Pay rent money, pay for food and groceries, and basic utilities, like your Wi-Fi, gas and electric, gas for your car etc. Beyond that, what else do you really need? 
Another fun experiment I’m doing is just paying for rent money by using the profit on my cryptocurrency speculations, simply using Coinbase, and profits from CHAINLINK. For personal reference, I am currently 90% invested in chainlink, 10% in bitcoin. I believe this to be an interesting barbell for a risky yet “safe” investment speculation, in thinking the next 30 or 40 years.
Also, in terms of our cryptocurrency assets, we don’t have more than 10% of our whole life savings tied into cryptocurrency. Therefore if it all goes to zero in theory, not really a big deal. But my personal belief:
Bitcoin will never go down to zero.
A very interesting thing that I learned from NASSIM TALEB, maybe it was written in his book ANTIFRAGILE, is this notion of decimation. The basic idea is that in ancient Roman times the army, if cowardice was suspected, at random, 10% of the army would be put to death, it was a good way to prevent cowardice, especially one facing an impressive enemy. 
10% is interesting because in theory, if you lose 10% of your army, it is not enough to significantly lose your forces. A 10% loss is more than acceptable. For example let us say that you’re playing StarCraft, and you got an army of zealots, all upgraded with dash and full armor upgrades, if you lose 10% of them, you could still kill the army of zerg maybe if you do good enough micro management of the units. 
Finances is also similar — best to have 90% of your money in insanely secure bonds, CDs or stuff that might beat inflation, even a simple savings account at 5%. Then put 10% of your money in extremely speculative cryptocurrency speculations, rather than putting 100% of your money and boring “medium risk” funds.
“Never trust a risk number even if it is right.”- TALEB 
First and foremost, economics, being an economist, is the new hocus pocus of modern day times. The reason why economists are so highly regarded is that currently speaking the new global religion is capital and capitalism.
Therefore as a consequence, the new modern-day priests are economists, and these fake talking heads on the TV screen.
The reason why we should trust no economist, is that they use fake numbers statistics and fake math to justify their thoughts and positions. Even Nate Silver, who everyone thinks is some sort of genius, mispredicted Trump getting elected into office. Why? Even if you’re a statistician with 99% accuracy, the one percent of the time you’re wrong, it could cost billions of dollars.
The reason why we should also not trust no economist is that most of them are protected from the real world. Their opinions reports and thought pieces have no connection to reality. A lot of them are getting a fat salary and steady paycheck from their tenured professor positions at Harvard Yale Princeton or whatever, and therefore the predictions thoughts they have, have no bearing on their own personal finances.
Better instead to trust individual individuals who actually have skin in the game, or money in the game. That is that your opinion is tied to your own personal bank account, if your opinion is right, you make the big bucks, but if you’re wrong, you lose your shirt.
One of the best things about growing up poor and when you have seen your mom go through bankruptcy twice is that in some funny ways, it makes you more brazen, less fearful. Witnessing my mom go bankrupt, because my dad gambled away the rent money and we couldn’t pay rent, and she would just rack up credit card bills just to pay basic expenses, what I learned is at the end it’s not that bad. My mom got family support, community support, church support, and ultimately she was OK in the very end.
So for myself, the reason why I have such a high tolerance for risk is essentially nowadays, I live like a poor person. My New Year’s resolution is to buy nothing; or close to nothing, or just to not buy stuff that I consider silly or superfluous. Even acquiring free stuff; to me that is just more clutter in my mind in my life and my home; we new elite is about minimalism, even to a fault. 
Also, the American entrepreneurial spirit. Even my dad when he first came to the states, was extremely entrepreneurial. He started his own business when I was very very young, I think selling audio equipment. As he had a passion for music movies and film and cinema. I actually think his great ambition of life was to become a great film director. Even at a young age, I recall him watching Alfred Hitchcock the birds, Schindler’s list, and all these other great avant-garde films.
So now, raising Seneca, he is currently two years, around 11 months old… his training is very simple; simple, physical, Spartan. 99% of the day we are just at the local nature center, hiking on dirt paths, walking around, doing gymnastics at the playground, even now, I bought some wooden gymnast rings which I just hang from my parking spot in the back of my apartment, and he could swing around it, and hang around it! It is pretty amazing.
Another thing I learned from Aristotle’s Politics is that with children and child rearing, the logical order is first physical training and gymnastics, second is nutrition and feeding, third is the intellect. It seems that in modern day times we do the total opposite; we don’t really focus on physical exercise for kids, we just try to make them look smart. But book smarts is bad smarts; real smarts comes from the real world.
As a consequence, I probably literally spent close to no money on him. The only thing that we paid for in the early days were maybe diapers, and buying some random stuff on Amazon like training underwear, etc.
Now, he eats wagyu ground beef well in the air fryer, pro tip just toss a bunch of small broken up pieces of ground beef in the air fryer for 10 minutes, sprinkle it with some salt and pepper and give it to your kid! I think precisely because Seneca was born and fed such a high meat diet, he is the buff strong and tall boy he is today.
100% carnivore kid.
What is the proper use of money?
For myself, Costco. Funny enough it looks like out of all of my normal stock investments, Costco is doing the best! Why? As inflation goes up, food gets more expensive etc., everyone likes to think that they’re not being “ripped off”– nobody likes to think that they are overpaying for anything. Costco is funny because it is almost like Walmart but with a good conscience; a lot of middle-class even rich people have thought of Walmart as akin to the devil; whereas Costco has warm fuzzy feelings. Half of the fun even myself as a kid going to Costco was getting the hotdogs at the food court, and also getting all the free samples! Costco is almost like going to Disneyland, with benefits.
To me, the only real food substance is meat. You could thrive on 100% carnivore meat red meat diet, good luck with lentils beans and potatoes. That is poverty food. 100% red meat beef lamb diet is fit for the gods.
Let us consider, the nonsenseness of veganism; the etymology and history of vegan comes from vegetarian, vegetarianism. Essentially the vegans were the more hardcore vegetarians; the word “vegan”, essentially is the word vegetarian with fewer letters.
Honestly I think being vegan is more of an ethical thing rather than a physiological concern. This is where vegetarians are more honest than vegans; a lot of people who are vegetarian do it for religious regions, for example people from India or south Asia, or some people just don’t really like the taste of meat or flesh, prefer to eat cheese eggs dairy and fish instead. 
What I also love about studying ancient history, Rome, the Iliad, thinking about Homer is that back then, there was none of this nonsensical being “woke“, or political correctness. The Greeks were a hard and simple race; you were either Greek or a barbarian. Even the word barbarian is originated from the notion of “bar-bar”– anyone who did not speak Greek, their language sounded like somebody saying “bar bar bar”.
And also this is where notions of “white supremacy“, or being “white”, is nonsensical. Were the ancient Greeks “white”? No. They were olive skinned, very tan.
We acknowledge and understand that the ancient Greeks were probably the peak human and society of its time; maybe it makes sense for us to go back to the fountains, and for us to seek to imitate the best of the best, the crème la crop of the past.
First, in the time of Homer, the Iliad the odyssey etc.; there was no notion of coins, or coined money or currency. The notion of coin is actually pretty good, like bitcoin, because the original minted money was actually coins, not paper money.
Also, gold. Gold was always highly valued throughout all of history, even during the time of Homer and the Iliad. For example the greed of king Agamemnon, what did he want? More gold, more women, more land, more slaves, more power.
Even as a sidenote; an Achilles was told by his father figure that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he lorded over more men. 
During the time of Homer, and the Iliad; wealth was concentrated in food and meat, oxen; the notion of a “hectacomb” was the generalized notion that if you wanted to appease the gods and make a sacrifice, you had to sacrifice 100 oxen, which was a lot. Why? An ox is interesting because you could eat it, and also you could use it as manual labor. Maybe back in the day, having one ox was almost like the modern day notion of having a Lamborghini; can you imagine sacrificing and burning 100 Lamborghinis to appease the gods?
If I ever had to rename myself I would just need myself Achilles. Why? He is practically invincible; what is it that he wanted in the Iliad? Honestly he was tired of war and conquest and battle; he just wanted to chill out, retire, enjoy his land and pastures, and enjoy Breisis his prize.
Even Achilles said wisely; No amount of wealth in the world is worth a life, my life. Not if you took all the wealth of the world, all the gold of the world, and multiplied it by 65. Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever.
Even in today’s world, I don’t think sacrificing your life your own personal life is worth anything; I would only ever ever ever sacrifice my life it was for the sake of Seneca’s life, or Cindy‘s life, or both. Otherwise, I have zero interest in being drafted to go to some sort of senseless war, in order for America to procure more oil or whatever.
And this is where I believe that war is so superficial; would you be willing to send your own personal blood son, your first born son, to fight in the front lines of Afghanistan or whatever, for some sort of strange political advantage? No.
Things are starting to get ridiculous. In LA and Culver City, you can’t find a good single-family home for less than $2 million. Even a $2 million or $3 million home, it’s not really in the best neighborhood either which is 100% pedestrian friendly. I was looking at this brand new $3 million house, which is pretty nice, but it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, I cannot enjoy my lovely morning walks as I do just walking from my apartment from the arts district.
I wonder if renting is actually superior than owning because you got more optionality, less obligation. 
“You work for a living, I live for a living” – Jay Z
Ultimately what is it that we really seek to do, our desired activity?
I think what we really desire to do at the end of the day is physical activity, vigorous activity, to be physical. Physics, human physics, our own human body.
We want to walk around, go on hikes, be in nature, go to the beach, swim around, walk around mountain paths, pick up heavy things, throw around rocks, do fun gymnastics things, hot yoga, lift weights etc.
The ultimate luxury in today’s world is the human body. It all matter if you own 100 Ferraris, if you are obese, old and fat, none of it is worth it.
Even I was randomly doing some research about Hugh Hefner, the big issue is that apparently he just lived in his Holmby Hills mansion for his whole life, wearing nothing but silk pajamas, taking weird hallucinogen drugs and Viagra, in poor health, having sex with all of these random women, forcing them to do drugs, get plastic surgery etc. 
I think the weird notion is a lot of men, they seek to become some sort of playboy? To grow a beard, buy a bunch of guns, have sex with all these women, massive orgies with all these beautiful women, for the sake of what?
In today’s modern day capitalistic society, women are the new objects, the new products being sold. The strange promise is this; you get rich successful and famous, you get the Lamborghini or the Ferrari, and then suddenly all these beautiful women will flock to you, want to have sex with you, fulfill all your weird sexual fantasies, etc., and suddenly you’ll be happy for the rest of your life?
It seems the weird sexual perversion we have in today’s world is that maybe… the trend is we want some sort of 100% subservient female sex bot, 100% obey us, and fulfill our sexual desires? 
But let us not forget, the purpose and function of sex is for us to beget children; the hormones and the good feelings associated with it is to promote bonding between the man and woman, and to solidify the family relationship. This is where I am pro monogamy; even Zeus was married to Hera! Although he did sleep around a lot. 
One of the greatest things that was born out of Covid was the Facebook buy nothing groups. Essentially close to 100% of all the baby stuff we got for Seneca was for free from the buy nothing group. Cindy would just message other moms, get a bunch of free baby hand-me-down stuff, and we literally paid close to nothing for all of his baby stuff. I estimate that from the buy nothing group, Cindy might’ve saved us close to $15,000.
Ultimately I think money is like some sort of game; the game of not spending money seems to be more interesting than spending money.
There is nothing morally or ethically wrong about spending money, the only issue at hand is when people spend money in some sort of boring way, they go into debt, credit card debt or whatever, and as a consequence, they lose their freedom?
***
I don’t know if this is yet a notion, this notion an idea of “financial fitness“. The general, generalized idea is this: we talk about physical fitness, physical health or whatever, yet we never talk about financial health, financial fitness whatever.
Perhaps the reason I don’t like or trust all these other random people who talk about finances ultimately, they are selling some sort of product, service, or they are sponsored by advertising and advertisers. The big problem about this is that their opinions are not pure, also in my opinion, not critical.
I have never met anybody in real life why consider financially successful, maybe besides my friend Todd Hata, who maybe works only one day a year, and he is enjoying his digital nomad life, traveling the world. His simple studio lighting company on Amazon is genius, his bread and butter is these photo clamps. 
Another friend of mine who I consider very financially successful is Don Dillon, who made his fortune building up his own company, later selling it, and after building an art house in Arizona, later selling it, and just opting for more low-key lifestyle, just living in a simple condo with his wife Diane in Dana point, Orange County California.
Something cool about Don, he used to own a Porsche race car, has a Porsche 911 GT three, ultimately, just prefers to drive his dodge ram truck around. At this point of life, he just wants to focus on travel and photography.
Also, another private workshop student of mine, who actually designed princes phallic purple guitar, also was in the Ferrari scene, I think he might’ve owned 10 to 50 Ferraris, used to go to all these car meet ups and racing stuff, it ultimately sold all of it, and just bought a simple Lexus RX car, to deal with the Minnesota winters.
My personal hot take of LA, being in LA, even spending a lot of time in Orange County whatever, is that a lot of people are “fake rich“, this means that it seems that they are rich and successful and wealthy or whatever, but in fact, they are living paycheck to paycheck, and also are in deep debt. For example, as long as you have a mortgage on your house, you ain’t free. Doesn’t matter if your house is valued at five or $10 million or whatever, as long as you have to pay a monthly mortgage payment, you are still in debt. And don’t throw this nonsense, “equity”, around; or even notions of “net worth”, not critical. The only true wealth is to have zero debt, zero obligations, zero mortgage, own zero property.
Even the problem about property ownership, even if you bought the house or whatever in all cash; you have to consider maintenance fees, property taxes, home insurance — all which can cost $3500 USD a month! Same price as rent!!! And that doesn’t include the mortgage which in total can cost you twice the price of rent … $8000 USD a month? Seems like a scam to me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about condominiums lately, on one hand it seems like a good idea and on another hand it seems like a little bit of a scam.
I suppose a good thing about having a condo or only a condo, like my friend Timothy Flanagan is that if you’re abroad a lot and travel a lot, Technically the upside of owning your own home condominium thing is that ultimately, you have a place to store your stuff, a little bit more space, maybe you have a garage or a basement or something, and you could just leave your stuff there, somebody else will maintain your property, and after you travel, you still have a place to come back home to.
One thing I am actually insanely grateful for is the fact that Cindy, Cindy‘s mom, Cindy‘s family owned their own single-family home, in Orange County, and the great upside is that while Cindy and I was traveling the world, living off the grid, nomading around, living abroad in Vietnam Japan for about two years, we still had a home address that we could send our mail to, a steady home address where we could file our taxes, credit card reports, bank statements whatever. Apparently a lot of people who adopt a digital nomad lifestyle, and have no real family connections, the big issue is that still… It is good to have a solid and steady home address where you could send financial paperwork to.
Something also very cool that my friend Timothy Flanagan did was opting for an early retirement, I think he officially retired last year, maybe at age 52?
Also, an interesting funny thing is that a lot of people actually have the option of retiring early, if you’re in the school system you could technically retire as early as age 50! Granted your pension and your Social Security or your financial fund isn’t that much money, but still… to no longer have to show up to work, for the rest of your life, at the young and ripe age of 50 years old… isn’t that great?
Better to retire at an earlier age and live more poorly, than to retire at an older age and live more richly.
Perhaps the big issue here is that people put too much of their self-esteem and their self-worth into their occupation. Yet, if we think about the movie 300, and King Leonidas asks his Spartan 300; “what is your profession“? They all throw their spears into the air and go “woot!”
My critical thought is that it seems that honestly speaking, most people don’t really know what they want in life, nor maybe they don’t have the courage to actually pause and assert with a truly desire and want in life?
For example, I often ask people if you magically had $100 million deposited into your personal checking account, and never had to worry about money again… What would you do with your life, how would you live your life? The typical responses are a bit standard; travel the world, buy a house and some property etc. He had most people don’t really go beyond that.
To me the notion of financial independence retire early, “fire“, is the point in which you no longer make money cruel tied with your own personal self-esteem. Just think; once you could pay rent, pay for groceries and meet at Costco, basic utilities like gas electric Wi-Fi your phone bill etc., what else do you really need?
Once you retire, or once you’re financially robust, then what?
My thought is just focus on art, your arts production, your creative activities, your philosophical thinking and writing and production, publishing your ideas thoughts and creations etc. 
Let us consider that for most people, towards the end of their life, a lot of people who made their millions, and now are in their 80s, mid 80s, early 80s, late 80s… what is it that they focus on?
It seems art. Either art production, art purchasing, art accrual, art creation etc. What is the basic notion behind all of this? The basic notion is that people have a desire and an impetus to create art, share art, and propagate art. It is in our body, our souls, our sinews our blood. 
Simple thoughts:
This is almost everything. This includes television, sports, magazines, newspapers, anything on the Internet or blogs or websites that is supported by Google sense advertising, YouTube, trust no YouTube, YouTuber who has advertisements on their channel.
The reason why it is wise to cancel advertising from your life in your brain and your eyes and your ears is that we are actually much more influenced and nudged and brainwashed by advertising then we think we are. For example, I think the mind is actually very very sensitive; and as artist, we have extreme sensitivity to ideas sounds, bodily sensations whatever… Don’t think that you are immune to it. In fact, my personal wisdom is that I know that I am actually very very easily influenced by almost anything and everything; therefore the best way to protect yourself is active defense; delete delete delete, delete all the advertising from your life.
My personal thought is that money is just codified human labor. For example, the best way to use money, should be hiring labor. For example you have all these people in Beverly Hills, Homeview Hills etc., who want to build these big ass mansions. Of course there’s the cost of material, but ultimately, The most critical thing to consider is people who actually build it. What I have personally observed is that a lot of these Beverly Hills mansions are actually being built by contractors, who contract out the labor to Mexican immigrant workers, whether legal or illegal.
In California, whenever you see a person who looks Latino who works in construction, just speaks Spanish to them. A lot of them are from Mexico, some of them are from Guadalajara, Honduras, other places from southern America. They almost all speak Spanish.
It seems that the most interesting people to talk to is actually the people who run the facilities, hygiene, the janitor. Why? They really know what is behind-the-scenes.
For example, one of my new friends his name is Noel. He used to work at the California club, the extremely elite high-end exclusive club for politicians dignitaries, Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger whatever. He told me the true scoop behind-the-scenes, because when you work as a janitor and you clean spaces, You really do see peoples true colors behind-the-scenes.
For example, apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger is fake. In front of the other people on the cameras he smiles and takes pictures and whatever, but the second he goes behind-the-scenes, and there are all these Mexican Latino janitors workers and staff, he gives them the culture and doesn’t even acknowledge their existence.
Also, apparently a lot of the old money, the real rich people, a lot of them who have either passed away or are very very old now, or actually pretty low-key. The dress in plain clothing, and just drive some old Mercedes car, whereas a lot of their children, the air of their fortune, drive flashy exotic cars like McLaren, Lamborghinis for whatever. we must consider nepotism; a lot of these kids, whose parents are super rich, simply inherited their wealth, and they blow it on stupid things like cars, clothes, drugs, alcohol, clubs, prostitutes, strippers, women etc.
I personally care because I grew up poor, and ultimately money is the thing that fascinates everybody. Even these stupid fake woke and artist communist; come on, they all have iPhones, have Instagram, maybe own a dog or a pet or a cat or something, and even if they want to live off the grid in Portland or the Midwest or whatever, they still have some sort of automobile car which requires either gasoline, or even recharging their electric car. I find these fake ass hippies to be very disingenuous, the new modern day losers.
 First, I think it is a good idea to try to participate in local politics, the politics of your local neighborhood your local local city, local courthouse, maybe even the politics of your school, your kids school, parents association, the local nature center whatever. certainly you want to add more obligations to your life, but having the privilege in the luxury of participating in politics is the new luxury.
For example, if you get that stupid traffic ticket, the traffic camera ticket or whatever, maybe even if you are in the wrong, it is a good idea to try to contest it, show up to court, and try to make a plea before the judge. You still might be charged, but, Often you could do fun things like community service or doing other unorthodox things to get it off your record. Maybe we should think of this like a luxury; to “waste time” is the new luxury.
To me, the best way to think about all the stuff is to think ancient Greek literature, even the ancient Roman stuff. Or maybe think about the Medici, Italy, coinage, international trade etc.
Back in ancient Greek times, it seems that a lot of wealth was produced via the sea; military prowess in the sea, as well as international trade, by boat. Consider all the wealth that was made importing coffee from Ethiopia into the Middle East, the term arabica comes from Arab, because the Arabs loved coffee, and the origin of the Araica coffea Plant was from Ethiopia.  Later other strands were created in Java, and in Indonesia, I think the Dutch made a killing importing products goods from Indonesia and propagating it worldwide.
Even the international spice trade, and salt. Becken inch in Roman times, salt was one of the most prized commodities, a gold. Even the term “salary”, was based on the notion of paying a Roman legionary soldier with salt, or remember the biblical notion that a man is not “worth his salt“.
Apparently there is a really good historical book on the history of debt. I’ve been kind of meaning to read it, but from what I understand, maybe the origin of money is actually from debt.
For example, a lot of the early cuneiform form, and early writing was simply to see who owed what to who. 
In fact, the reason why I am enthusiastic about this notion of a block chain is that you can track money on a public ledger … the original ledger once again was to record debt.
It is commonly written in the Bible, ancient Abraham religious text that debt is immoral. I think maybe even in the Torah, or Jewish law says one should not lend more than a certain percent of money to somebody else.
In fact, it seems that a lot of wealth is made on naturally, by people simply moving around debt interest as well as loans.
For example, if you buy a house, but you take out a mortgage, who owns your home? Not you, the bank.
It doesn’t matter if you put 10% down 20% down 50% down or even 90% down… As long as even a fraction of that house is mortgage, the bank technically on your house. It doesn’t matter how many times you refinance, borrow money against your home, it is still not yours.
Moral of the story: 
ERIC

“White people make money don’t spend it, I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”. – Kanye
Thinking about money:
“Money sets the whole world in motion” – Publius Syrus
Do you know when people say that money makes the world go round? This is true.
So what is money anyways?
First, money is fiat, faith-based. Fiat currency.
Currency is an interesting word and term because it evokes the feeling of water, movement, river streams and tide pools.
So first of all, let us consider the notion of “income streams“. There’s this notion of “passive income”, I think first popularized or maybe coined by Tim Feriss, in his four hour work week. But I believe there to be a myth of passive income which means, income is and must be active. You cannot just sit on your butt and collect rent.
Also with rent, rent money is funny because even if you’re collecting rent, there’s a lot of work management you gotta do. For example, you have to fix and maintain your properties, make sure that your tenants pay their rent money, do background checks, deal with vacancies etc. It is one of those things that we as renters feel that the landlords have all the power, but in fact, assuming that you’re already wealthy, you actually might have more power as a renter than a landlord. Why? If you have a very good apartment and it is rent controlled, technically according to NASSIM TALEB you have greater optionality.

What that means is that you have a privilege to live somewhere, not an obligation. In theory you can leave whenever you want, and you’re not behelden to the property.
In regards to the ancient Greeks, I think they may be the best model because starting from Roman times, their society already started to seep into degeneration, degeneracy. Even during Homer’s time, Homer was already saying that the ancient Greeks were falling into degeneracy, even when he was writing the Iliad. 
I am currently reading Politics by Aristotle, and I find it to be a really fascinating read. Essentially what he says about household economics etc., as well as his thoughts on substantive versus speculative finance, real versus fake finance. He essentially says that real finance has to deal with animals and fruits of the earth, everything else is just imaginary.
Also, his thoughts on slavery. Essentially in ancient Greek times, the ultimate goal was to have the laborers, slaves, craftsman, mechanics do all the dirty work, and the true nobleman and free man would just use all of his time and leisure for building virtue, philosophical thinking, and participating in politics, the politics of the local city state, the polis.
In modern-day times we always think about politics like it pertains to international politics whatever. But the original term politics referred to the polis, the immediate city-state. It was not focused on foreign affairs.
What I like about Aristotle and his writings is that he’s always talking about the ideal, and talks a lot about studying from the best of the past and the current, in order to formulate his thoughts. Also his writing is straight simple and clear, and very authoritative. For example, he quotes Plato and his Republic, and straight up says: “Plato is wrong.” Almost as hilarious and ballsy as when Nietzsche said: “Plato is boring.”
Two things: Pay rent money, pay for food and groceries, and basic utilities, like your Wi-Fi, gas and electric, gas for your car etc. Beyond that, what else do you really need? 
Another fun experiment I’m doing is just paying for rent money by using the profit on my cryptocurrency speculations, simply using Coinbase, and profits from chainlink. For personal reference, I am currently 90% invested in chainlink, 10% in bitcoin. I believe this to be an interesting barbell for a risky yet “safe” investment speculation, in thinking the next 30 or 40 years.
Also, in terms of our cryptocurrency assets, we don’t have more than 10% of our whole life savings tied into cryptocurrency. Therefore if it all goes to zero in theory, not really a big deal. But my personal belief:
Bitcoin will never go down to zero.
A very interesting thing that I learned from NASSIM TALEB, maybe it was written in his book ANTIFRAGILE, is this notion of decimation. The basic idea is that in ancient Roman times the army, if cowardice was suspected, at random, 10% of the army would be put to death, it was a good way to prevent cowardice, especially one facing an impressive enemy. 
10% is interesting because in theory, if you lose 10% of your army, it is not enough to significantly lose your forces. A 10% loss is more than acceptable. For example let us say that you’re playing StarCraft, and you got an army of zealots, all upgraded with dash and full armor upgrades, if you lose 10% of them, you could still kill the army of zerg maybe if you do good enough micro management of the units. 
Finances is also similar — best to have 90% of your money in insanely secure bonds, CDs or stuff that might be inflation, even a simple savings account at 5%. Then put 10% of your money in extremely speculative cryptocurrency speculations, rather than putting 100% of your money and boring “medium risk” funds.
“Never trust a risk number even if it is right.”- TALEB 
First and foremost, economics, being an economist, is the new hocus pocus of modern day times. The reason why economists are so highly regarded is that currently speaking the new global religion is capital and capitalism.
Therefore as a consequence, the new modern-day priests are economists, and these fake talking Heads on the TV screen.
The reason why we should trust no economist, is that they use fake numbers statistics and fake math to justify their thoughts and positions. Even Nate Silver, who everyone thinks is some sort of genius, mispredicted Trump getting elected into office. Why? Even if you’re a statistician with 99% accuracy, the one percent of the time you’re wrong, it could cost billions of dollars.
The reason why we should also not trust no economist is that most of them are protected from the real world. Their opinions reports and thought pieces have no connection to reality. A lot of them are getting a fat salary and steady paycheck from their tenured professor positions at Harvard Yale Princeton or whatever, and therefore the predictions thoughts they have, have no bearing on their own personal finances.
Better instead to trust individual individuals who actually have skin in the game, or money in the game. That is that your opinion is tied to your own personal bank account, if your opinion is right, you make the big bucks, but if you’re wrong, you lose your shirt.
One of the best things about growing up poor and when you have seen your mom go through bankruptcy twice is that in some funny ways, it makes you more brazen, less fearful. Witnessing my mom go bankrupt, because my dad gambled away the rent money and we couldn’t pay rent, and she would just rack up credit card bills just to pay basic expenses, what I learned is at the end it’s not that bad. My mom got family support, community support, church support, and ultimately she was OK in the very end.
So for myself, the reason why I have such a high tolerance for risk is essentially nowadays, I live like a poor person. My New Year’s resolution is to buy nothing; or close to nothing, or just to not buy stuff that I consider silly or superfluous. Even acquiring free stuff; to me that is just more clutter in my mind in my life and my home; we new elite is about minimalism, even to a fault. 
Also, the American entrepreneurial spirit. Even my dad when he first came to the states, was extremely entrepreneurial. He started his own business when I was very very young, I think selling audio equipment. As he had a passion for music movies and film and cinema. I actually think his great ambition of life was to become a great film director. Even at a young age, I recall him watching Alfred Hitchcock the birds, Schindler’s list, and all these other great avant- garde films.
So now, raising Seneca, he is currently two years, around 11 months old… his training is very simple; simple, physical, Spartan. 99% of the day we are just at the local nature center, hiking on dirt paths, walking around, doing gymnastics at the playground, even now, I bought some wooden gymnast rings which I just hang from my parking spot in the back of my apartment, and he could swing around it, and hang around it! It is pretty amazing.
Another thing I learned from Aristotle’s Politics is that with children and child rearing, the logical order is first physical training and gymnastics, second is nutrition and feeding, third is the intellect. It seems some modern day tides we do the total opposite; we don’t really focus on physical exercise for kids, we just try to make them look smart. But book smarts is bad smarts; real smarts comes from the real world.
As a consequence, I probably literally spent close to no money on him. The only thing that we paid for in the early days were maybe diapers, and buying some random stuff on Amazon like training underwear, etc.
Now, he eats wagyu ground beef well in the air fryer, pro tip just toss a bunch of small broken up pieces of ground beef in the air fryer for 10 minutes, sprinkle it with some salt and pepper and give it to your kid! I think precisely because Seneca was born and fed such a high meat diet, he is the buff strong and tall boy he is today.
What is the proper use of money?
For myself, Costco. Funny enough it looks like out of all of my normal stock investments, Costco is doing the best! Why? As inflation goes up, food gets more expensive etc., everyone likes to think that they’re not being “ripped off”– nobody likes to think that they are overpaying for anything. Costco is funny because it is almost like Walmart but with a good conscience; a lot of middle-class even rich people have thought of Walmart as akin to the devil; whereas Costco has warm fuzzy feelings. Half of the fun even myself as a kid going to Costco was getting the hotdogs at the food court, and also getting all the free samples! Costco is almost like going to Disneyland, with benefits.
To me, the only real food substance is meat. You could thrive on 100% carnivore meat red meat diet, good luck with lentils beans and potatoes. That is poverty food. 100% red meat beef lamb diet is fit for the gods.
Let us consider, the nonsenseness of veganism; the etymology and history of vegan comes from vegetarian, vegetarianism. Essentially the vegans were the more hardcore vegetarians; the word “vegan”, essentially is the word vegetarian with fewer letters.
Honestly I think being vegan is more of an ethical thing rather than a physiological concern. This is where vegetarians are more honest than vegans; a lot of people who are vegetarian do it for religious regions, for example people from India or south Asia, or some people just don’t really like the taste of meat or flesh, prefer to eat cheese eggs dairy and fish instead. 
What I also love about studying ancient history, Rome, the Iliad, thinking about Homer is that back then, there was none of this nonsensical being “woke“, or political correctness. The Greeks were a hard and simple race; you were either Greek or a barbarian. Even the word barbarian is originated from the notion of “bar-bar”– anyone who did not speak Greek, their language sounded like somebody saying “bar bar bar”.
And also this is where notions of “white supremacy“, or being “white”, is nonsensical. Were the ancient Greeks “white”? No. They were olive skinned, very tan.
We acknowledge and understand that the ancient Greeks were probably the peak human and society of its time; maybe it makes sense for us to go back to the fountains, and for us to seek to imitate the best of the best, the crème la crop of the past.
First, in the time of Homer, the Iliad the odyssey etc.; there was no notion of coins, or coined money or currency. The notion of coin is actually pretty good, like bitcoin, because the original minted money was actually coins, not paper money.
Also, gold. Gold was always highly valued throughout all of history, even during the time of Homer and the Iliad. For example the greed of king Agamemnon, what did he want? More gold, more women, more land, more slaves, more power.
Even as a sidenote; an Achilles was told by his father figure that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he lorded over more men. 
During the time of Homer, and the Iliad; wealth was concentrated in food and meat, oxen; the notion of a “hectacomb” was the generalized notion that if you wanted to appease the gods and make a sacrifice, you had to sacrifice 100 oxen, which was a lot. Why? An ox is interesting because you could eat it, and also you could use it as manual labor. Maybe back in the day, having one ox was almost like the modern day notion of having a Lamborghini; can you imagine sacrificing and burning 100 Lamborghinis to appease the gods?
If I ever had to rename myself I would just need myself Achilles. Why? He is nearly invulnerable and invincible; what is it that he wanted in the Iliad? Honestly he was tired of war and conquest and battle; he just wanted to chill out, retire, enjoy his land and pastures, and enjoy Breisis his prize.
Even Achilles said wisely; No amount of wealth in the world is worth a life, my life. Not if you took all the wealth of the world, all the gold of the world, and multiplied it by 65. Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever.
Even in today’s world, I don’t think sacrificing your life your own personal life is worth anything; I would only ever ever ever sacrifice my life it was for the sake of Seneca’s life, or Cindy‘s life, or both. Otherwise, I have zero interest in being drafted to go to some sort of senseless war, in order for America to procure more oil or whatever.
And this is where I believe that war is so superficial; would you be willing to send your own personal blood son, your first born son, to fight in the front lines of Afghanistan or whatever, for some sort of strange political advantage? No.
Things are starting to get ridiculous. In LA and Culver City, you can’t find a good single-family home for less than $2 million. Even a $2 million or $3 million home, it’s not really in the best neighborhood either which is 100% pedestrian friendly. I was looking at this brand new $3 million house, which is pretty nice, but it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, I cannot enjoy my lovely morning walks as I do just walking from my apartment from the arts district.
I wonder if renting is actually superior than owning because you got more optionality, less obligation. 
“You work for a living, I live for a living” – Jay Z
Ultimately what is it that we really seek to do, our desired activity?
I think what we really desire to do at the end of the day is physical activity, vigorous activity, to be physical. Physics, human physics, our own human body.
We want to walk around, go on hikes, be in nature, go to the beach, swim around, walk around mountain paths, pick up heavy things, throw around rocks, do fun gymnastics things, hot yoga, lift weights etc.
The ultimate luxury in today’s world is the human body. It all matter if you own 100 Ferraris, if you are obese, old and fat, none of it is worth it.
Even I was randomly doing some research about Hugh Hefner, the big issue is that apparently he just lived in his Holmby Hills mansion for his whole life, wearing nothing but silk pajamas, taking weird hallucinogen drugs and Viagra, in poor health, having sex with all of these random women, forcing them to do drugs, get plastic surgery etc. 
I think the weird notion is a lot of men, they seek to become some sort of playboy? To grow a beard, buy a bunch of guns, have sex with all these women, massive orgies with all these beautiful women, for the sake of what?
In today’s modern day capitalistic society, women are the new objects, the new products being sold. The strange promise is this; you get rich successful and famous, you get the Lamborghini or the Ferrari, and then suddenly all these beautiful women will flock to you, want to have sex with you, fulfill all your weird sexual fantasies, etc., and suddenly you’ll be happy for the rest of your life?
It seems the weird sexual perversion we have in today’s world is that maybe… the trend is we want some sort of 100% subservient female sex bot, 100% obey us, and fulfill our sexual desires? 
But let us not forget, the purpose and function of sex is for us to beget children; the hormones and the good feelings associated with it is to promote bonding between the man and woman, and to solidify the family relationship. This is where I am pro monogamy; even Zeus was married to Hera! Although he did sleep around a lot. 
One of the greatest things that was born out of Covid was the Facebook buy nothing groups. Essentially close to 100% of all the baby stuff we got for Seneca was for free from the buy nothing group. Cindy would just message other moms, get a bunch of free baby hand-me-down stuff, and we literally paid close to nothing for all of his baby stuff. I estimate that from the buy nothing group, Cindy might’ve saved us close to $15,000.
Ultimately I think money is like some sort of game; the game of not spending money seems to be more interesting than spending money.
There is nothing morally or ethically wrong about spending money, the only issue at hand is when people spend money in some sort of boring way, they go into debt, credit card debt or whatever, and as a consequence, they lose their freedom?
***
I don’t know if this is yet a notion, this notion an idea of “financial fitness“. The general, generalized idea is this: we talk about physical fitness, physical health or whatever, yet we never talk about financial health, financial fitness whatever.
Perhaps the reason I don’t like or trust all these other random people who talk about finances ultimately, they are selling some sort of product, service, or they are sponsored by advertising and advertisers. The big problem about this is that their opinions are not pure, also in my opinion, not critical.
I have never met anybody in real life why consider financially successful, maybe besides my friend Todd Hata, who maybe works only one day a year, and he is enjoying his digital nomad life, traveling the world. His simple studio lighting company on Amazon is genius, his bread and butter is these photo clamps. 
Another friend of mine who I consider very financially successful is Don Dillon,  who made his fortune building up his own company, later selling it, and after building an art house in Arizona, later selling it, and just opting for more low-key lifestyle, just living in a simple condo with his wife Diane in Dana point, Orange County California.
Something cool about Don, he used to own a Porsche race car, has a Porsche 911 GT three, ultimately, just prefers to drive his dodge ram truck around. At this point of life, he just wants to focus on travel and photography.
Also, another private workshop student of mine, who actually designed princes phallic purple guitar, also was in the Ferrari scene, I think he might’ve owned 10 to 50 Ferraris, used to go to all these car meet ups and racing stuff, it ultimately sold all of it, and just bought a simple Lexus RX car, to deal with the Minnesota winters.
My personal hot chick in LA, being in LA, even spending a lot of time in Orange County whatever, is that a lot of people are “fake rich“, this means that it seems that they are rich and successful and wealthy or whatever, but in fact, they are living paycheck to paycheck, and also are in deep debt.  For example, as long as you have a mortgage on your house, you ain’t free. Doesn’t matter if your house is valued at five or $10 million or whatever, as long as you have to pay a monthly mortgage payment, you are still in debt. And don’t throw this nonsense, equity”, around; or even notions of “net worth”, not critical. The only true wealth is to have zero debt, zero obligations, zero mortgage, own zero property.
Even the problem about property ownership, even if you bought the house or whatever in all cash; maintenance fees.
 I’ve been thinking a lot about condominiums lately, no one hand it seems like a good idea and on another hand it seems like a little bit of a scam.
I suppose a good thing about having a condo or only a condo, like my friend Timothy Flanagan is that if you’re abroad a lot and travel a lot, Technically the upside of owning your own home condominium thing is that ultimately, you have a place to store your stuff, a little bit more space, maybe you have a garage or a basement or something, and you could just leave your stuff there, somebody else will maintain your property, and after you travel, you still have a place to come back home to.
One thing I am actually insanely grateful for is the fact that Cindy, Cindy‘s mom, Cindy‘s family owned their own single-family home, in Orange County, and the great upside is that while Cindy and I was traveling the world, living off the grid, no matting around, living abroad in Vietnam Japan for about two years, we still had a home address that we could send our mail to, a study home address where we could file our taxes, credit card reports, bank statements whatever. Apparently a lot of people who adopt a digital nomad lifestyle, and have no real family connections, the big issue is that still… It is good to have a solid and steady home address where you could send financial paperwork to.
Something also very cool that my friend Timothy Flanagan did was opting for an early retirement, I think he officially retired last year, maybe at age 52?
Also, an interesting funny thing is that a lot of people actually have the option of retiring early, if you’re in the school system you could technically retire as early as age 50! Granted your pension and your Social Security or your financial fund isn’t that much money, but still… To no longer have to show up to work, For the rest of your life, at the young and ripe age of 50 years old… Isn’t that great?
Perhaps the big issue here is that people put too much of their self-esteem and their self-worth into their occupation. Yet, if we think about the movie 300, and King Leonidas asks his Spartan 300; “what is your profession“? They all throw their spears into the air and go “woot!”
My critical thought is that it seems that honestly speaking, most people don’t really know what they want in life, nor maybe they don’t have the courage to actually pause and assert with a truly desire and want in life?
For example, I often ask people if you magically had $100 million deposited into your personal checking account, and never had to worry about money again… What would you do with your life, how would you live your life? The typical responses are a bit Standard; travel the world, buy a house and some property etc. He had most people don’t really go beyond that.
To me the notion of financial independence retire early, “fire“, is the point in which you no longer make money cruel tied with your own personal self-esteem. Just think; once you could pay rent, pay for groceries and meet at Costco, basic utilities like gas electric Wi-Fi your phone bill etc., what else do you really need?
Once you retire, or once you’re financially robust, then what?
My thought is just focus on art, your arts production, your creative activities, your full self thinking and writing and production, publishing your ideas thoughts and creations etc. 
Let us consider that for most people, towards the end of their life, a lot of people who made their millions, and now are in their 80s, mid 80s, early 80s, late 80s… What is it that they focus on?
It seems art. Either art production, art purchasing, art accrual, art creation etc. What is the basic notion behind all of this? The basic notion is that people have a desire and an impetus to create art, share art, and propagate art. It is in our body, our souls, our sinews our blood. 
Simple thoughts:
This is almost everything.  This includes television, sports, magazines, newspapers, anything on the Internet or blogs or websites that is supported by Google sense advertising, YouTube, trust no YouTube, YouTuber who has advertisements on their channel.
The reason why it is wise to cancel advertising from your life in your brain and your eyes and your ears is that we are actually much more influenced and nudged and brainwashed by advertising then we think we are. For example, I think the mind is actually very very sensitive; and as artist, we have extreme sensitivity to ideas sounds, bodily sensations whatever… Don’t think that you are immune to it. In fact, my personal wisdom is that I know that I am actually very very easily influenced by almost anything and everything; therefore the best way to protect yourself is active defense; delete delete delete, delete all the advertising from your life.
My personal thought is that money is just codified human labor. For example, the best way to use money, should be hiring labor. For example you have all these people in Beverly Hills, Homeview Hills etc., who want to build these big ass mansions. Of course there’s the cost of material, but ultimately, The most critical thing to consider is people who actually build it. What I have personally observed is that a lot of these Beverly Hills mansions are actually being built by contractors, who contract out the labor to Mexican immigrant workers, whether legal or illegal.
In California, whenever you see a person who looks Latino who works in construction, just speaks Spanish to them. A lot of them are from Mexico, some of them are from Guadalajara, Honduras, other places from southern America. They almost all speak Spanish.
It seems that the most interesting people to talk to is actually the people who run the facilities, hygiene, the janitor. Why? They really know what is behind-the-scenes.
For example, one of my new friends his name is Noel. He used to work at the California club, the extremely elite high-end exclusive club for politicians dignitaries, Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger whatever. He told me the true scoop behind-the-scenes, because when you work as a janitor and you clean spaces, You really do see peoples true colors behind-the-scenes.
For example, apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger is fake. In front of the other people on the cameras he smiles and takes pictures and whatever, but the second he goes behind-the-scenes, and there are all these Mexican Latino janitors workers and staff, he gives them the culture and doesn’t even acknowledge their existence.
Also, apparently a lot of the old money, the real rich people, a lot of them who have either passed away or are very very old now, or actually pretty low-key. The dress in plain clothing, and just drive some old Mercedes car, whereas a lot of their children, the air of their fortune, drive flashy exotic cars like McLaren, Lamborghinis for whatever. we must consider nepotism; a lot of these kids, whose parents are super rich, simply inherited their wealth, and they blow it on stupid things like cars, clothes, drugs, alcohol, clubs, prostitutes, strippers, women etc.
I personally care because I grew up poor, and ultimately money is the thing that fascinates everybody. Even these stupid fake woke and artist communist; come on, they all have iPhones, have Instagram, maybe own a dog or a pet or a cat or something, and even if they want to live off the grid in Portland or the Midwest or whatever, they still have some sort of automobile car which requires either gasoline, or even recharging their electric car. I find these fake ass hippies to be very disingenuous, the new modern day losers.
 First, I think it is a good idea to try to participate in local politics, the politics of your local neighborhood your local local city, local courthouse, maybe even the politics of your school, your kids school, parents association, the local nature center whatever. certainly you want to add more obligations to your life, but having the privilege in the luxury of participating in politics is the new luxury.
For example, if you get that stupid traffic ticket, the traffic camera ticket or whatever, maybe even if you are in the wrong, it is a good idea to try to contest it, show up to court, and try to make a plea before the judge. You still might be charged, but, Often you could do fun things like community service or doing other unorthodox things to get it off your record. Maybe we should think of this like a luxury; to “waste time” is the new luxury.
To me, the best way to think about all the stuff is to think ancient Greek literature, even the ancient Roman stuff. Or maybe think about the Medici, Italy, coinage, international trade etc.
Back in ancient Greek times, it seems that a lot of wealth was produced via the sea; military prowess in the sea, as well as international trade, by boat. Consider all the wealth that was made importing coffee from Ethiopia into the Middle East, the term arabica comes from Arab, because the Arabs loved coffee, and the origin of the Araica coffea Plant was from Ethiopia.  Later other strands were created in Java, and in Indonesia, I think the Dutch made a killing importing products goods from Indonesia and propagating it worldwide.
Even the international spice trade, and salt. Becken inch in Roman times, salt was one of the most prized commodities, a gold. Even the term “salary”, was based on the notion of paying a Roman legionary soldier with salt, or remember the biblical notion that a man is not “worth his salt“.
Apparently there is a really good historical book on the history of debt. I’ve been kind of meaning to read it, but from what I understand, maybe the origin of money is actually from debt.
For example, a lot of the early cuneiform form, and early writing was simply to see who owed what to who. 
In fact, the reason why I am enthusiastic about this notion of a block chain is that you can track money on a public ledger … the original ledger once again was to record debt.
It is commonly written in the Bible, ancient Abraham religious text that debt is immoral. I think maybe even in the Torah, or Jewish law says one should not lend more than a certain percent of money to somebody else.
In fact, it seems that a lot of wealth is made on naturally, by people simply moving around debt interest as well as loans.
For example, if you buy a house, but you take out a mortgage, who owns your home? Not you, the bank.
It doesn’t matter if you put 10% down 20% down 50% down or even 90% down… As long as even a fraction of that house is mortgage, the bank technically on your house. It doesn’t matter how many times you refinance, borrow money against your home, it is still not yours.
Moral of the story: 
ERIC

“White people make money don’t spend it, I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”. – Kanye
Thinking about money:
Money is the thing that sets the whole world in motion, Publius Syrus
Do you know when people say that money makes the world go round? This is true.
So what is money anyways?
First, money is Fiat, faith-based. Fiat currency.
Currency is an interesting word and term because it evokes the feeling of water, movement, river streams and tide pools.
 so first of all, let us consider the notion of “income streams“. There’s this notion of “passive income”, I think first popularized or maybe coined by Tim Ferris, in his four hour work week. But I believe there to be a myth of passive income which means, income is and must be active. You cannot just sit on your butt and collect rent.
Also with rent, rent money is funny because even if you’re collecting rent, there’s a lot of work management you gotta do. For example, you have to fix and maintain your properties, make sure that your tenants pay their rent money, do background checks, deal with vacancies etc. It is one of those things that we as renters feel that the landlords have all the power, but in fact, assuming that you’re already wealthy, you actually might have more power as a renter than a landlord. Why? If you have a very good apartment and it is rent controlled, technically according to NASSIM TALEB you have greater optionality.

What that means is that you have a privilege to live somewhere, not an obligation. In theory you can leave whenever you want, and you’re not be held in to the property.
In regards to the ancient Greeks, I think they may be the best model because starting from Roman times, their society already started to seep into degeneration, degeneracy. Even during Homer’s time, Homer was already saying that the ancient Greeks were falling into degeneracy, even when he was writing the Iliad. 
I am currently reading politics by Aristotle, and I find it to be a really fascinating read. Essentially what he says about household economics etc., as well as his thoughts on substantive versus speculative finance, real versus fake finance. He essentially says that real finance has to deal with animals and fruits of the earth, everything else is just imaginary.
Also, his thoughts on slavery. Essentially in ancient Greek times, ultimate goal was to have the laborers, slaves, craftsman, mechanics do all the dirty work, and the true Noble man and Freeman would just use all of his time and leisure for building virtue, philosophical thinking, and participating in politics, the politics of the local city state, the polis.
In modern day times we always think about politics like it pertains to international politics whatever. But the original term politics referred to the police, the immediate state. It was not focused on foreign affairs.
 What do you like about Aristotle and his writings is that he’s always talking about the ideal, and talks a lot about studying from the best of the past and the current, in order to formulate his thoughts. Also his writing is thread simple and clear, and very authoritative. For example, he quotes Plato and his Republic, and straight up says: “Plato is wrong.” Almost as hilarious and ballsy as when Nietzsche said: “Plato is boring.”
Two things: pay rent money, pay for food and groceries, and basic utilities, like your Wi-Fi, gas and electric, gas for your car etc. Beyond that, what else do you really need? 
Occur fun experiment I’m doing is just paying for rent money by using the profit on my cryptocurrency speculations, simply using Coinbase, and profits from chain-link. For personal reference, I am currently 90% invested in chain-link, 10% in bitcoin. I believe this to be an interesting parallel for a risky yet “safe” Investments speculation, I’m thinking the next 30 or 40 years.
Also, in terms of our cryptocurrency assets, we don’t have more than 10% of our whole life savings tied into cryptocurrency. Therefore if it all goes to zero in theory, not really a big deal.
A very interesting thing that I learned from NASSIM TALEB, maybe it was written in his book antifragile, is this notion of decimation. The basic idea is that in ancient Roman times the army, if cowardice was suspected, at random, 10% of the army would be put to death, it was a good way to prevent cowardice, especially one facing an impressive enemy. 
10% is interesting because in theory, if you lose 10% of your army, it is not enough to significantly lose your forces. A 10% loss is more than acceptable. For example let us say that you’re playing StarCraft, and you got an army of Zealots, all upgraded with dash and full armor upgrades, if you lose 10% of them, you could still kill the army of Zerg maybe if you do good enough micro management of the units. 
Finances is also similar — best to have 90% of your money in insanely secure bonds, CDs or stuff that might be inflation, even a simple savings account at 5%. Then put 10% of your money in extremely speculative cryptocurrency speculations, rather than putting 100% of your money and boring “medium risk” funds.
“Never trust a risk number even if it is right.”- TALEB 
First and foremost, economics, being an economist, is a new Hocus Pocus of modern day times. The reason why economist are so highly regarded is that currently speaking the new global religion is capital and capitalism.
Therefore as a consequence, the new modern-day priests are economist, and these fake Talking Heads on the TV screen.
The reason why we should trust no economist, is that the use fake numbers statistics and fake math to justify their thoughts and positions. Even needs silver, who everyone thinks is some sort of genius, miss predicted Trump getting elected into office. Why? Even if you’re a statistician with 99% accuracy, the one percent of the time you’re wrong, it could cost billions of dollars.
The reason why we should also not trust a con is that most of them are protected from the real world. Their opinions reports and thought pieces have no connection to reality. A lot of them are getting a fat salary and study paycheck from their tenure professor positions at Harvard Yale Princeton or whatever, and therefore the predictions thoughts they have, have no bearing on their own personal finances.
Two instead of trust individual individuals who actually have skin in the game, or money in the game. That is that your opinion is tied to your own personal bank account, if your opinion is right, you make the big bucks, but if you’re wrong, you lose your shirt.
What are the best things about growing up poor and when they seen your mom go through bankruptcy twice is that it’s some funny ways, it makes you more brazen, less fearful. Witnessing my mom go bankrupt, because my dad gambled away the rent money and we couldn’t pay rent, and she would just rack up credit card bills just to pay basic expenses, What I learned is at the end it’s not that bad. My mom got family support, community support, church support, and ultimately she was OK and the very end.
So for myself, the reason why I have such a high tolerance for risk is essentially nowadays, I live like a poor person. My New Year’s resolution is to buy nothing; or close to nothing, or just to not buy stuff that I consider silly or superfluous. Even acquiring free stuff; to me that is just more clutter in my mind in my life and my home; we new elite is about minimalism, even to a fault. 
Also, the American entrepreneurial spirits. Even my dad when he first came to the states, was extremely entrepreneurial. He started his own business when I was very very young, I think selling audio equipment. As he had a passion for music movies and film in cinema. I actually think his great ambition of life wants to become a great film Director. Even at a young age, I recall him watching Alfred Hitchcock the birds, Schindler’s list, and all these other great avant- Garde films.
So now, raising Seneca, he is currently two years, around 11 months old… His training is very simple; simple, osteria, Spartan. 99% of the day we are just at the local nature center, hiking on dirt paths, walking around, Doing gymnastics at the playground, even now, I bought some wooden gymnast rings which I just hang from my parking spot in the back of my apartment, and he could swing around it, and hang around it! It is pretty amazing.
Another thing I learned from Aristotle politics is that with children and child rearing, the logical order is first physical training and gymnastics, second is nutrition and feeding, third is the intellect. It seems some modern day tides we do the total opposite; we don’t really focus on physical exercise for kids, we just try to make them look smart. But book smarts is bad smarts; real smarts comes from the real world.
 as a consequence, I probably literally spent close to no money on him. The only thing that we paid for in the early days were maybe diapers, and buying some random stuff on Amazon like training underwear, etc.
Now, he eats Wagyu ground beef well in the air fryer, pro tip just toss a bunch of small broken up pieces of ground beef in the air fryer for 10 minutes, sprinkle it with some salt and pepper and give it to your kid! I think precisely because Seneca was born and fed such a high meat diet, he is the buff strong and tall boy he is today.
What is the proper use of money?
For myself, Costco. Funny enough it looks like out of all of my normal stock investments, Costco is doing the best! Why? As inflation goes up, food gets more expensive etc., everyone likes to think that they’re not being “gyped”–  nobody likes to think that they are overpaying for anything. Costco is funny because it is almost like Walmart but with a good conscience; a lot of middle-class even rich people have thought of Walmart as a kin to the devil; whereas Costco has warm fuzzy feelings. Half of the fun even myself as a kid going to Costco was getting the hotdogs at the food court, and also getting all the free samples! Costco is almost like going to Disneyland, with benefits.
To me, the only real food substance is meat. You could thrive on 100% carnivore meat red meat diet, good luck with lentils beans and potatoes. That is poverty food. 100% red meat beef lamb diet is fit for the gods.
Let us consider, the nonsensory of veganism; etymology in history of vegan comes from vegetarian, vegetarianism. Essentially the vegans were the more hard-core vegetarian; the word “vegan”, essentially is the word vegetarian with fewer letters. 
Honestly I think being vegan is more of an ethical thing rather than a physiological concern. This is where vegetarians are more honest than vegan; a lot of people who are vegetarian do it for religious regions, for example people from India or south Asia, or some people just don’t really like the taste of meat or flesh, prefer to eat cheese eggs dairy and Fish instead. 
What I also love about studying ancient history, Rome, Iliad, thinking about Homer is that back then, there was none of this nonsensical being “woke“, or political quietness. The Greeks were a hard and simple race; you were either Greek or a barbarian. Even the word barbarian is Originated from the notion of “bar-bar”– anyone who did not speak Greek, their language sounded like somebody saying “bar bar bar”.
And also this is where notions of “white supremacy“, or being “white”, is nonsensical. Where are the ancient Greeks “white”? No. They were olive skinned, very tan.
We acknowledge and understand that the ancient Greeks were probably the peak human and society of its time; maybe it makes sense for us to go back to the fountains, and for us to seek to imitate the best of the best, the crème la crop of the past.
First, in the time of Homer, the Elliot the odyssey etc.; there was no notion of courage, or coined money or currency. The notion of coin is actually pretty good, like bitcoin, because the original minted money was actually coins, not paper money.
Also, gold. Gold was always highly valued throughout all of history, even during the time of Homer and Elliot. For example the greed of king Agamemnon, what did you want? More gold, more women, more land, more slaves, more power.
Even as a sidenote; an Achilles was told by his father figure that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he lorded over more men. 
During the time of Homer, and the Elliott; wealth was concentrated in food and meat, oxen; the notion of a “hectic” was the generalized notion that if you wanted to appease the gods and make a sacrifice, you had to sacrifice 100 oxen, which was a lot. Why? An ox is interesting because you could eat it, and also you could use it as manual labor. Maybe back in the day, having one ox was almost like the modern day notion of having a Lamborghini; can you imagine sacrificing and burning 100 Lamborghinis to appease the gods?
If I ever had to rename myself I would just need myself Achilles. Why? He is nearly in vulnerable and invincible; what is it that he wanted in the Iliad?  honestly he was tired of war and conquest and battle; he just wanted to chill out, retire, enjoy his land and pastures, and enjoy Breisis his prize.
Even Achilles said wisely; no amount of wealth in the world is worth a life, my life. Not if you took all the wealth of the world, all the goals of the world, and multiplied by 65. Once you’re dead, you’re dead forever.
Even in today’s world, I don’t think sacrificing your life your own personal life is worth anything; I would only ever ever ever sacrifice my life it was for the sake of Seneca’s life, or Cindy‘s life, or both. Otherwise, I have zero interest in being Drafted to go to some sort of senseless war, in order for America to procure more oil or whatever.
And this is where I believe that war is so superficial; would you be willing to send your own personal blood son, your first born son, to fight in the front lines of Afghanistan or whatever, for some sort of strange political advantage? No.
Things are starting to get ridiculous. In LA and Culver City, you can’t find a good single-family home for less than $2 million. Even a $2 million or $3 million home, it’s not really in the best neighborhood either which is 100% pedestrian friendly. I was looking at this brand new $3 million house, which is pretty nice, but it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, I cannot enjoy my lovely morning walks as I do just walking from my apartment from the arts district.
I wonder if renting is actually superior than owning because you got more optionality, less obligation. 
“You work for a living, I live for a living” – Jay Z
Ultimately what is it that we really seek to do, our desired activity?
I think what we really desire to do at the end of the day is physical activity, vigorous activity, to be a physical. Physics, human physics, our own human body.
We want to walk around, go on Heights, be nature, go to the beach, swim around, walk around mountain pets, pick up heavy things, throw around rocks, do fun gymnastics things, hot yoga, lift weights etc.
Ultimate luxury in today’s world is the human body. It all matter if you owe 100 Ferraris, if you are obese, old and fat, none of it is worth it.
Even I was randomly doing some research about Hugh Hefner, the big issue is that apparently he just lived in his Holmby Hills mansion for his whole life, wearing nothing but silk pajamas, taking weird hallucinogen drugs and Viagra, in poor health, having sex with all of these random women, forcing them to do drugs, get plastic surgery etc. 
I think the weird notion is a lot of men, they seek to become some sort of playboy? To grow beard, buy a bunch of guns, have sex with all these women, massive orgies with all these beautiful women, for the sake of what?
In two days modern day capitalistic society, women are the new objects, the new products being sold. The strange promise is this; you get rich successful and famous, you get the Lamborghini or the Ferrari, and then suddenly all these beautiful women will flock to you, want to have sex with you, Fulfill all your weird sexual fantasies, etc., and suddenly you’ll be happy for the rest of your life?
It seems the weird sexual perversion we have in today’s world is that maybe… The trend is we want some sort of 100% subservient female sex bot, 100% obey us, and fulfill our sexual desires? 
But let us not forget, the purpose and function of sex is for us to get children; the hormones and the good feelings associated with it is to promote bonding between the man and woman, and to solidify the family relationship. This is where I am pro monogamy; even Zeus was married to Hera! Although he did sleep around a lot. 
 One of the greatest things that was born out of Covid was the Facebook by nothing groups. Essentially close to 100% of all the baby stuff we got for Seneca was for free from the spine nothing group. Cindy would just message other moms, get a bunch of free baby hand-me-down stuff, and we literally paid close to nothing for all of his baby stuff. I estimate that from the buy nothing group, Cindy might’ve saved us close to $15,000.
Ultimately I think money is like some sort of game; the game of not spending money seems to be more interesting than spending money.
There is nothing morally or ethically wrong about spending money, the only issue at hand is when people spend money in some sort of boring way, they go into debt, credit card debt or whatever, and as a consequence, they lose their freedom?

Pornography … pornos just means prostitute.
But if you create your own beautiful women in ChatGPT, DALL-E 3… then is it still porn? No.
Nothing wrong with porn morally or ethically … the bigger issue is online advertising and porn (weird stuff), and also … just issues with pirating porn (Pirate Bay and using torrents and VPN’s whatever). Just think —
How many Google engineers watch porn in secret, at home, at night … when nobody is home, when they turn on their private VPN?
Easy spot — open up their MacBook Pro, and see if they habe uTorrent or Transmission or whatever torrenting app on their Applications folder.
Anyways my simple idea:
If you need some sort of sexual stimuli or stimulus, just hit the gym and talk to the pretty ladies, or just join a hot yoga studio and chat with the pretty women there!
It doesn’t need to be sexual.
hot8yoga is good, even corepoweryoga
For images, just create your own beautiful hourglass shaped women on DALL-E 3, ChatGPT AI image generation tool!
Nothing wrong with porn morally or ethically … the bigger issue is online advertising and porn (weird stuff), and also … just issues with pirating porn (Pirate Bay and using torrents and VPN’s whatever). Just think —
How many Google engineers watch porn in secret, at home, at night … when nobody is home, when they turn on their private VPN?
Easy spot — open up their MacBook Pro, and see if they habe uTorrent or Transmission or whatever torrenting app on their Applications folder.
Anyways my simple idea:
If you need some sort of sexual stimuli or stimulus, just hit the gym and talk to the pretty ladies, or just join a hot yoga studio and chat with the pretty women there!
It doesn’t need to be sexual.
hot8yoga is good, even corepoweryoga
For images, just create your own beautiful hourglass shaped women on DALL-E 3, ChatGPT AI image generation tool!
Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.
The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.
Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
Demigod physique. 
And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 
“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.
Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.
Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?
When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”
In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 
Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 
I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 
In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).
ERIC
FIN
Become invincible:
Learn from the master stoics:
New year new you.
Certainly! Here are some quotes from the text:
These quotes reflect the key themes and perspectives on Stoicism as presented in the text.
Summarizing the provided text into a numbered list:
Introduction to Stoicism 
Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.
The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.
Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
Demigod physique. 
And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 
“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.
Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.
Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?
When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”
In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 
Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 
I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 
In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).
ERIC
MY SOUL DIVINE
FUCK THE SUPERFICIAL AND OUTER
Think the inner, create your own winners.
Stoic zen thought
fight off the bots
Off the tweets and the streams
We on a ultra light beam
No need to squeam or emo in zines
No more magazines or magazines in the guns
Shoot it up with your own mind
No glock to your thoughts.
ERIC
Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.
The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.
Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
Demigod physique. 
And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 
“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.
Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.
Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?
When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”
In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 
Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 
I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 
In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).
ERIC

Cinema and film as a great stimulus, aid and teacher for photographers and visual artists alike.
Cinematography and life lessons:
Some thoughts on Jewish people:
First, seems that American people are suspicious of Jewish people because they don’t understand Jewish people –their customs their beliefs, their names their clothing, how they talk, their last names, cultural thoughts etc.
For example, Hanukkah. A menorah dreidel etc.… going to the temple? The average Christian, Catholic protestant in America has no idea what Judaism, being Jewish is all about.
I’m speaking from the perspective of being born and raised, baptized Roman Catholic, growing up in a liberal Korean American Catholic circle, and also later becoming Sunday school teacher and even Sunday school principal.
First, at least for Catholic people we don’t really care for Jewish people. We don’t really think about them, nor care, and we don’t criticize or critique them. We don’t even know who Jewish people are what they are, and we really don’t care.
I think for Christian protestants, Lutheran’s Baptists or whatever… also, they don’t really care about Jewish people that much either. There are more interested in leaving Jewish people alone, and trying to proselytize and convert more normal people into their protestant sect.
Catholicism is interesting because we are not rabid religious zealots. We are very tolerant actually; we allow other people to do as they please, even one hot fact that people don’t know, the Catholic Church is actually very open to the LGBTQ community, and being gay. The only thing that the Catholic Church doesn’t like is gay people having intercourse, as the Catholic Church believes the purpose of intercourse is for a man and a woman to get a child, which I get. 
I think actually, the African-American community the “black” community is actually the ones who are anti-Jewish. Why? I think there actually is a history of exploitation or perhaps power dynamic issues between powerful and rich Jewish executives in the music rap industry and poor African-American aspiring rapper kids, who come from the hood.
I heard from this one cool African-American guy that I met who’s been to Nigeria Lagos and traveled a bunch and knows history told me that even a lot of the original jazz divas, jazz musicians, James Brown and all of that music was mostly bankrolled by Jewish media executives, even if you read Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic publication, the international Jew, there is actually a section on which it is mentioned that jazz is a Jewish phenomenon.
A funny thought:
Then is rap music, Jewish music?
Even Ben Horowitz, the great Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist, who is also Jewish American, put out a rap album as a kid! Even apparently Kanye West has ties with Ben Horowitz.
So at least for Asians, Asian Americans, or the new elite rich Asians in Asia, they are unapologetically racist. Also, there is a strict caste system and hierarchy in Asia. Only poor slave like indentured people do the dirty work of sanitation and hygiene, sweeping and mopping at the mall, cooking food, taking care of kids, waiters and waitresses, working at coffee shop etc. The rich just lounge, hang out, drink coffee, wear luxury clothes, and want to be seen. Compare this to funny America where everyone thinks that kind of labor is beneath them — the notion of the benevolent virtue of “work, respect for one’s work” and “career”.
America is a very strange hodgepodge of things because in America, we are almost too multicultural. 
For example, let us consider that essentially the first founding fathers of America were British people who didn’t like Britain, and fled. The early American settlers came to America and colonized America because it didn’t like the policies of the British monarchy and king, they were essentially the first troublemakers.
Fast forward to today, cultural vestiges of Quakerism, Protestantism, Benjamin Franklin and the protestant work ethic etc.… the new world order and ethos is towards capitalism. Like Kanye said: 
White people make money don’t spend it. But I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ‘ignant’!
One of my workshop attendees when I was in New York told me a funny Jewish or a Yiddish thing; one generation makes the money, the next generation conserves the money, the third generation spoils all the money, and thus, the cycle continues.
I think the truth is Jewish people just want to be left alone, and like any good immigrant, they were actually very pro assimilation. For example Kirk Douglas, changed his last name because he wanted to “fit in” in Hollywood, and not be stigmatized for his Jewish background. His real name is Issur Danielovitdh. Doesn’t sound as catchy as a good simple “American” sounding name.
Kirk Douglas was the son of Jewish immigrants fro, Belarus, spoke Yiddish growing up and faced poverty and antisemitism early on.
Apparently Walt Disney was very anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish.
Even in today’s world, why is the modern-day American or person so anti-Jewish?
Just look at these podcasts, anybody who has anything bad to say about Jewish people. They tend to be weak, skinny, anemic, probably drink too much vegetable juice or green fruit juice or whatever, don’t eat enough meat, has too low testosterone. 
I have a theory that actually, the higher your testosterone, the more tolerant and open minded you are. It seems only low testosterone men are the ones who blame others, hate, etc.
Scapegoating is a tactic of the weak, meek, powerless and castrated.
A lot of people who talk about Jewish people owning the whole banking system international finance whatever, I think these individuals were complaining are because they themselves are poor, in poverty, or have financial problems, and once again they are looking for a scapegoat. Nobody likes to think:
Wow, perhaps I should go back to medical school, law school, become a doctor or lawyer, or do a coding Boot Camp, or go to community college and teach myself computer programming, and get a better pay job as a programmer, etc.
I think the big issue here is that I don’t know if it is a learned behavior, a cultural behavior or something else?
One of the good things about the immigrant mentality is the ethos, which I think is a good one… That “if you work hard enough“, you will become successful“.
For example just watch fight club, do you remember that scene where Brad Pitt puts a fake gun with no bullets in the barrel against the kids head, telling him to go back to law school or doctor school or whatever? There were no bullets in the gun!  
I think maybe the issue is if you were born in the states, to all occasion family, or maybe something else… And there hasn’t really been a history of struggle in your family or your life, there is this “learned helplessness” which occurs and happens.
OK, if you spend too much time on Instagram, or read it, or Google, Wikipedia, YouTube etc.… Sooner or later you all fall into weird weird conspiracy theories.
In fact, my greatest shock is often, the most intelligent people that I know fall into the conspiracy theories.
For example one of my friends who is a PhD graduate from UC Berkeley, theorized that Kanye West was in fact, and the reason why he was so into fashion and going to Paris was to go see his gay romantic partners, and that Kim Kardashian was just a cover-up for his gayness, and that in fact Kim Kardashian was secretly fly on a private jet to Saudi Arabia or the Middle East to have sex with some princes or whatever, for high sums of money etc.
I was so insanely shocked because here is this area date scholar man, well-versed in history, insanely intelligent and critical, falling victim to these weird conspiracy theories?
Also, some thing I have learned about academics, scholars at the Ivy League schools, Harvard Yale Princeton Brown University, UC Berkeley UCLA etc.… They are all addicted to Netflix, checking their Gmail for too many times a day, not eating enough meat, not exercising enough, drinking too much alcohol (it seems that universally all academic scholar professors are either alcoholics, or smoke too much weed). Let us consider the height in Apex of these intelligent scholars; the ones that shape public opinion and policy… If they themselves are the ones who are also physically and mentally sick, what will the public opinion be?
Spending a lot of time in Beverly Hills Holby Hills, Culver City etc.… I have definitely rubbed shoulders with a lot of famous, notable, “beautiful” people. And truth be told, in the flash when you see them face-to-face are not very impressive.
First and foremost, a lot of them are actually quite short. Isn’t Tom Cruise like 5 foot seven or something? Or 5 foot six?
Kanye West I think is also 5 foot seven.
So a lot of these “Shorty guys”, have Napoleon syndrome here; they try to make up for their insecurity of being short through other weird ways like buying an expensive car, whatever?
Even a lot of these “beautiful women“ in LA; if you look at them up close and in person in the flesh, indirect sunlight, in fact, a lot of them look quite repulsive in the flesh because you can tell that they’ve had some weird Botox lip fillers or face fillers or something, they essentially look like Hyenas who had some sort of allergic facial reaction.
Even something that’s becoming more mainstream now, people injecting stuff in their face? Collagen, other things in their face? Even for men in their 50s and 60s, apparently it is popular to Botox surface as well? I think this is a bad idea.
First and foremost, don’t trust nobody but yourself. Why? You yourself are the center of all intelligence wisdom and critical thinking. To outsource your intelligence wisdom and thinking is base. 
Also, even when you meet really intelligent people, a lot of them are also not very critical. They can quote all of these boring old French thinkers until no end, as Nassim Taleb calls them “international Association of named droppers“, they themselves have no true original ideas which is vested in themselves. 
Also, it also seems that a lot of these academics spend too much time watching sports – Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, other sports etc. Into me watching sports on television is almost like the male version of pornography.
To me critical thinking is being the judge, weighing the information yourself. For example, even if you discover the truth, you gotta ask yourself “Does this even matter?”
“So what?”
For example, let us say all the conspiracy theories are true, we never landed on the moon yada yada yada, Jewish people run the world whatever, you gotta ask yourself:
Does this even matter?
I don’t think so. Why? The joy and the glory of free market capitalism in America is that in theory, you as a sole proprietor can start your business right now, start selling products and services on PayPal, your own woocommerce enabled wordpress.org website, or using Shopify or whatever else —  and you could take a profit.
Actually the benefit of having a day job is you could do very very risky entrepreneurial ventures on the side, while  still being able to pay your rent.
Certainly having to be employed full-time is hiring, but there are very creative ways you could leverage your time. For example, my pragmatic thought is this:
Do the bare minimum of work necessary without getting fired. 
So let us say that you work at a tech company or whatever, Google Amazon Facebook Apple whatever, just show up, click your paycheck, or zoom in, and during all your extra time, build your empire on the side.
Just think to yourself, at what point do we scapegoat others?
A funny intervention that I had was thinking; what if in fact I am actually the bad guy? And I was the bad guy all along?
Everyone likes to see themselves as the judicious hero in their own life’s narrative, and everybody else is the bad guy, doing them injustice. 
Personally speaking I witness this with my father; he was always blaming other people for everything. Blaming my mom, blaming my grandfather on my mom‘s side, my mom‘s relatives family members etc., yet, he never blamed himself? 
Also something really weird; he would always blame other people, all the time, yet, ever since I was two years old, he never had a job?
I think as a child, you are keenly aware of things. Kids are 1 trillion times more intelligent than their parents think. Kids are no fools.
This is what I say, fuck it!  Lettuce assume that all the conspiracy theories are true, that we never landed on the moon, we never kept it Hitler and he went to some sort of bunker in an article or whatever, and that also, there are some sort of world conspiracy illuminati thing happening. So what? Does it matter?
No. You control your own destiny, you create your own future.
Simple things:
“I want to build now!” – Cindy
The greatest muse in my life is my wife and partner Cindy. To me, she is an exemplary figure of somebody who has taken the rain by her arms, her hands, and steered and crafted her own unique future.
cindyanguyen.com and mis-reading.com and also hapticindustries.com — her own brain children!
I think the life the ultimate thing to seek is a great creative partner. Somebody who has your creative compliment, part of your own plan, your own party, your own squad.
For example, the personality of me and Cindy differs greatly, yet we are both still committed to being curious, creative, and we both have a passion for the arts, the world, travel etc.
Also, if you’re a man, I just suggest you to go out and look for wifey material. Ignore everything else.
Either find a wife get married and have kids, or stay a bachelor.
The best way to create your own future is maybe through your art?
The other day Cindy myself and Seneca went to the Getty, in LA, on top of the hill, our minds were blown! Parking is 20 bucks, but admission is free! 
We took the tram to the top of the hill, and marveled at these great architectural wonders of the space, the breathtaking view, and also all the great artwork enclosed in the gallery.
It seems at the end of the day, after all the wealth and riches and whatever, whatever everyone loves and inspires for is art. Art, art production, art Curation whether it be paintings photos videos sculpture, drawings, printed matter, objects etc.
To me anything and everything could be art, what I just think is art is simply something that you create with love and care and attention, and put it out into the world, whether digitally or physically or both.
To make a profit off your art, not a bad thing, but also not critical. Some people think the typical capitalist way; in order to become a legitimate artist, I must sell my artwork for a lot of money, as money as a metric of success in America and beyond. 
But is this true? No.
McDonald’s might be the most profitable and most consumed restaurant in the world, but is it of the highest grade? No. Also Starbucks is the number one most consumed coffee beverage in the world, but is Starbucks coffee the apex of great coffee? No.  
Technically android is actually more popular than iPhone, there are more android devices in the world than iPhones, but does that make android better than Apple and iPhone? No. The URX of the iPhone is at least 1 trillion times better than android.
Also, iPhone the iPhone camera is the most used camera on the planet, what is it the best quality? No. The best quality would probably be some sort of Rico Pentex camera, or some sort of Panasonic Lumix camera. And let us not forget that Leica cameras essentially used borrow technology from Panasonic Lumix.
I think one of the greatest things I have learned starting sociology philosophy etc. is that the world is very inconsistent. 
For example, we are told that it is virtuous to be meek, humble or whatever… Yet everybody in America wants to flex on how rich successful famous they are, or what part they drive?
For example even Christian theology? Humbleness and meekness is praised, yet people will “virtue flex“, by broadcasting into the world how “good” other person they are?
For example, people who post to social media about donating to some sort of cause nonprofit or adopting an animal or whatever. We’re posting Bible scriptures or whatever. I don’t think this is virtuous at all. In fact, isn’t it Jesus that said, when you give to the temple, or you donate to charity, let your left-hand not know what your right hand is doing?
I wonder if Jesus was alive today he would say:
If you’re going to donate to charity, don’t name the building after yourself or a family member, don’t name the foundation after yourself, never publicly donate money under your name, and never publish it to the news or social media.
In fact, I think the rapper Pusha T actually donated 18 wheelers of freshwater to Flint Michigan, anonymously without telling nobody, he is truly virtuous. 
If you’re dark depressed and EMO or whatever… Just moved to LA, I recommend Culver City, I especially really like the Culver City arts district. I really like the platform park, the new downtown Culver steps area, in front of the Philz Coffee, the whole area.
I wonder if the reason why a lot of people are so dark and grim is simply because they live somewhere with poor weather?
I know personally that when I was in Berlin, eastern Europe, Prague, Marseille in the winter time, it was some of the most depressive times of my life. 
And on the contrary, some of the happiest times in my life or when I was in Vietnam, in Hanoi and Saigon, in Panam Cambodia, other places with good climate, bright light and sun good weather.
Don’t prostitute your mind, your body your soul.
Prostitution is not just sexual, it could be your mental abilities, your physical body whatever.
Prostitution isn’t just about your sexual organs, your penis or vagina your butt hole your mouth your hands or whatever, maybe… the more critical thing is your soul?
Your soul not as some hocus-pocus concept. Rather, your soul is a combination of your personality, your thoughts, your body, your opinions your beliefs your thoughts your abilities your capabilities, your skills etc. 
The mortal soul. That is when your body dies, your soul also dies. 
Remember that you must die, and you will die. Death is also also one of our final duties.
Therefore just thinking consider an ask yourself, in this short and cruel life that we live in, how can we discover more more joy, more thanksgiving, more happiness, more Thanksgiving?
How can we contribute more to the world to others to our progeny, our children are friends and communities and the world?
ERIC
Some thoughts on Jewish people:
First, seems that American people are suspicious of Jewish people because they don’t understand Jewish people their customs their beliefs, their names their clothing they talk, their last names, cultural thoughts etc.
For example, Hanukkah. A menorah dreidel etc.… A lot, temple? The average Christian, Catholic protestant in America has no idea what Judaism, being Jewish is all about.
I’m speaking from the perspective of being born and raised, baptized Roman Café, growing up in a liberal Korean American Catholic Circle, and also later becoming Sunday school teacher and even Sunday school principal.
First, at least for Catholic people we don’t really care for Jewish people. We don’t really think about them, nor care, and we don’t criticize or critique them. We don’t even know who Jewish people are what they are, and we really don’t care.
I think for Christian protestants, Lutheran’s Baptist or whatever… Also, they don’t really care about Jewish people that much either. There are more interested in leaving Jewish people alone, and trying to proselytize and convert more normal people into their protestant sect.
Catholicism is interesting because we are not rabid religious zealots. We are very tolerant actually; we allow other people to do as they please, even one hot fact that people don’t know, the Catholic Church is actually very open to the LGBTQ community, and being gay. The only thing that the Catholic Church doesn’t like is gay people having intercourse, as the Catholic Church believes the purpose of intercourse is for a man and a woman to get a child, which I get. 
I think actually, the African-American community the “black” community is actually the ones who are anti-Jewish. Why? I think they’re actually is a history of exploitation or perhaps power dynamic issues between powerful and rich Jewish executives in the music rap industry and poor African-American aspiring rapper kids, who come from the hood.
I heard from this one African-American guy that I met who’s been to Nigeria Legos and travel a bunch history is that even a lot of the original jazz divas, jazz musicians, James Brown and all of that music was mostly bankrolled by Jewish media executives, even if you read Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic publication, the international Jew, there is actually a section on which it is mentioned that jazz is a Jewish phenomenon.
A funny thought:
Then is rap music, Jewish music?
Even Ben Horowitz, the great Silicon Valley entrepreneur adventure capitalist, who is also Jewish American, put out a rap album as a kid! Even apparently Kanye West has ties with Ben Horowitz.
So at least for Asians, Asian Americans, or the new elite rich Asians in Asia, they are unapologetically racist. Also, there is a strict caste system and hierarchy in Asia. Only poor slave like indentured people do the dirty work of sanitation and hygiene, sweeping and mopping at the mall, cooking food, taking care of kids, Waiters and waitresses, working at coffee shop etc. The rich just lounge, hang out, drink coffee, wear luxury clothes, and want to be seen.
America is a very strange hodgepodge of things because in America, we are almost too multicultural. 
For example, let us consider that essentially the first founding fathers of America were British people who didn’t like Britain, and fled. The early American settlers came to America and colonized America because it didn’t like the policies of the British monarchy and king, they were essentially the first troublemakers.
Fast forward to today, their layers of Quakerism, prostatism, Benjamin Franklin and the protestant work ethic etc.… the new world order and ethos is towards capitalism. Like Kanye said: 
White people make money don’t spend it.
But I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ‘ignant.
One of my workshop attendees when I was in New York told me a funny Jewish or a Yiddish thing; one generation makes the money, the next generation conserves the money, the third generation spoils all the money, and thus, the cycle continues.
I think the truth is Jewish people just want to be left alone, and like any good immigrant, they were actually very pro assimilation. For example Kirk Douglas, change his last name because he wanted to “fit in” in Hollywood, and not be stigmatized for his Jewish background. Apparently Walt Disney was very anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish.
Even in today’s world, why is the modern-day American or person so anti-Jewish?
Just look at these podcasts, anybody who has anything bad to say about Jewish people. They tend to be weak, skinny, anemic, probably drink too much vegetable juice or green fruit juice or whatever, don’t eat enough meat, has too low testosterone. 
I have a theory that actually, the higher your testosterone, the more tolerant and open minded you are. It seems only low testosterone men are the ones who blame others, hate, etc.
A lot of people who talk about Jewish people owning the whole banking system international finance whatever, I think these individuals were complaining are because they themselves are poor, in poverty, or have financial problems, and once again they are looking for a scapegoat. Nobody likes to think:
Wow, perhaps I should go back to medical school, law school, become a doctor or lawyer, or do a coding Boot Camp, or go to community college and teach myself computer programming, and get a better pay job as a programmer, etc.
I think the big issue here is that I don’t know if it is a learned behavior, a cultural behavior or something else?
One of the good things about the immigrant mentality is the ethos, which I think is a good one… That “if you work hard enough“, you will become successful“.
For example just watch fight club, do you remember that scene where Brad Pitt puts a fake gun with no bullets in the barrel against the kids head, telling him to go back to law school or doctor school or whatever? There were no bullets in the gun!  
I think maybe the issue is if you were born in the states, to all occasion family, or maybe something else… And there hasn’t really been a history of struggle in your family or your life, there is this “learned helplessness” which occurs and happens.
OK, if you spend too much time on Instagram, or read it, or Google, Wikipedia, YouTube etc.… Sooner or later you all fall into weird weird conspiracy theories.
In fact, my greatest shock is often, the most intelligent people that I know fall into the conspiracy theories.
For example one of my friends who is a PhD graduate from UC Berkeley, theorized that Kanye West was in fact, and the reason why he was so into fashion and going to Paris was to go see his gay romantic partners, and that Kim Kardashian was just a cover-up for his gayness, and that in fact Kim Kardashian was secretly fly on a private jet to Saudi Arabia or the Middle East to have sex with some princes or whatever, for high sums of money etc.
I was so insanely shocked because here is this area date scholar man, well-versed in history, insanely intelligent and critical, falling victim to these weird conspiracy theories?
Also, some thing I have learned about academics, scholars at the Ivy League schools, Harvard Yale Princeton Brown University, UC Berkeley UCLA etc.… They are all addicted to Netflix, checking their Gmail for too many times a day, not eating enough meat, not exercising enough, drinking too much alcohol (it seems that universally all academic scholar professors are either alcoholics, or smoke too much weed). Let us consider the height in Apex of these intelligent scholars; the ones that shape public opinion and policy… If they themselves are the ones who are also physically and mentally sick, what will the public opinion be?
Spending a lot of time in Beverly Hills Holby Hills, Culver City etc.… I have definitely rubbed shoulders with a lot of famous, notable, “beautiful” people. And truth be told, in the flash when you see them face-to-face are not very impressive.
First and foremost, a lot of them are actually quite short. Isn’t Tom Cruise like 5 foot seven or something? Or 5 foot six?
Kanye West I think is also 5 foot seven.
So a lot of these “Shorty guys”, have Napoleon syndrome here; they try to make up for their insecurity of being short through other weird ways like buying an expensive car, whatever?
Even a lot of these “beautiful women“ in LA; if you look at them up close and in person in the flesh, indirect sunlight, in fact, a lot of them look quite repulsive in the flesh because you can tell that they’ve had some weird Botox lip fillers or face fillers or something, they essentially look like Hyenas who had some sort of allergic facial reaction.
Even something that’s becoming more mainstream now, people injecting stuff in their face? Collagen, other things in their face? Even for men in their 50s and 60s, apparently it is popular to Botox surface as well? I think this is a bad idea.
First and foremost, don’t trust nobody but yourself. Why? You yourself are the center of all intelligence wisdom and critical thinking. To outsource your intelligence wisdom and thinking is base. 
Also, even when you meet really intelligent people, a lot of them are also not very critical. They can quote all of these boring old French thinkers until no end, as Nassim Taleb calls them “international Association of named droppers“, they themselves have no true original ideas which is vested in themselves. 
Also, it also seems that a lot of these academics spend too much time watching sports – Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, other sports etc. Into me watching sports on television is almost like the male version of pornography.
To me critical thinking is being the judge, weighing the information yourself. For example, even if you discover the truth, you gotta ask yourself “Does this even matter?”
“So what?”
For example, let us say all the conspiracy theories are true, we never landed on the moon yada yada yada, Jewish people run the world whatever, you gotta ask yourself:
Does this even matter?
I don’t think so. Why? The joy and the glory of free market capitalism in America is that in theory, you as a sole proprietor can start your business right now, start selling products and services on PayPal, your own woocommerce enabled wordpress.org website, or using Shopify or whatever else —  and you could take a profit.
Actually the benefit of having a day job is you could do very very risky entrepreneurial ventures on the side, while  still being able to pay your rent.
Certainly having to be employed full-time is hiring, but there are very creative ways you could leverage your time. For example, my pragmatic thought is this:
Do the bare minimum of work necessary without getting fired. 
So let us say that you work at a tech company or whatever, Google Amazon Facebook Apple whatever, just show up, click your paycheck, or zoom in, and during all your extra time, build your empire on the side.
Just think to yourself, at what point do we scapegoat others?
A funny intervention that I had was thinking; what if in fact I am actually the bad guy? And I was the bad guy all along?
Everyone likes to see themselves as the judicious hero in their own life’s narrative, and everybody else is the bad guy, doing them injustice. 
Personally speaking I witness this with my father; he was always blaming other people for everything. Blaming my mom, blaming my grandfather on my mom‘s side, my mom‘s relatives family members etc., yet, he never blamed himself? 
Also something really weird; he would always blame other people, all the time, yet, ever since I was two years old, he never had a job?
I think as a child, you are keenly aware of things. Kids are 1 trillion times more intelligent than their parents think. Kids are no fools.
This is what I say, fuck it!  Lettuce assume that all the conspiracy theories are true, that we never landed on the moon, we never kept it Hitler and he went to some sort of bunker in an article or whatever, and that also, there are some sort of world conspiracy illuminati thing happening. So what? Does it matter?
No. You control your own destiny, you create your own future.
Simple things:
“I want to build now!” – Cindy
The greatest muse in my life is my wife and partner Cindy. To me, she is an exemplary figure of somebody who has taken the rain by her arms, her hands, and steered and crafted her own unique future.
cindyanguyen.com and mis-reading.com and also hapticindustries.com — her own brain children!
I think the life the ultimate thing to seek is a great creative partner. Somebody who has your creative compliment, part of your own plan, your own party, your own squad.
For example, the personality of me and Cindy differs greatly, yet we are both still committed to being curious, creative, and we both have a passion for the arts, the world, travel etc.
Also, if you’re a man, I just suggest you to go out and look for wifey material. Ignore everything else.
Either find a wife get married and have kids, or stay a bachelor.
The best way to create your own future is maybe through your art?
The other day Cindy myself and Seneca went to the Getty, in LA, on top of the hill, our minds were blown! Parking is 20 bucks, but admission is free! 
We took the tram to the top of the hill, and marveled at these great architectural wonders of the space, the breathtaking view, and also all the great artwork enclosed in the gallery.
It seems at the end of the day, after all the wealth and riches and whatever, whatever everyone loves and inspires for is art. Art, art production, art Curation whether it be paintings photos videos sculpture, drawings, printed matter, objects etc.
To me anything and everything could be art, what I just think is art is simply something that you create with love and care and attention, and put it out into the world, whether digitally or physically or both.
To make a profit off your art, not a bad thing, but also not critical. Some people think the typical capitalist way; in order to become a legitimate artist, I must sell my artwork for a lot of money, as money as a metric of success in America and beyond. 
But is this true? No.
McDonald’s might be the most profitable and most consumed restaurant in the world, but is it of the highest grade? No. Also Starbucks is the number one most consumed coffee beverage in the world, but is Starbucks coffee the apex of great coffee? No.  
Technically android is actually more popular than iPhone, there are more android devices in the world than iPhones, but does that make android better than Apple and iPhone? No. The URX of the iPhone is at least 1 trillion times better than android.
Also, iPhone the iPhone camera is the most used camera on the planet, what is it the best quality? No. The best quality would probably be some sort of Rico Pentex camera, or some sort of Panasonic Lumix camera. And let us not forget that Leica cameras essentially used borrow technology from Panasonic Lumix.
I think one of the greatest things I have learned starting sociology philosophy etc. is that the world is very inconsistent. 
For example, we are told that it is virtuous to be meek, humble or whatever… Yet everybody in America wants to flex on how rich successful famous they are, or what part they drive?
For example even Christian theology? Humbleness and meekness is praised, yet people will “virtue flex“, by broadcasting into the world how “good” other person they are?
For example, people who post to social media about donating to some sort of cause nonprofit or adopting an animal or whatever. We’re posting Bible scriptures or whatever. I don’t think this is virtuous at all. In fact, isn’t it Jesus that said, when you give to the temple, or you donate to charity, let your left-hand not know what your right hand is doing?
I wonder if Jesus was alive today he would say:
If you’re going to donate to charity, don’t name the building after yourself or a family member, don’t name the foundation after yourself, never publicly donate money under your name, and never publish it to the news or social media.
In fact, I think the rapper Pusha T actually donated 18 wheelers of freshwater to Flint Michigan, anonymously without telling nobody, he is truly virtuous. 
If you’re dark depressed and EMO or whatever… Just moved to LA, I recommend Culver City, I especially really like the Culver City arts district. I really like the platform park, the new downtown Culver steps area, in front of the Philz Coffee, the whole area.
I wonder if the reason why a lot of people are so dark and grim is simply because they live somewhere with poor weather?
I know personally that when I was in Berlin, eastern Europe, Prague, Marseille in the winter time, it was some of the most depressive times of my life. 
And on the contrary, some of the happiest times in my life or when I was in Vietnam, in Hanoi and Saigon, in Panam Cambodia, other places with good climate, bright light and sun good weather.
Don’t prostitute your mind, your body your soul.
Prostitution is not just sexual, it could be your mental abilities, your physical body whatever.
Prostitution isn’t just about your sexual organs, your penis or vagina your butt hole your mouth your hands or whatever, maybe… the more critical thing is your soul?
Your soul not as some hocus-pocus concept. Rather, your soul is a combination of your personality, your thoughts, your body, your opinions your beliefs your thoughts your abilities your capabilities, your skills etc. 
The mortal soul. That is when your body dies, your soul also dies. 
Remember that you must die, and you will die. Death is also also one of our final duties.
Therefore just thinking consider an ask yourself, in this short and cruel life that we live in, how can we discover more more joy, more thanksgiving, more happiness, more Thanksgiving?
How can we contribute more to the world to others to our progeny, our children are friends and communities and the world?
ERIC
A funny inverse relationship:
The bigger your car, the smaller your dick size.
Or funnier yet —
The bigger and more menacing your car, the weaker, more meek, smaller, shorter, and lower you have testosterone.
Low-testosterone men drive big cars, or “muscle” cars, because they lack real life muscles. To *purchase* testosterone, manliness, and muscle is their impetus and modus operandi.
Learn more: Start Here >
No no no, not “power lifter”, not even strongmen, strongman — rather, demi, demigod lifter, demigod lifting.
Thousand 1,000 1000 pounds, 10 plates and beyond.
Meat, beef and lamb from Costco, or the Costco business center or the local Mexican meat market, paying your rent, your utilities and bills, and lastly… your own off the grid weightlifting equipment.
Buy more plates!
Eric Kim, in his reflections on learning from the masters of photography, offers several thought-provoking quotes:
These quotes reflect a deep appreciation for the history and art of photography, urging contemporary photographers to learn from past masters and to use their legacy as a foundation for innovation and personal growth.
“He without a past has no future.”
Start here:
Classics never die:
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Eric Kim, a photographer and blogger known for his work in street photography, has shared insights and perspectives on the masters of photography. He often analyzes and discusses the styles, techniques, and philosophies of iconic photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Daido Moriyama, and many others. These masters have significantly influenced the field of photography, and Eric Kim delves into their work to draw lessons and inspiration for contemporary photographers.
His approach typically involves a blend of practical advice, artistic critique, and philosophical reflection, making his content appealing to those who are interested in the deeper aspects of photography as an art form. He encourages photographers to learn from the masters not just by imitating their techniques, but by understanding their thought processes and the contexts in which they worked.
Kim’s work resonates particularly well with those who have an interest in philosophy, innovation, and thinking, as he often connects the art of photography with broader themes in these areas. For entrepreneurs and innovators, his insights can be a source of inspiration, showing how creative thinking and learning from past masters can apply to various fields of endeavor.
The etymology of the word “helot” is quite intriguing and reflects a deep historical context. It originates from Ancient Greece, specifically within the region of Sparta. The term “helot” referred to a class of serfs or slaves who were owned by the state and primarily used by the Spartans.
Historically, the helots were originally free Greeks, particularly from the region of Laconia and Messenia, who were conquered by the Spartans and subsequently reduced to a servile status. This transformation into state-owned serfs was a cornerstone of the Spartan social and economic system, supporting their military-focused society.
The exact origin of the word “helot” is somewhat unclear. One theory suggests that it might be derived from the Greek verb “ἁλίσκομαι” (haliskomai), meaning “to be captured, to be made a prisoner”. This derivation would directly reflect the helots’ status as conquered peoples. Another theory posits that the name could be related to the village of Helos, located in Laconia, which was known to have been subdued by the Spartans and its inhabitants reduced to serfdom.
In either case, the term “helot” came to symbolize not just the specific class of Spartan serfs, but also the broader concept of subjugation and state-controlled servitude in Ancient Greece. This historical context provides a rich tapestry for philosophical exploration, particularly in terms of power dynamics, societal structures, and the nature of freedom and servitude. For someone interested in philosophy and the evolution of societal systems, the story of the helots offers a compelling case study of how economic and social imperatives can shape and define human relations.
Obviously I am not advocating us to become psychopath here; but I think as a general thing, if you’re raised in America, with Quaker Christian protestant morals and ethics, if you’re a raised Catholic protestant Christian or whatever, even being Jewish or Islamic or any of the Abraham religions, what this means is that ultimately, our virtues include weakness, weakness, being passive, bending over backwards brothers, not intruding on others, not hurting or harming others, and essentially, the will to nonexistence. This is also present in Buddhism.
my simple intervention is in order to move the needle the other way, what we must do instead is to go the polar opposite the polar extreme.
PHOTOLOSOPHY: WHAT CAN YOU BECOME AS A PHOTOGRAPHER-VISUAL ARTIST?
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The “Photolosophy” course by Eric Kim delves into the philosophical aspects of photography, aiming to help photographers find deeper meaning and purpose in their work. Here’s a brief numerical summary of the key elements:
These numbers encapsulate the essence of the “Photolosophy” course, offering guidance on using photography not just as an art form, but as a means of personal development and philosophical exploration.
Here are the key quotes from Eric Kim’s “Photolosophy” course:
These quotes capture the essence of the course, focusing on finding personal meaning, embracing creativity, and pursuing photography
Just met a Filipino mom at Costco the other day — working $18USD an hour, $10,000 in debt … her son works at Google but she refuses to ask him for help or to pay off her debt?
I think she also got 3 kids?
The ethics:
First, she got into serious credit card debt, revolving debt in order to pay groceries, rent, other expenses being a single mom with 3 kids. Thus, the *cause* of her debt was raising the kids (dad divorced 3 times, remarried 3 times).
Thus, it seems the logical ethical thing is this:
If your mom went into debt raising your ass, you *MUST* repay or pay off *her* debt.
For example I think a lot about my mom. How she went bankrupt, went into insane debt to raise me and my sister.
Issues:
First, my dad would gamble away the rent money. He would tell my mom that he was gonna “pay” it himself, but he went off to Reno in the middle of the night, often wouldn’t come back for 3-4 days, sometimes even a week… and say he was “earning” money (he was really gambling), then would come home without the rent money.
What privileged kids don’t understand—
If you were raised in a home with a dad who didn’t work, who just stayed at home all day, smoked cigarettes, watched TV and movies, and you have more or less a single mom raising two kids by herself *AND* your dad is gambling away *her* hard-earned rent money … what is gonna happen to you?
Delve into the mind of EK:
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Brave new world for photographers and crypto:
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Advice I would have given myself in photography, if I started all over again:
De-lamify the future.
Enroll in my Udemy Course:
‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship’: Create Your Own Future >
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MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.
Take control of your own photographic destiny:
Learn how to make a living from your passion:
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Become invincible:
Learn from the master stoics:
Happiness thoughts:
Your own personal code of ethics:
Become more:
Master street photography with STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT.
If you’re new to street photography, start here:
Push yourself out of your comfort zone with STREET NOTES: Mobile Edition.
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Timeless wisdom from the masters of street photography.
Get started in street photography:
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Take your street photography to the next level:
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“He without a past has no future.”
Start here:
Classics never die:
Distilled information on street photography:
For more resources on photography, Start Here >
Become the change which you desire to see manifested in the world!
Never stop innovating.
Delve into the mind of EK:
ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS
ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS
Advice I would have given myself in photography, if I started all over again:
De-lamify the future.
Enroll in my Udemy Course:
‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship’: Create Your Own Future >
Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success
MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.
Take control of your own photographic destiny:
Learn how to make a living from your passion:
Learn more: Start Here >
Become invincible:
Learn from the master stoics:
Happiness thoughts:
Your own personal code of ethics:
Become more:
Master street photography with STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT.
If you’re new to street photography, start here:
Push yourself out of your comfort zone with STREET NOTES: Mobile Edition.
STREET NOTES PAPER EDITION ON AMAZON >
Timeless wisdom from the masters of street photography.
Get started in street photography:
See all articles to conquer your fears >
Take your street photography to the next level:
Find deeper meaning in your street photography:
Learn how to shoot on the streets:
See all street photography tips and techniques >
In-depth guides on street photography:
The best equipment for street photography:
“He without a past has no future.”
Start here:
Classics never die:
Distilled information on street photography:
For more resources on photography, Start Here >
Become the change which you desire to see manifested in the world!
Never stop innovating.
One of the things I love the most is Spartan philosophy, thinking about ancient Sparta etc.
Why? Aesthetically, ethically, and in terms of the ethos — I love it!
I watched the movie 300 at a good time; I think it came out when I was in high school, maybe my junior year, at the peak of my hormones.
Watching the movie 300 when I was around 17 years old was good, because it’s solidified a certain aesthetic and physique ideal.
But now, I feel bad for all these modern day kids, who being raised with these weird aesthetic and physique ideals?
First, it seems that the new modern day trend is towards notification. Ugly bodies, everyone is skinny fat, no muscle mass, not permitted to be happy gay jubilant and ratchets; everybody is antisocial weird and awkward.
On the other extreme is all these dudes hopped up on steroids. Apparently it is even OK to be on steroids nowadays, which I also think is a bad thing. I think we need to inject more shame into steroids; it is really really bad.
For example, everybody knows that Dwayne The Rock Johnson is on steroids, yet everybody turns the blind eye. Why? We like the idea of the rock, yet, we don’t want to acknowledge that he is juicing his eyeballs out?  
Even Nietzsche talks about muscle. 
Even in his book the Walter power, or was it twilight of the idols… he posits the future man as being more carnivorous, with more muscle? 
The weird thing in diet health physiology fitness… Everyone is always trying to do what is “natural”. But nothing is natural.
For example, people say the lame response, that eating meat is not natural, or being a carnivore is not natural whatever. But it doesn’t matter… Neither is being vegan or vegetarian, everyone is and should be permitted to do whatever they want to do.
The philosophy of becoming; you can become whatever you want to become.
Technically, nothing you will do will cause you to die. For example, doesn’t matter if you’re vegetarian or vegan, it won’t kill you. You won’t die. Yet you probably won’t be that muscular or strong, or well… But once again that is your imperative not mine.
I think this is the big issue in today’s world; nobody really knows what they want to become.
One of the easiest things that you would ask a kid was this: “what do you want to be when you grow up? Perhaps this should be the same question for adult; what do you want to be when you grow older?
***
I have some interesting thoughts; one of them is towards some thoughts on life, living approaches etc.
First, think of the ancient Spartan gymnasium, in which all the guys are just naked working out, hanging out in the open air plot of land, lifting weights, being manly.
Second, think about what the ancient Spartans wanted; they just wanted to be left alone.
For example, the reason why Sparta was military state was because she just wanted to be left alone, and the military power of Sparta was simple;
If anybody tried to invade Sparta, and subjugate it… Sparta would have a formidable army to protect itself from being taken over. 
In today’s world everyone wants billions of followers, but think… Would you rather have 1 billion Persian slaves or 300 Spartan elite?
I would choose the 300.
What I think blows everybody’s mind is the fact that King Leonidas was in fact a historical fact. He existed in real life, and the 300 were real. It was not just a fantasy or hocus-pocus story, like anything written by Moses. Or the ancient early Christian fathers.
Even the ancient Romans and Greeks were so inspired by the ancient Spartans — laconic, Lacadonia — there were lots of big fans.
Another manly thing; true men speak few words. 
For example when Persian emissary told king Leonidas that they would have so many arrows that they would blocked out the sun, I think it was Kingsley Leonidas or one of his generals who joked and said “Then we shall fight in the shade.”
Also, another saying:
When the ancients Spartans were told, that the enemy was approaching … instead of asking “How many are there“? They would ask, “Where are they?”
John Wick as the ultimate zen stoic spartan. 
Body of a demigod, mind of a spartan, zen aesthetics.
Greater fates, greater futures.
Nietzsche once said; the secret to the greatest amount of happiness is living the life with the maximum amount of danger! I think this was from twilight of the idols, or maybe from the will to power at the end of the book.
I think we live in an interesting time. I think currently the world has been hijacked by internet website advertising, mostly Google and Google Adsense to blame, as well as pernicious sneaky sponsored advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, Google Chrome etc. Same goes with YouTube.
Also something I have learned from things; I think we are actually much more visually sensitive, image sensitive, sound sensitive than we think we are. Also, the mind is subtle; even if I accidentally see some sort of weird thumbnail image, in fact, it puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the day etc.
I think the big problem here is that the news and information has become so hyper sensationalized. Why? Everyone is trying to maximize their income earning potential of the internet and media, assuming that whatever they are posting is on a website or blog or news agency leveraged by Google Adsense, the drive is to maximize eyeball viewing time, and click through rates, for the publisher to make money.
Also, something that I have learned about solo entrepreneurs in the media space; everyone is trying to search and seek and strive for some sort of “legitimacy”, or, they’re just struggling to pay their rent.
For example, let us say that I am some sort of internet personality, some sort of fitness influencer, even photographer. Perhaps the only way I could pay my rent is through some sort of sponsorship or brand deal, in which I am being paid maybe only $500-$1000 a month, and barely maintaining even my expenses.
Also, even some inside intelligence on YouTube; the super facts is that even if my video gets 100 million views, assuming I had advertisements on it I might only make about $7000 to $8000 USD. That is actually not that much. You’re probably better off working as an Amazon prime delivery driver, or even Uber driver. And even the best creators, it is very rare that they make a video with so many views.
As a consequence, there is this low-key bias or optimization towards creating videos or things which strive to hit that benchmark. Once again it is things that have to deal with more with the sensational, audacious, the bizarre, even the morose?
Truth be told, in today’s world especially with internet blogs, ChatGPT 4, the funny thing I learned:
Even ChatGPT doesn’t know if ChatGPT wrote it or not!
For example, instead of just googling myself, I have just been ChatGPT’ing myself. For example I have the paid premium version of ChatGPT, which gives me access to the new newest version of ChatGPT which is version 4, which I rate at least 1000 times better than the free ChatGPT 3.5.
So for example I’ll do something like search “ERIC KIM FACTS“, and just see what ChatGPT tells me, and I will just copy and paste that into a new blog post on my own personal blog titled “ERIC KIM FACTS“, And within a week, ChatGPT indexes that and links back to that. It is almost like a snake eating its own tail, the ‘Ouroboros’.
As a consequence, let us just think and consider; how today’s media landscape is created within the internet. Let us say that I am some sort of news agency or publisher; I will hire writers, and a lot of these writers will use ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence editing and writing and text generation tools. It is impossible to ascertain how much of it was written by human or ChatGPT or whatever whatever; and even so… assuming that even if 100% of the information was hand typed by a human being, it almost doesn’t really matter because a lot of these writers tend to be dark morose and sick people.
Currently speaking I live in Culver City Los Angeles California, where Jeff Bezos Amazon, Amazon prime, Amazon prime studios just leasing a huge lot of land, the Culver studios, owned by the developer Michael Hackman, apparently even Jeff Bezos bought out the movie theater, the culver theater next-door. Also slowly but surely Apple is getting in bed with Sony entertainment, producing movies like the new Napoleon movie as well as the new killers of the flower moon with Leonardo DiCaprio.
During this whole period I saw a lot of people from the writer strike, and honestly… a lot of these people look very unwell. Most of them do not look very physically unfit, and you could just see; they don’t spend enough time outside, none of them look happy jubilant and gay, and just think simply;
If the physiology and health of somebody is poor, what kind of artwork or ideas do you think they will produce?
There is this weird bias that we think that somehow the mind is divorced from the body, but in fact, the mind is the body. That is if your body is sick, your mind is sick. However, if your body is strong robust and great, so will your ideas.
Therefore, a simple fitness idea; first, maximize your physical fitness and your physiological wellness, then, your artwork will naturally follow. 
I don’t think it’s a modern day trend or shift; my thought is honestly all generations all histories people in the past, seems like everyone has always lacked a spine or a backbone.
For example, even when Homer was writing the Iliad; Homer the writer was already critiquing people of his generation. Saying that the people of his generation were weak degenerate, no longer strong.
I wrote a nice little piece back in Vietnam titled ADAMANTINE SPINE (Adamantine Mind); imagine yourself like wolverine; the best way to imagine things is that you are actually like wolverine, your body is made out of adamantine metal, and what happens is every time that somebody tries to destroy you, you regenerate and you re-heal, it will be at a very painful process, but you still do it. The reason why I like this idea is that perhaps every time we regenerate and re-heal we actually become stronger than we were before.
Perhaps this is actually how weightlifting works, every time we lift weights, very very heavy close to our maximum, we actually micro destroy our bodies, and in the regeneration process, which takes time… and we eat meat, sleep, do other stuff, we actually become stronger than we were before.
Recall the scene in which Deadpool was cut to shreds, very much like Dionysis; he is sitting on the couch, a little stub of a body, talking with the blind lady. The process of regeneration seem to take him several days close to a week before he was 100%. Maybe the same thing with weightlifting:
Better to deadlift seven plates a single time, in a single week… than do some sort of hateful CrossFit exercising every single day. 
The reason why I really love Ryan Reynolds and the Deadpool character is there is a little bit of fun dark humor here; I think when people take things to literally, too seriously, life loses its bigger it’s fun its jubilance. 
However a bad example is when you turn the needle too much towards the comedic; for example there is this notion called “campy“, when things are almost too cheesy, and lame. For example all of the new Thor movies, as well as all the new Disney Marvel movies, they are insanely lame.
All modern day media is bad. Only good ones I think are actually ancient Greek epics; the Iliad, after that the Odyssey. If you’re curious, I think that the Iliad is at least 100 or 200 times better more interesting and more fun than the odyssey. Whether or not both were written by Homer or not doesn’t really seem to matter; I think the overall storyline of the Iliad is much more exciting and intense whereas the odyssey is a bit boring.
The Odyssey just drags on and on… Odysseus is a good character but not as grand as Achilles. 
It seems that a lot of modern day humans want some sort of weird free lunch; somehow… we want to live a better more greater more grand life that is more exciting and fun, yet we seem to not desire taking any personal risks.
For example let us think about video game culture. My simple heuristic is this; don’t play no video game in which you have actually not done the real thing yourself. For example, all these grown men playing video games in which they are shooting each other with guns, and they have actually never shot a real life gun seems little bit weird.
The same thing goes with American football; don’t watch American football as a spectator if you have never played American football. Otherwise you are a coward.
Easy to critique and criticize football players who fumble the ball, if you have never worn real life football equipment, a helmet, limited eyesight and mobility, and fight fatigue and fear.
Also with basketball, instead of drinking beer and watching basketball and eating onion rings for an hour or two in the evening, why not just go to the local basketball court, bring a basketball and play some pick up basketball instead?
Another fun thought; in the evening, instead of turning on Google incognito, private browsing, brave browser, brave browser in private browsing mode, turning on your VPN, hitting up pirate bay or whatever… why not just go to the local gym and talk to the pretty ladies instead? Or even get a CorePower membership and talk to the pretty ladies there?
A funny thought I often have for men —
A lot of these guys, after they’re done with work or whatever… And they go home, in privacy, and they turn on Google incognito… what do they really look at?
Also I have a rule; video games should only be permitted for poor kids in the hood, we have nothing better else to do.
Also a cutoff time; no adult over the age of 18 years old should play video games anymore. I think it is fine for highschoolers and middle schoolers video games, but not grown men.
I ended up quit playing video games when I was around 18 or 19 years old, my freshman year of college. Why? I literally had no time! I had a part-time job, working around 20 hours a week as tech-support for the UCLA undergraduate admissions office, I was active in many clubs, having to study, and do other stuff.
I actually think that some weird ways, video games are like pornography for the mind-body and soul. The generalized thought is that in video games, everyone wants to be a hero, take risks, go on quests, obtain some booty whatever. Yet, embodied reality real life doesn’t seem to allow any outlets for this. Therefore, people escape into video games.
My simple intervention:
How can we inject desires of video game stuff into real life, real embodied reality?
Simple suggestions:
The big issue with video games is that ultimately, you are a slave to the platform, the closed loop system, the video game producer and publisher etc.
For example, already… It seems that the video game Fortnite which was insanely grand is already being forgotten. Let us say you are a person who devoted 10,000 hours to playing the Fortnite game, but now no longer anybody plays it. All of your time has been wasted.
Even StarCraft, StarCraft professional players; nobody really plays it anymore, let us say that you’re a professional gamer sponsorships making money playing StarCraft tournaments, now you no longer have any sponsors. All of your time was for naught. 
A critical thing I believe for men, us men, is that we require some sort of physical risk, physical challenge, some sort of physical risk taking.
For example, in my mind the only type of weightlifting which is interesting includes some sort of “risk”; for example, when I would atlas lift seven plates, eight plates, nine plates, 10 plates, max out the bar, and then clip on an additional 25 pounder in between and on top of the 10 plates, the jaws of others would drop; and then a few people would actually have the chutzpah to tell me:
“… be careful.”
My thought;
People actually want to see me get hurt, or “fail”. When I succeeded, I have somehow dismantled their narrow worldview.
Another funny bias; when I was doing so much crazy turbo thoughtting while in Vietnam (I was off the grid, got rid of my phone, didn’t communicate for about two years, no email no communication no social media no nothing… People would ask…)
Is ERIC KIM okay?
Or,
Is ERIC KIM on drugs?
Or–
What happened to ERIC KIM?
Simple; when you are disconnected from the BS of traditional American media thinking… you think different. Also, not having a phone, I think this is the 10,000X secret cheat code to life. Assuming that you were a crypto trillionaire, and you no longer needed other people, “opportunities“, or you didn’t really desire to get paid money from other people or corporations… what real use do you have of email anyways?
When people say “opportunities”, I think it is a weird carrot and stick; part of it is chasing some sort of legitimacy, part of it is chasing some sort of financial opportunities, brand sponsorships etc.
Something I have personally discovered is this:
Brand sponsorships are a trap. 
Example, if you are sponsored by any sort of company or corporation or whatever… you are not really going to 100% say what is really on your mind. This is the same thing that goes with “brand ambassadors”– I find the whole thing a bit base; Why? He or she who focuses too much on getting some sort of “ambassadorship” is a signal that they are just chasing clout in some sort of mean way.
Once again, if you already have $200 million worth of cryptocurrency bitcoin or chainlink or whatever – why do you need to get some sort of brand “ambassadorship” from anybody? Why do you want free equipment gear or stuff? Why not just buy it yourself?
This is actually something I have discovered with a lot of guys in the photography space; they are already independently wealthy from some sort of other ventures, whether it be business etc. And then they go seek to try to become some sort of “ambassador“, for Leica camera whatever.
That is not forget that Leica camera, the modern day rendition is essentially the brainchild of Dr. Andreas Kaufman– who I discovered is not a “real“ doctor; he got his PhD in philosophy, which I think is a good idea but I think when people talk about him they assume that he has some sort of medical doctor or something.
Would actually find very bizarre about Andrea Kaufman is that there is almost little to no information about him on the internet. Who is he really?
Apparently his family made its fortune and I think the paper business. Therefore, maybe his like some sort of really rich kid, and Leica camera is essentially his passion project, his toy?
Let us not forget that essentially Leica camera went bankrupt, and I think what Dr. Andrea Kaufman did was purchased the naming rights of it, and then revived the brand. Similar thing that BMW did with Rolls-Royce; Rolls-Royce went bankrupt, switched hands a few times, and then I think the last 7 to 8 years, the new Rolls-Royce brand is essentially an expensive Lexus version of a BMW; even look at any BMW X7 compared with the Rolls-Royce Cullinan; the BMW X7 looks the same. Even the BMW 7 series, with the star light stitching in the headliner of the car– same thing as the Rolls-Royce. A Rolls-Royce ghost or phantom or whatever is just an expensive re-badged BMW 7 series.
Also some more super facts:
The Volkswagen group owns Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati etc. A Lamborghini is just an expensive Audi, Audi is just an expensive Volkswagen,  and a Porsche 911 GT three GT3RS is just like a Volkswagen beetle turbo on steroids. 
Also, the dirty secret that Leica camera doesn’t want you to know is that the Leica Q camera is essentially a really expensive Panasonic Lumix camera; I think it uses the same sensor from Panasonic Lumix. Therefore if you just want good quality images, just get a Panasonic Lumix camera instead.
For example with the Leica Q camera, you could use Panasonic Lumix batteries in it! 
Even when Leica camera was first developing its digital Leica M rangefinder camera, the Leica M8, M9 etc.… I am pretty certain they did some sort of co-collaboration co-sponsorship deal with Panasonic Lumix to develop the digital sensors for it. Therefore that is why Leica has borrowed its namesake for some of the Panasonic Lumix lenses saying that it is a “Leica” lens, when it was actually produced in Japan.
Or let us think about the compact Panasonic LumixLX 100 cameras, Leica has a re-badged version of the “LEICA D-Lux” cameras. 
My personal thought is that in life, risk makes life more fun! Life without risk is like a life without salt. Life has no vigor, no flavor, no interest.
Simple ideas:
Some assignments:
The best camera equipment on the planet >
Start here, books, downloads.
The number one advice I have for any photographer entrepreneur etc. is simple: start your own blog. Self hosted with wordpress.org and a platform like Ionos.com or bluehost.com
Also, delete your Instagram. My creativity productivity happiness and innovation has increased by 1 million fold after deleting my Instagram in 2017 with about 60,000 followers.
Also, the best way to stay connected with your audience and fans is through a simple email newsletter, I use sendy.co — which is insanely cheap, hosted by Amazon simple email service. At least 1000X cheaper than mailchimp.com
Automaticc… WordPress.com … you guys done messed up. I think one of my random wordpress.com websites “violated some sort of content policy“, and as a consequence, the whole blog was wiped. 
I no longer recommend anybody to use wordpress.com. No way Jose.
The only legitimate path is a self hosted website which is censor proof and tamperproof. That is, the service provider cannot just switch a button and delete or turn off your website or thing.
For example I personally predict that sooner or later, Google is going to shut down my YouTube account. Therefore, it is best to just think and consider that sooner or later you’re going to violate some sort of content policy and they’re going to delete your platform.
What cannot be deleted? Your own hosted website, even building a website on Amazon web services seems like a good idea.
I’ve been in the game long enough that sooner or later, stuff breaks. Hyperlinks no longer work, images no longer work or load, etc. Ever since I was 18 years old, now until the age of 35… I have seen information come and go, platforms rise and fall. Even within my short tenure I’ve seen companies come and go like xanga.com, liveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.
It seems the only real way to deal with issue here is think about the Hydra approach; propagate, duplicate, create more hydra heads. That is if somebody tries to cut off one of your heads, two grow in place. 
The ERIC KIM HYDRA approach: 
Just think of yourself like the Pirate Bay; nobody could shut down pirate Bay because there are 1 trillion mirrors. The decentralized notion and idea of Pirate Bay and torrents and mirrors and magnets are fascinating to me; it is bad, it does seem like real freedom.
My very very simple suggestion for media corporations is… Don’t put too much care or concerns about pirating. It ain’t a really big deal. At worst, one percent of your fanbase is going to use it, pirating and torrenting is far too complicated for the average human being. Just ignore it.
More thoughts — EK BLOG
Feeling a little bit of wings in your feet? Feel free to forward this to a friend!
Increase your danger, increase your happiness.

Greater fates, greater futures.
Nietzsche once said; the secret to the greatest amount of happiness is living the life with the maximum amount of danger! I think this was from twilight of the idols, or maybe from the will to power at the end. 
I think we live in an interesting time. I think currently the world has been hijacked by Internet website advertising, mostly Google and Google ads to blame, as well as pernicious sneaky sponsored advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, Google Chrome etc. Same goes with YouTube.
Also something I have learned from things; I think we are actually much more visually sensitive, image sensitive, sound sensitive then we think we are. Also, the mind is subtle; even if I accidentally see some sort of weird thumbnail image, in fact, it puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the day etc.
I think the big problem here is that the news and information has become so hyper sensationalized. Why? Everyone is trying to maximize their income earning potential of the Internet and media, assuming that whatever they are posting is on a website or blog or news agency leveraged by Google sense, the drive is to maximize eyeball viewing time, and Click through rates, for the publisher to make money.
Also, something that I have learned about solo entrepreneurs in the media space; everyone is trying to search and seek and strive for some sort of “legitimacy”, or, they’re just struggling to pay their rent.
For example, let us say that I am some sort of Internet personality, some sort of fitness influencer, even Fraher. Perhaps the only way I could pay my rent is through some sort of sponsorship or brand deal, in which I am being paid maybe only $500-$1000 a month, and barely maintaining even my expenses.
Also, even some inside intelligence on YouTube; the super fax is that even if my video gets 100 million views, assuming I had advertisements on it I might only make about seven to $8000 USD. That is actually not that much. You’re probably better off Working as an Amazon prime delivery driver, or even Uber driver. And even the best craters, it is very rare that they make a video with so many views.
As a consequence, there is this low-key bias or optimization towards creating videos or things which strive to hit that benchmark. Once again it is things that have to deal with more with the sensational, audacious, the bizarre, even the morose?
Truth be told, in today’s world especially with internet blogs, ChatGPT 4, the funny thing I learned:
Even ChatGPT doesn’t know if ChatGPT wrote it or not!
For example, instead of just googling myself, I have just been ChatGPT’ing myself. For example I have the paid premium version of ChatGPT, which gives me access to the new newest version of ChatGPT which is version 4, which I rate at least 1000 times better than the free ChatGPT 3.5.
So for example I’ll do something like search “ERIC KIM“, and just see what ChatGPT tells me, and I will just copy and paste that into a new blog post on my own personal blog titled “ERIC KIM“, And within a week, ChatGPT indexes that and links back to that. It is almost like a snake eating its own tail, the ourubus. 
As a consequence, let us just think and consider; how today’s media landscape is created within the Internet. Let us say that I am some sort of newsagency or publishers; I will hire writers, and a lot of these writers will use ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence editing and writing and text generation tools. It is impossible to ascertain how much of it was written by human or ChatGPT or whatever whatever; and even so… Assuming that even if 100% of the information was hand typed by human being, it almost doesn’t really matter because a lot of these writers tend to be dark morose and sick people.
Currently speaking I live in Culver City Los Angeles California, where Jeff Bezos Amazon, Amazon prime, Amazon prime studios just least a huge lot of land, the Culver studios, owned by the developer Michael Heckman, apparently even  Jeff Bezos spot out the movie theater, the culvert theater next-door. Also slowly but surely apple is getting in bed with Sony entertainment, producing movies like the new Napoleon movie as well as the new killers of the flower moon with Leonardo DiCaprio.
During this whole period I saw a lot of people from the writer strike, and honestly… A lot of these people look very unwell. Most of them do not look very physically fit, and you could just see; they don’t spend enough time outside, none of them look happy jubilant and gay, and just think simply; if the physiology and health of somebody is poor, what kind of artwork or ideas do you think they will produce? There is this weird bias that we think that somehow the mind is divorced from the body, but in fact, the mind is the body. That is if your body is sick, your mind is sick. However, if your body is strong robust and great, so will your ideas.
I don’t think it’s a modern day trend or shift; my thought is honestly all generations all histories people in the past, seems like everyone has always left a spine or a backbone. I wrote a nice little piece back in Vietnam titled Adamantine Spine;  imagine yourself like wolverine; the best way to imagine things is that you are actually like wolverine, your body is made out of adamantine metal, and what happens is every time that somebody tries to destroy you, you regenerate and you re-heal, I’ll be at a very painful process, you still do it. 
Kind of like Deadpool; the reason why I really love Ryan Reynolds and the Deadpool character is there is a little bit of fun dark humor here; I think when people take things to literally, too seriously, life loses its bigger it’s fun it’s jubilance. 
However a bad example is when you turn the needle too much towards the comedic; for example there is this notion called “Campi“, when things are almost too cheesy, and lame. For example all of the new Thor movies, as well as all the new Disney Marvel movies, they are insanely lame.
All modern day media is bad. Only good ones I think are actually ancient Greek epics; the Iliad, after that the Odyssey. If you’re curious, I think that the Iliad is at least 100 or 200 times better more interesting and more fun than the odyssey. Whether or not both were written by Homer or not doesn’t really seem to matter; I think the overall storyline of the Iliad is much more exciting and intense whereas the odyssey is a bit boring.
The Odyssey just drags on and on… Odysseus is a good character but not as grand as Achilles. 
It seems that a lot of modern day humans want some sort of weird free lunch; somehow… We want to live a better more greater more grand life that is more exciting and fun, yet we seem to not desire taking any personal risks.
For example let us think about video game culture. My simple heuristic is this; don’t play no video game in which you have actually not done the real thing yourself. For example, all these grown men playing video games in which they are shooting each other with guns, and they have actually never shot a real life gun seems little bit weird.
Also I have a rule; video games should only be permitted for poor kids in the hood, we have nothing better else to do.
Also a cut off time; no adult over the age of 18 years old should play video games anymore. I think it is fine for highschoolers and middle schoolers video games, but not grown men.
I ended up quit playing video games when I was around 18 or 19 years old, my freshman year of college. Why? I literally had no time! I had a part-time job, working around 20 hours a week as tech-support for the UCLA undergraduate admissions office, I was active in many clubs, having to study, and do other stuff.
I actually think that some weird ways, if you do games are like pornography for the mind-body and soul. The generalize just a most video games is everyone wants to be a hero, take risks, go on quest, obtain some booty whatever. Yet, embodied reality real life doesn’t seem to allow any outlets for this. Therefore, people escape into video games. 
The big issue with video games is that ultimately, you are a slave to the platform, the close loop system, the video game producer and publisher etc.
For example, already… It seems that the video game Fortnite which was insanely grand is already being forgotten. Let us say you are a person who devoted 10,000 hours to playing the Fortnite game, but now no longer anybody plays it. All of your time has been wasted.
Even StarCraft, StarCraft professional players; nobody really plays it anymore, let us say that you’re a professional gamer sponsorships making money playing StarCraft tournaments, now you no longer have any sponsors. All of your time was for naught. 
A critical thing I believe for men, us men, is that we require some sort of physical risk, physical challenge, some sort of physical risk taking.
For example, in my mind the only type of weightlifting which is interesting includes some sort of “risk”; for example, when I would atlas lift seven plates, eight plates, nine plates, 10 plates, max out the bar, and then clip on an additional 25 pounder in between and on top of the 10 plates, the jaws of others would drop; and then a few people would actually have the chutzpah to tell me:
“… be careful.”
My thought;
People actually want to see me get hurt, or “fail”. When I succeeded, I have somehow dismantled their narrow worldview.
another funny bias; when I was doing so much crazy turbo thoughtting while in Vietnam (I was off the grid, got rid of my phone, didn’t communicate for about two years, no email no communication no social media no nothing… People would ask…)
is ERIC KIM okay?
Or,
is ERIC KIM on drugs?
Or–
What happened to ERIC KIM?
Simple; when you are disconnected from the BS of traditional American media thinking… Do you think different. Also, not having a phone, I think this is the 10,000 X secret cheat code to life. Assuming that you were a crypto trillionaire, and you no longer needed other people “opportunities“, or you didn’t really desire to get paid money from other people or corporations… What real use do you have of email anyways?
When people say “opportunities”, I think it is a weird keratin stick; part of it is chasing some sort of legitimacy, part of it is chasing some sort of financial opportunities, brand sponsorships etc.
Something I have personally discovered is this:
brand Sponsorships are a trap. 
Example, if you are sponsored by any sort of company or corporation or whatever… You are not really going to hundred percent say what is really on your mind. This is the same thing that goes with “brand ambassadors”– I find the whole thing a bit base; why? He or she who focuses too much on getting some sort of “ambassador ship is a signal that they are just chasing clout in some sort of mean way.
Once again, if you already have $200 million worth of cryptocurrency bitcoin or chainlink or whatever – why do you need to get some sort of brand “ambassadorship” from anybody? Why do you want free equipment gear or stuff? Why not just buy it yourself?
This is actually something I have discovered with a lot of guys in the photography space; they are already independently wealthy from some sort of other ventures, whether it be business etc. And then they go seek to try to become some sort of “ambassador“, for Leica camera whatever.
That is not forget that Leica camera, the modern day rendition is essentially the brainchild of Dr. Andreas Kaufman– who I discovered is not a “real“ doctor; he caught his PhD in philosophy, which I think is a good idea but I think when people talk about him they assume that he has some sort of medical doctor or something.
A simple heuristic that I learned from Nassim TALEB; don’t ask people what you should invest in, ask them… What did you invest in? 
For example, I recently swapped a bunch of my bitcoin for chainlink. Why did I do it? My thoughts: 
Essentially it is a platform built upon Ethereum, the blockchain… that strives to solve real world problems.
The first critical issue at hand is the notion of the “Oracle problem”, and cryptographic proof and truth.
The general gist of the Oracle problem is that you have all these people purporting to say something… How do you know if someone is really telling the truth or not?
Also, they’re great innovation of a decentralized oracle network. I think anything that is decentralized and can be done offline is a good idea; anything that has to be done when you’re connected to the web is fragile.
For example, the “internet of things”, which includes all of your home devices, your home stuff etc. I think this includes your home speaker things, your Amazon echo or echo dot, your Apple HomePod thing, your ring Amazon nest devices etc. 
TVE — transactional value enabled?
What is the purpose of technology and these things? A very basic idea is that the point is to help enable commerce and other things. Money makes the world go round, Publilius Syrus.
What is money anyways? Money is movement. Anything that literally physiologically moves human beings in time and space is money.
For example, if you promise somebody $30 an hour, they will walk around, move their bodies to clean toilets, etc.
Also, money movement. The whole global economy to me is so fascinating; because we process and move information so quickly and so globally… how do you link it all together?  
I find chainlink to be an interesting concept because wherever you go in real life, there are physical chain links everywhere.
Also, technically the internet, the World Wide Web, is a bunch of hyperlinks which link websites together.
My personal thought and prediction is that chainlink could become the next Google; Google indexes the whole internet, and made it easy for you to find any sort of website. What I think chainlink will do is link all of this information on the internet and computers and make them accessible, trustworthy, tamperproof.
Only read stuff that you find interesting, skip over stuff you find boring.
About a week or two ago, I reread the original bitcoin white paper, and I was so impressed with how short it was, how minimalistic it was, and how to the point it was. But… reading it… this time around… felt a bit boring.
And this is the big thing: if something bores you, you gotta get out of it.
Therefore, I sold or transferred or converted nine of my bitcoin and put it all into chainlink, at the time it was valued at ~20,800 LINK (CHAINLINK), with bitcoin at around $35,000 a bitcoin.
I think what I try to do is think at least 30 years into the future. 20 or 30 years. It is funny, as I write this at the age of 35, 30 years from now Seneca is only going to be 32 years old, still a few years younger than me. My personal aspiration is to hold onto chainlink for at least 30 years, and then maybe transfer it to Seneca when he grows up. Or I just help him build some sort of company or entrepreneurial venture etc.
I love bitcoin but maybe one of the big issues here is that bitcoin is like digital money and gold; most people just hold onto it, and I don’t think actually aspire to use it to actually pay for your latte at Starbucks or whatever. I think because bitcoin and cryptocurrency is so volatile; Everybody’s hope and dream and ambition is that their coin will rise value astronomically and they will become rich, buy the Lamborghini or whatever… and be happy.
Trust nobody who drives a Lamborghini — only trust people who drive Toyota Priuses, in white. 
Why? If you drive a Toyota Prius, in white… it is a signal that you really don’t care for appearances.
How do you know if somebody is unsuccessful? 
If they drive a Range Rover, a Mercedes AMG G wagon, murdered out, all matte black, a baselevel Mercedes car, a baselevel Audi car, like an A3 or a Q3, drive some sort of Audi electric car which is just the same as the Porsche Taycan, don’t forget that the Volkswagen group owns Lamborghini Audi Volkswagen Porsche etc. same thing goes with anybody who drives a BMW car.
Foreign cars are bad.  
I think crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is an interesting game; prediction, prediction markets, trying to predict the future… is just a luxury and a fun thing.
When I was in college, my sophomore year, and I was starting to get into trading stocks, daytrading… I had a pretty certain thought that Blockbuster was going to go under. I tried to figure out how to short stocks, but I really couldn’t figure out how to do it.
Also I remember when the prime mortgage meltdown happened, and the value of Ford went to almost 2 dollars a year. I wanted to buy some Ford stock but I had no money, no capital.
It is interesting to think about this in hindsight because when I was incorrectly trading pennystock, for some sort of oil producer company which was actually running at a loss… I had no idea because I misread the financials… I lost my whole life savings which was maybe $3500 USD or something. It was insanely tragic. But now that I am playing with higher sums more like $300,000 USD, I realize that it was just a valuable lesson at the time.
Therefore, with any sort of financial speculation, think about it at the 30 year span. Even when you are 70 or 80 years old, I met this lady at the park who looked phenomenal and she told me she was 82… she looked like a very fit 45-year-old!
My personal aspiration is when I’m 82 years old, to still be able to lift 1000 pounds. Google or YouTube “ERIC KIM thousand pound atlas lift”
It seems that the way things are going, I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to think that we can live to be 120 years old. Try to think that far. 
I think actually the big thing is that everyone now aspires to buy a house or home or property. It is getting pretty ridiculous, even in Los Angeles, even buying a single-family home in Inglewood… you’re looking easily at around $1.5 million for a whatever house.
My prediction is that the prices of homes  will continue to soar astronomically high. I think a lot of these $1.5 million homes can easily balloon two $3 million, $5 million, 10 and $15 million, $150 million or whatever. Why? The biggest issue at hand is runaway inflation, which means the value of the US dollar and currency is continually going lower and lower, because the US is what, currently speaking $30 trillion in debt? And what America thinks the smart idea is to just keep printing money ad infinitum, into infinity, in order to “stimulate” the economy.
But does this work? No.
For example talking to my friend Noel who works in hygiene, he says that a lot of these young guys, around 25 to 30 years old, are so lazy. Why? After Covid and people started giving away these free checks… and from unemployment you could literally make $5000 USD a month by sitting on your butt and doing nothing… people lost the motivation to work. A lot of people moved back home, live with their parents, and are essentially living for free. As a consequence you have a huge generation of unmotivated people, unwilling to do any sort of manual labor, which is bad because having manual and physical labor is critical.
For example, being in Beverly Hills a lot; and Holby Hills,  there is this new funny caste systems; really rich people getting mansions built, and the army of construction labor people, mostly from Mexico doing the labor to build these mansions.
Also, think about Amazon prime delivery drivers, people who bag your food at Whole Foods, Erwhon etc, all these contractors electricians plumbers etc.… the truly critical labor. Doesn’t matter if you pay them $30 $40 $50 or even $60 an hour, it seems at this point money doesn’t really motivate them anymore. Therefore what do you do? It seems that America we are just importing more people from Mexico to do labor for us, because they are motivated. Americans are no longer motivated.
I am obsessed with the future. Future thinking, future technologies, new brave worlds to discover.
Why? I have always been into technology ever since I was a kid, getting my first Acer aspire Pentium one processor computer when I was around 11 years old. Even teaching myself how to program visual basic 3.0 in the early days, creating my own AOL “punter“ etc.
Also, I still will never forget when I read the Maddox article on why you should beat your kids, in computer class in Bayside Queens at PS 169 when I was in the fifth grade, and all of me and our friends, a bunch of 11-year-old laughing and saying “It is true!”
Even I remember as a kid, when I first moved to New York, maybe it was I had some sort of school in the Bronx, when kids in the hallway would “the South Park movies “blame Canada, blame Canada”…
Anyways the generalized thought is I love media information, and also I have a passion to innovate, write and to think, to motivate and to also disprove nonsense.
Ever since I was young I was always bred with an insanely huge ego; the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, (jang-son), being raised with the “prince disease“, was unusually good for me. Always getting the finest cuts of meat and galbi from my grandmother, always showered with praise love and attention and how smart tall and good-looking I was. Very good for me.
Anybody who is a wage slave, which means anybody who is paid a biweekly or monthly salary… doesn’t matter if you’re being paid $10 million a year from Apple… You’re still a wage slave.
A simple heuristic:
Can you go two years without checking or responding to any of your emails or not?
If you have to use email for a living, you’re not free. 
Let us say that your cryptocurrency goes to the value of $1 trillion USD. Then what? Then do you just dissolve it all into US dollars, buy a mansion and a yacht somewhere, and live indefinitely into the horizon for infinite bliss?
This doesn’t seem to be the goal. For me, I think a more interesting life trajectory is to then to no longer care for money, and use your power mind and soul and body for more interesting things which can include philosophy, writing, thinking, doing research, reading, making art, publishing art, etc.
Money as it means to creative leisure and production.
One thing I am very happy about is ChatGPT knows exactly who I am, why I am so significant and influential, etc. As a consequence, I already feel like my legacy is secure, and I don’t have anything left to prove to nobody else.
As a consequence, at this point life is all upside no downside. Even one of the happiest moments of my life, Cindy and I begetting our first son Seneca, at this point life is all upside no downside.
As a man, as long as you have one male heir, you can die happy. 
Things that I find interesting use cases of chainlink:
I think an inconvenient truth is that truth be told, a lot of the world is run by the military. Certainly there are lots of bad things about the military, but truth be told, without the US military, our precious US dollars would be worth nothing.
For example, I think the American government we are $31.46 trillion dollars in debt? To where… China?
As a consequence, how does America’s stay afloat and print more money? Simple, she simply prints more money because she can because we got the military to back us. 
For example, let’s say that mainland China comes knocking and asks for her money back. Is America going to give it back? No. We will just wave our big stick, and say we are not interested.
So the interesting use case of chainlink and the US military is especially in the future drone warfare or whatever… It actually does seem that having some sort of crypto technology will be useful here.
For example the internet of things, chain-link solves this issue. Also, I believe a lot of the US military intervention stuff is going to be unmanned, and having access to some sort of technology which allows automation without meddling in the Internet seems like a good idea.
Even look at the company Anduril– it has a major investment from founders fund, Peter Thiel’s venture capitalist fund. It looks like the future of autonomous flying drones to bomb the bad guys is going to be the future. 
I think in life, big opportunities only come infrequently. As a consequence, I think in life… it seems better to take really big bold bets, rather than just stand on the sidelines.
At the end of our lives, we will regret more the decisions or the risks we failed to do, rather than the ones we did.
For example, if a big opportunity comes up, and you’re interested, go for it. You don’t want to be 90 years old on your deathbed, kicking yourself in the butt wishing that you had taken that risk. In hindsight, everything is regret. 
My personal speculation is that I think chainlink will become the next Google. Why? ERIC Schmidt is on the board of trustees for chainlink, and ERIC Schmidt is the one who built Google into what it is today. Just watch the interview between him and Sergey. In a telling quote, ERIC Schmidt said:
The secret to success of Google was that we tried to put a little bit of Google into everything.
Genius. For example, this is evident in how whenever you Google search something, there is a little bit of that Google code in the URL. 
Therefore my prediction is chainlink… whether you know it or not there will be a little bit of chainlink in everything.  For example, their decentralized oracle network to show accurate prices for any cryptocurrency asset down to the penny. Also, maybe the future of international banking, the SWIFT system… Will be enabled with chainlink? 
Apparently there’s a rumor that Sergey Nazarov might be Satoshi.
Also the reason why I trust Sergey as a founder is this:
He doesn’t really care for social appearances.
I think I learned this from NASSIM TALEB; only trust doctors who look like butchers. Why? When somebody looks too much the part of something, they are not. 
For example, when you go to a party, who is the real successful person? The person who could show up and meet the prime minister and shake hands wearing T-shirt and jeans and sneakers, just like my friend did meeting the prime minister.
Also, the really really rich successful person will just drive some sort of white Toyota Prius or old beat up Honda Civic, in silver. Even the family car; very specifically… White Honda Odyssey. Not even a Toyota sienna!
Even family connections, my $500 million net worth familia– the dad gave all the kids Ford fusions, and even though the dad is a major player in Tesla, they only have a super base level Tesla model three in white. No Tesla model Y, X, S.
Anyways, the founder Sergey — he always wears the same blue flannel, and really has an air of insouciance that is good. He isn’t the one looking all flashy driving around in the Lamborghini. He probably just drives a Honda Civic or Honda Accord, and I think he is really trying to build something he cares for.
I think there’s a saying in Silicon Valley amongst venture capital firms, bet on the jockey not the horse. That means, better to invest in the founder of a great thing, rather than the company or the product. For example, it is wise to bet on Elon Musk and anything he built, rather than Other companies which are built by random CEOs and non-visionaries.
I bet on Sergey N.
My brother-in-law Khanh told me: if you spent $80,000 to buy a Tesla model S several years ago, that would be worth $500,000 today!
True investors live like poor people, and speculate on the thing, rather than buying the thing.
For example, instead of spending $120,000 on Tesla, I would instead prefer to buy $120,000 worth of Tesla stock.
Why? Things that go up in value overtime versus things that go down in value.
For example, even though a Tesla car gets software updates over the air, eventually over time, the value of it will slowly depreciate. The battery range will become less, more wear and tear on the vehicle etc. Even the world’s best car can be robust at best, not antifragile.
What is antifragile? Something that overtime gets better and stronger and more powerful and better and more robust… rather than the opposite.
This might be the intelligence of collecting rare collector cars, like old Ferraris or whatever… even old Porsche cars, over time, the value of them will go up.
Even apparently the old Toyota Supra, the one that showed up in fast and the furious, they are worth close to $250,000 now!
So perhaps the best way to think about things is to think of them like financial investments, rather than toys.
It looks like their new chainlink staking, chainlink economics is also doing very well. The full pool has been filled already!
I think at the end of the day, I don’t really care for money that much, I am more interested in speculation, risk, and thinking and predicting the future. This is my prime joy and bliss.
Don’t simply sit on the sidelines, twiddling your thumbs for some sort of magical future to get better. I say rather than waiting for the future, speculate and invest in it right now!
ERIC
***
I think for Christmas, simple things you could do:
Some thoughts on sublime beauty:
So what are we searching for, what are we looking for?
I think what we see is some sort of sublime beauty, joy, flourishing.
How do we attempt to achieve this? Through our cars our homes our clothing etc. 
However… I think true sublime beauty can only be achieved by yourself, through your own artistic creations.
For example, your own child, producing begetting and making and birthing your own child; there is seriously no greater joy.
Also, your artistic creations. Your photos, the artwork you produce. I also qualify DALL-E 3 images, ChatGPT and AI art in it!  Why? Ultimately it is your brainchild; doesn’t really matter whether you produced it by yourself by hand or whatever. For example, Matisse in his advanced years apparently lost mobility in his body and hands, and would simply point with the stick to his assistance to create artwork for him.
Also, Andy Warhol. He was notorious for having an army of assistance producing work for him.
My thought on artificial intelligence and AI generated art is free. The idea is that the artwork we create is ours.
One thing I find surprising is that the greatest boon for AI generated art is that it is all open source! Isn’t this phenomenal? 
Art wants to be free! Art wants to propagate into the real world, not be constrained by nothing, whether digital rights management, closed doors or borders etc.
This is my general idea with open source artwork; I hate that so much of great photos and art is simply trapped within printed books, not easily accessible or findable on the internet. My huge frustration with photography:
If I am trying to find the book “the Americans“, or any other book out there, any photo book… Why can’t I just Google it or find it online for free?
I have a very simple suggestion: make the images online for free, everything open source and full resolution… and what you do instead is you charge money for the printed physical book.
For example, let us say that you’re planning to publish a photo book. The easiest way to approach this is have an open source free full resolution PDF available online to download, to give your potential customer and clients a taste of what to expect. And then if they like your photos enough, they will buy the printed book.
Why? people like physical things. I think the bias is that people don’t like to pay for digital things, but we are more than happy to pay for physical things.
For example, a very simple strategy to thrive as a modern day photographer entrepreneur and artist visual artist, Fatar for it to have all of your artwork open, open source, full resolution JPEG or PDF or whatever… and barbell that with charging a lot of money for your products, physical products, embodied workshop experiences etc.
For me, sublime beauty in the context of photography is high grain, gritty high contrast black-and-white. It is a simple aesthetic taste for myself; to me there is nothing more beautiful more sublime.
Also, taking photos of your loved ones. This involves your kids, your wife or your spouse, and even yourself.
Even my friend Josh White said it wisely: At the end of your life, are you going to care about all these photos that you shot of strangers, or are you going to care about photos that you shot of your loved ones? 
I think instead of thinking about love, better to think about heart, care, curation, what you care for.
For example, the word coeur– same as courage, curate, care.
It all comes down to the heart.
One of the via negativa ways we could live life; just don’t do anything you don’t care for.
For example when you’re talking to kids, best to ask “What don’t you want to be when you grow up?”
Also happiness is via negativa; better to ascertain what makes you miserable, what you hate, what you despise… and figuring out how to subtract or delete that from your life, rather than doing things that make you “happy”.
For example, personal annoyances of myself include being stuck in traffic, dealing with subscriptions and subscription model things, closed source things, modern day news and media and Facebook Instagram, YouTube, family annoyances and drama, other peoples problems etc.
Also, typically I despise email; and also I typically hate being automatically subscribed to some BS newsletter that I did not opt in. Therefore the silver ethical rule here is interesting:
 If something annoys you, don’t do that to others.
For example, I hate when people automatically subscribe me to some email newsletter without me checking a button to confirm that actually wanted. Therefore I will never send an email newsletter to anybody who has not intentionally opted in.
Also, trying to do things for other people that I would myself like. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever received an email or an email newsletter that I actually liked to work for. Therefore as a consequence, my simple strategy is to drive to send emails or email newsletters that people actually look forward to reading. 

Or in other words, make people actually positively excited to check their email inbox!
Ignore the “advice” of others, and also… best to simply observe what other people do.
Also, the best way to study success is to figure out what people don’t do, what they don’t own, etc. 
For example, Elon Musk and Kanye West; neither of them wear watches.
Also, neither has an Instagram, both deleted it.
Also, Elon Musk doesn’t own a home or live in a home. I think he just rents some sort of random two bedroom one bath home hut somewhere in Austin Texas.
Also, Elon Musk does not own any Lamborghinis Ferraris or loser cars.

Also, the greatest courage of a Kanye West; he doesn’t censor himself, he says what is really on his mind.
Maybe is Kanye the most courageous man alive? Maybe. There is no right and wrong, all is permitted. Therefore to not censor yourself in modern-day society is the ultimate act of courage? 
Beautiful body, beautiful thoughts.
How to gain more beautiful thoughts? My simple suggestion is maximum time in the direct sun, ideally topless. Also, sleep early — shoot for 8pm?
A simple suggestion is limit your coffee and caffeine intake only between 4 AM to 9 AM, or only the morning hours.
And also during the day, lift weights at least once, maybe even twice.
Also my supreme luxury; the last few days, in a single day I have done all three: at least one hot yoga session, at least one hike in nature, and at least one weightlifting session.
Why work? I thought which interested me while in Vietnam, when Cindy and I were living in Hanoi, paying only $320 USD a month for rent, a position in which literally even if we wanted to spend all our money, we cannot spend it fast enough. Eating out every day, living in a small hotel room, no possessions no nothing.
Living in America seems a bit foolish if you don’t need to. I think it is far superior to live in Hanoi, Saigon, Pom pen, ironically even Japan; I think when we were living in Kyoto, we were subbing an apartment for only $500 USD a month.
TRAVEL NOTES (PDF)– the simple financial life leverage is simple:
Earn US dollars, American standards, live abroad.
For example, Mexico City, Roma Norte, even Doctores. Condesa — all good.
Truth be told, if Cindy was not employed in America, I see zero reason to live here. I would probably be living somewhere else; and also assuming I didn’t have a kid, I would definitely be some sort of weird digital nomad. 

People don’t seem to get it; the primary function of writing is meta-thinking, a fun leisure activity. A fun luxury.
This is where I don’t understand 99.9% of writers; it seems some sort of weird self-flagellation here. Most writers I know… don’t actually enjoy writing. 
This is where ChatGPT is no threat; honestly we gotta rethink this whole K-12 education and college thing; the point of writing isn’t writing for the sake of good writing; the point of writing is to flesh out our thoughts, to share ideas that we find interesting.
A simple one is to have offspring; to have at least one kid, perhaps ideally two kids, or if you’re willing… more.
I think the funny thing about kids and family is that typically we use ourselves in our own life experiences as a barometer and framing. For example, I have one younger sister two years younger than me, and I always wanted to have at least one boy, one girl. It is because that is how I was raised.
Having kids make sense in so far much as if people stopped having kids, quite literally there would be no future humanity. What’s the point of having all the wealth in the world if there are no future children or humans to enjoy it?
Being self-employed, probably the best thing is that I literally can just spend all day with Seneca, being his personal trainer and tutor. I think of myself like Chiron the centaur, the private tutor of Achilles. Things I like to do with Seneca include physical activity exercise and exploration, his diet, which is close to 100% carnivore, 100% grass fed beef or Wagyu ground beef, and more recently… Finding this “ancestral blend“ ground beef thing at Erwhon (force of nature brand)– which has the consistency of normal ground beef, but has mixed in it beef liver and beef hard, which are natural steroids.
In fact I think the optimal diet is a 100% organ meat diet; organ meats are probably at least 100 times higher in nutritional density than even flesh meat.
Everyone says that eating red meat is bad; how about organ meats?
People say that eating meat is bad for the planet, but let us consider how much waste and scraps is thrown away from the animal, which include the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the tendons and ligaments, etc.
So if you really wanted to be a “woke” person, perhaps the wisest way to do this is just only eat a pure organ meat diet.  
New stuff:
Also… more books here!
When in doubt, go back to the source!
***
“Greater fates, greater fortunes.” – Heraclitus
A simple heuristic that I learned from Nassim TALEB; don’t ask people what you should invest in, ask them… What did you invest in? 
For example, I recently swapped a bunch of my bitcoin for chainlink. Why did I do it? My thoughts: 
Essentially it is a platform built upon Ethereum, the blockchain… that strives to solve real world problems.
The first critical issue at hand is the notion of the “Oracle problem”, and cryptographic proof and truth.
The general gist of the Oracle problem is that you have all these people purporting to say something… How do you know if someone is really telling the truth or not?
Also, they’re great innovation of a decentralized oracle network. I think anything that is decentralized and can be done offline is a good idea; anything that has to be done when you’re connected to the web is fragile.
For example, the “internet of things”, which includes all of your home devices, your home stuff etc. I think this includes your home speaker things, your Amazon echo or echo dot, your Apple HomePod thing, your ring Amazon nest devices etc. 
TVE — transactional value enabled?
What is the purpose of technology and these things? A very basic idea is that the point is to help enable commerce and other things. Money makes the world go round, Publilius Syrus.
What is money anyways? Money is movement. Anything that literally physiologically moves human beings in time and space is money.
For example, if you promise somebody $30 an hour, they will walk around, move their bodies to clean toilets, etc.
Also, money movement. The whole global economy to me is so fascinating; because we process and move information so quickly and so globally… how do you link it all together?  
I find chainlink to be an interesting concept because wherever you go in real life, there are physical chain links everywhere.
Also, technically the internet, the World Wide Web, is a bunch of hyperlinks which link websites together.
My personal thought and prediction is that chainlink could become the next Google; Google indexes the whole internet, and made it easy for you to find any sort of website. What I think chainlink will do is link all of this information on the internet and computers and make them accessible, trustworthy, tamperproof.
Only read stuff that you find interesting, skip over stuff you find boring.
About a week or two ago, I reread the original bitcoin white paper, and I was so impressed with how short it was, how minimalistic it was, and how to the point it was. But… reading it… this time around… felt a bit boring.
And this is the big thing: if something bores you, you gotta get out of it.
Therefore, I sold or transferred or converted nine of my bitcoin and put it all into chainlink, at the time it was valued at ~20,800 LINK (CHAINLINK), with bitcoin at around $35,000 a bitcoin.
I think what I try to do is think at least 30 years into the future. 20 or 30 years. It is funny, as I write this at the age of 35, 30 years from now Seneca is only going to be 32 years old, still a few years younger than me. My personal aspiration is to hold onto chainlink for at least 30 years, and then maybe transfer it to Seneca when he grows up. Or I just help him build some sort of company or entrepreneurial venture etc.
I love bitcoin but maybe one of the big issues here is that bitcoin is like digital money and gold; most people just hold onto it, and I don’t think actually aspire to use it to actually pay for your latte at Starbucks or whatever. I think because bitcoin and cryptocurrency is so volatile; Everybody’s hope and dream and ambition is that their coin will rise value astronomically and they will become rich, buy the Lamborghini or whatever… and be happy.
Trust nobody who drives a Lamborghini — only trust people who drive Toyota Priuses, in white. 
Why? If you drive a Toyota Prius, in white… it is a signal that you really don’t care for appearances.
How do you know if somebody is unsuccessful? 
If they drive a Range Rover, a Mercedes AMG G wagon, murdered out, all matte black, a baselevel Mercedes car, a baselevel Audi car, like an A3 or a Q3, drive some sort of Audi electric car which is just the same as the Porsche Taycan, don’t forget that the Volkswagen group owns Lamborghini Audi Volkswagen Porsche etc. same thing goes with anybody who drives a BMW car.
Foreign cars are bad.  
I think crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is an interesting game; prediction, prediction markets, trying to predict the future… is just a luxury and a fun thing.
When I was in college, my sophomore year, and I was starting to get into trading stocks, daytrading… I had a pretty certain thought that Blockbuster was going to go under. I tried to figure out how to short stocks, but I really couldn’t figure out how to do it.
Also I remember when the prime mortgage meltdown happened, and the value of Ford went to almost 2 dollars a year. I wanted to buy some Ford stock but I had no money, no capital.
It is interesting to think about this in hindsight because when I was incorrectly trading pennystock, for some sort of oil producer company which was actually running at a loss… I had no idea because I misread the financials… I lost my whole life savings which was maybe $3500 USD or something. It was insanely tragic. But now that I am playing with higher sums more like $300,000 USD, I realize that it was just a valuable lesson at the time.
Therefore, with any sort of financial speculation, think about it at the 30 year span. Even when you are 70 or 80 years old, I met this lady at the park who looked phenomenal and she told me she was 82… she looked like a very fit 45-year-old!
My personal aspiration is when I’m 82 years old, to still be able to lift 1000 pounds. Google or YouTube “ERIC KIM thousand pound atlas lift”
It seems that the way things are going, I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to think that we can live to be 120 years old. Try to think that far. 
I think actually the big thing is that everyone now aspires to buy a house or home or property. It is getting pretty ridiculous, even in Los Angeles, even buying a single-family home in Inglewood… you’re looking easily at around $1.5 million for a whatever house.
My prediction is that the prices of homes  will continue to soar astronomically high. I think a lot of these $1.5 million homes can easily balloon two $3 million, $5 million, 10 and $15 million, $150 million or whatever. Why? The biggest issue at hand is runaway inflation, which means the value of the US dollar and currency is continually going lower and lower, because the US is what, currently speaking $30 trillion in debt? And what America thinks the smart idea is to just keep printing money ad infinitum, into infinity, in order to “stimulate” the economy.
But does this work? No.
For example talking to my friend Noel who works in hygiene, he says that a lot of these young guys, around 25 to 30 years old, are so lazy. Why? After Covid and people started giving away these free checks… and from unemployment you could literally make $5000 USD a month by sitting on your butt and doing nothing… people lost the motivation to work. A lot of people moved back home, live with their parents, and are essentially living for free. As a consequence you have a huge generation of unmotivated people, unwilling to do any sort of manual labor, which is bad because having manual and physical labor is critical.
For example, being in Beverly Hills a lot; and Holby Hills,  there is this new funny caste systems; really rich people getting mansions built, and the army of construction labor people, mostly from Mexico doing the labor to build these mansions.
Also, think about Amazon prime delivery drivers, people who bag your food at Whole Foods, Erwhon etc, all these contractors electricians plumbers etc.… the truly critical labor. Doesn’t matter if you pay them $30 $40 $50 or even $60 an hour, it seems at this point money doesn’t really motivate them anymore. Therefore what do you do? It seems that America we are just importing more people from Mexico to do labor for us, because they are motivated. Americans are no longer motivated.
I am obsessed with the future. Future thinking, future technologies, new brave worlds to discover.
Why? I have always been into technology ever since I was a kid, getting my first Acer aspire Pentium one processor computer when I was around 11 years old. Even teaching myself how to program visual basic 3.0 in the early days, creating my own AOL “punter“ etc.
Also, I still will never forget when I read the Maddox article on why you should beat your kids, in computer class in Bayside Queens at PS 169 when I was in the fifth grade, and all of me and our friends, a bunch of 11-year-old laughing and saying “It is true!”
Even I remember as a kid, when I first moved to New York, maybe it was I had some sort of school in the Bronx, when kids in the hallway would “the South Park movies “blame Canada, blame Canada”…
Anyways the generalized thought is I love media information, and also I have a passion to innovate, write and to think, to motivate and to also disprove nonsense.
Ever since I was young I was always bred with an insanely huge ego; the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, (jang-son), being raised with the “prince disease“, was unusually good for me. Always getting the finest cuts of meat and galbi from my grandmother, always showered with praise love and attention and how smart tall and good-looking I was. Very good for me.
Anybody who is a wage slave, which means anybody who is paid a biweekly or monthly salary… doesn’t matter if you’re being paid $10 million a year from Apple… You’re still a wage slave.
A simple heuristic:
Can you go two years without checking or responding to any of your emails or not?
If you have to use email for a living, you’re not free. 
Let us say that your cryptocurrency goes to the value of $1 trillion USD. Then what? Then do you just dissolve it all into US dollars, buy a mansion and a yacht somewhere, and live indefinitely into the horizon for infinite bliss?
This doesn’t seem to be the goal. For me, I think a more interesting life trajectory is to then to no longer care for money, and use your power mind and soul and body for more interesting things which can include philosophy, writing, thinking, doing research, reading, making art, publishing art, etc.
Money as it means to creative leisure and production.
One thing I am very happy about is ChatGPT knows exactly who I am, why I am so significant and influential, etc. As a consequence, I already feel like my legacy is secure, and I don’t have anything left to prove to nobody else.
As a consequence, at this point life is all upside no downside. Even one of the happiest moments of my life, Cindy and I be getting our first son Seneca, at this point life is all upside no downside.
As a man, as long as you have one male heir, you can die happy. 
Things that I find interesting use cases of chainlink:
I think an inconvenient truth is that truth be told, a lot of the world is run by the military. Certainly there are lots of bad things about the military, but truth be told, without the US military, our precious US dollars would be worth nothing.
For example, I think the American government we are $10 trillion in debt? To where… China?
As a consequence, how does America’s stay afloat and print more money? Simple, she simply prints more money because she can because we got the military to back us. 
For example, let’s say that mainland China comes knocking and ask for her money back. Is America going to give it back? No. We will just waive our big stick, and say we are not interested.
So the interesting use case of chain-link and the US military is especially in the future withdrawn warfare or whatever… It actually does seem that having some sort of crypto technology will be useful here.
For example the Internet of things, chain-link solves this issue. Also, I believe a lot of the US military intervention stuff is going to be unmanned, and having access to some sort of technology which allows automation without meddling in the Internet seems like a good idea.
I think in life, big opportunities only come infrequently. As a consequence, I think in life… It seems better to take really big bold bets, rather than just stand on the sidelines.
My personal speculation is that I think chain-link will become the next Google. Why? ERIC Schmidt is on the board of trustees for chain-link, and ERIC Schmidt is the one who built Google into what it is today. Just watch the interview between him and Sergey. In Italian quote, ERIC Schmidt said:
The secret to success of Google was that we tried to put a little bit of Google into everything.
Genius. For example, this is evident in how whenever you Google search something, there is a little bit of that Google code in the URL. 
Apparently there’s a rumor that Sergey Nazarov might be Satoshi.
Also the reason why I trust Sergey as a founder is this:
He doesn’t really care for social appearances.
I think I learned this from NASSIM TALEB; only trust doctors who look like butchers. Why? When somebody looks too much the part of something, they are not. 
For example, when you go to a party, who is the real successful person? The person who could show up and meet the prime minister and shake hands wearing T-shirt and jeans and sneakers, just like my friend did meeting the prime minister.
 Also, the really really rich successful person will just drive some sort of white Toyota Prius or old beat up Honda Civic, in silver. Even the family car; very specifically… White Honda Odyssey. Not even a Toyota sienna!
Even family connections, my $500 million net worth familia– the dad gave all the kids Ford fusions, and even though the dad is a major player in Tesla, they only have a super base level Tesla model three in white. No Tesla model Y, X, S.
My brother-in-law Khan told me: if you spent $80,000 to buy a Tesla model S several years ago, that would be worth $500,000 today!
True investors live like poor people, and speculate on the thing, rather than buying the thing.
For example, instead of spending $120,000 on Tesla, I would instead prefer to buy $120,000 worth of Tesla stock.
Why? Things that go up in value overtime versus things that go down in value.
For example, even though a Tesla car gets software updates over the air, eventually overtime, the value of it will slowly depreciate. The battery range will become less, more wear and tear on the vehicle etc. Even the world’s best car can be robust at best, not anti-fragile.
What is anti-fragile? Something that overtime gets better and stronger and more powerful and better and more robust… rather than the opposite.
This might be the intelligence of collecting rare collector cars, like old Ferraris or whatever… Even old Porsche cars, overtime the value of them will go up.
Even apparently the old Toyota supra, the one that showed up in fast and the furious, they are worth close to $250,000 now!
So perhaps the best way to think about things is to think of them like financial investments, rather than toys.
It looks like their new chain-link staking, chain-link economics is also doing very well. The full pool has been filled already!
I think at the end of the day, I don’t really care for money that much, I am more interested in speculation, wrist, and thinking and predicting the future. This is my prime joy and bliss.
Too much more lies, we simply sit on the sidelines, twiddling our thumbs for some sort of magical future to get better. I say rather than waiting for the future, speculate and invest in it.
ERIC

So what are we searching for, what are we looking for?
I think what we see is some sort of sublime beauty, joy, flourishing.
How do we attempt to achieve this? Through our cars our homes our clothing etc. 
However… I think true sublime beauty can only be achieved by yourself, through your own artistic creations.
For example, your own child, producing begetting and making and birthing your own child; there is seriously no greater joy.
Also, your artistic creations. Your photos, the artwork you produce. I also qualify DALL-E 3 images, ChatGPT and AI art in it!  Why? Ultimately it is your brainchild; doesn’t really matter whether you produced it by yourself by hand or whatever. For example, Matisse in his advanced years apparently lost mobility in his body and hands, and would simply point with the stick to his assistance to create artwork for him.
Also, Andy Warhol. He was notorious for having an army of assistance producing work for him.
My thought on artificial intelligence and AI generated art is free. The idea is that the artwork we create is ours.
One thing I find surprising is that the greatest boon for AI generated art is that it is all open source! Isn’t this phenomenal? 
Art wants to be free! Art wants to propagate into the real world, not be constrained by nothing, whether digital rights management, closed doors or borders etc.
This is my general idea with open source artwork; I hit that so much of great photos and art is simply trapped within printed books, not easily accessible or findable on the internet. My huge frustration with photography:
if I am trying to find the book “the Americans“, or any other book out there, any photo book… Why can’t I just Google it or find it online for free?
I have a very simple suggestion: make the images online for free, everything open source and full resolution… And what you do instead is you charge money for the printed physical book.
For example, let us say that you’re planning to publish a photo book. The easiest way to approach this is have an open source free full resolution PDF available online to download, to give your potential customer and clients a taste of what to expect. And then if they like your photos enough, they will buy the printed book.
why? people like physical things. i think the bias is that people don’t like to pay for digital things, but we are more than happy to pay for physical things.
 For example, a very simple strategy to thrive as a modern day guitar for an entrepreneur and artist visual artist, Fatar for it to have all of your artwork open, open source, full resolution JPEG or PDF or whatever… And barbell that with charging a lot of money for your products, physical products, embodied workshop experiences etc.
For me, sublime beauty in the context of photography is high grain, gritty high contrast black-and-white. It is a simple aesthetic taste for myself; to me there is nothing more beautiful more sublime.
Also, taking photos of your loved ones. This involves your kids, your wife or your spouse, and even yourself.
Even my friend Josh White said it wisely: At the end of your life, are you going to care about all these photos that you shot of strangers, or are you going to care about photos that you shot of your loved ones? 
I think instead of thinking about love, better to think about heart, care, creation, what you care for.
For example, the word coeur– same as courage, curate, care.
It all comes down to the heart.
One of the via negativa ways we could live life; just don’t do anything you don’t care for.
For example when you’re talking to kids, best to ask “What don’t you want to be when you grow up?”
Also happiness is via negativities; better to ascertain what makes you miserable what you hate, what you despise… And figuring out how to subtract or delete that from your life, rather than doing things that make you “happy”.
For example, personal annoyances of myself include being stuck in traffic, dealing with subscriptions and subscription model things, clothes source things, modern day news and media and Facebook Instagram, YouTube, family an annoyances and drama, other peoples problems etc.
Also, typically I despise email; and also I typically hate being automatically subscribed to some BS newsletter that I did not opt in. Therefore the silver ethical rule here is interesting:
 If something annoys you, don’t do that to others.
For example, I hate when people automatically subscribe me to some email newsletter without me checking a button to confirm that actually wanted. Therefore I will never send an email newsletter to anybody who has not intentionally opted in.
 Also, trying to do things for other people that I would myself like. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever received an email or an email newsletter that I actually liked to work for. Therefore as a consequence, my simple strategy is to drive to send emails or email newsletters that people actually look forward to reading. 

Or in other words, make people actually positively excited to check their email inbox!
Ignore the “advice” of others, and also… best to simply observe what other people do.
Also, the best way to study success is to figure out what people don’t do, what they don’t own, etc. 
For example, Elon musk and Kanye West; neither of them wear watches.
Also, neither has an Instagram, both deleted it.
Also, Elon Musk doesn’t own a home or live in a home. I think he just rents some sort of random two bedroom one bath home hut somewhere in Austin Texas.
Also, Elon Musk does not own any Lamborghinis Ferraris or loser cars.

Also, the greatest courage of a Kanye West; he doesn’t censor himself, he says what is really on his mind.
Maybe is he the most courageous man alive? Maybe. There is no right and wrong, all is permitted. Therefore to not censor yourself in modern-day society is the ultimate act of courage? 
Beautiful body, beautiful thoughts.
How to gain more beautiful thoughts? My simple suggestion is maximum time in the direct sun, ideally topless. Also, sleep early — shoot for 8pm?
A simple suggestion is limit your coffee and caffeine intake only between 4 AM to 9 AM, or only the morning hours.
And also during the day, lift weights at least once, maybe even twice.
Also my supreme luxury; the last few days, in a single day I have done all three: at least one hot yoga session, at least one hike in nature, and at least one weightlifting session.
Why work? I thought which interest me while in Vietnam, when Cindy and I were living in Hanoi, paying only $320 USD a month for rent, a position in which literally even if we wanted to spend all our money, we cannot spend it fast enough. Eating out every day, living in a small hotel room, no possessions no nothing.
Living in America seems a bit foolish if you don’t need to. I think it is far superior to live in Hanoi, Saigon, Pom pen, ironically even Japan; I think when we were living in Kyoto, we were subbing an apartment for only $500 USD a month.
TRAVEL NOTES (PDF)– the simple financial life leverage is simple:
Earn US dollars, American standards, live abroad.
For example, Mexico City, Roma Norte, even Doctores. Condesa — all good.
Trippy told, if Cynthia was not employed in America, I see zero reason to live here. I would probably be living somewhere else; and also assuming I didn’t have a kid, I would definitely be some sort of weird digital nomad. 

People don’t seem to get it; the primary function of writing is meta-thinking, a fun leisure activity. A fun luxury.
This is where I don’t understand 99.9% of writers; it seems some sort of weird self-flagellation here. Most writers I know… don’t actually enjoy writing. 
This is where ChatGPT is no threat; honestly we got a rethink this whole K-12 education in college things; the point of writing isn’t right for the sake of good writing; the point of writing is to flesh out our thoughts, to share ideas that we find interesting.
A simple one is to have offspring; to have at least one kid, perhaps ideally two kids, or if you’re willing… More.
I think the funny thing about kids and family is that typically we use ourselves in our own life experiences as a barometer and framing. For example, I have one younger sister two years younger than me, and I always wanted to have at least one boy, one girl. It is because that is how I was raised.
Having kids make sense in so far much as if people stopped having kids, quite literally there would be no future humanity. What’s the point of having all the wealth in the world if there are no future children or humans to enjoy it?
Being self-employed, probably the best thing is that I literally can just spend all day with Seneca, being his personal trainer and tutor. I think of myself like Chiron the centaur, the private tutor of Achilles. Things I like to do with Seneca include physical activity exercise and exploration, His diet, which is close to 100% carnivore, 100% grass fed beef or Wagyu ground beef, and more recently… Finding this “ancestral blend“ ground beef thing at Erwhon (force of nature brand)– which has the consistency of normal ground beef, but has mixed in it beef liver and beef hard, which are natural steroids.
In fact I think the optimal diet is 100% organ meat diet; organ meats are probably at least 100 times higher in nutritional density than even flesh meat.
Everyone says that eating red meat is bad; how about organ meats?
People say that eating meat is bad for the planet, but let us consider how much waste and scraps is thrown away from the animal, which include the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the tendons and ligaments, etc.
So if you really wanted to be a “woke” person, perhaps the wisest way to do this is just only eat a pure organ meat diet.  
So what are we searching for, what are we looking for?
I think what we see is some sort of sublime beauty, joy, flourishing.
How do we attempt to achieve this? Through our cars our homes our clothing etc. 
However… I think true sublime beauty can only be achieved by yourself, through your own artistic creations.
For example, your own child, producing begetting and making and birthing your own child; there is seriously no greater joy.
Also, your artistic creations. Your photos, the artwork you produce. I also qualify DALL-E 3 images, ChatGPT and AI art in it!  Why? Ultimately it is your brainchild; doesn’t really matter whether you produced it by yourself by hand or whatever. For example, Matisse in his advanced years apparently lost mobility in his body and hands, and would simply point with the stick to his assistance to create artwork for him.
Also, Andy Warhol. He was notorious for having an army of assistance producing work for him.
My thought on artificial intelligence and AI generated art is free. The idea is that the artwork we create is ours.
One thing I find surprising is that the greatest boon for AI generated art is that it is all open source! Isn’t this phenomenal? 
Art wants to be free! Art wants to propagate into the real world, not be constrained by nothing, whether digital rights management, closed doors or borders etc.
This is my general idea with open source artwork; I hit that so much of great photos and art is simply trapped within printed books, not easily accessible or findable on the internet. My huge frustration with photography:
if I am trying to find the book “the Americans“, or any other book out there, any photo book… Why can’t I just Google it or find it online for free?
I have a very simple suggestion: make the images online for free, everything open source and full resolution… And what you do instead is you charge money for the printed physical book.
For example, let us say that you’re planning to publish a photo book. The easiest way to approach this is have an open source free full resolution PDF available online to download, to give your potential customer and clients a taste of what to expect. And then if they like your photos enough, they will buy the printed book.
why? people like physical things. i think the bias is that people don’t like to pay for digital things, but we are more than happy to pay for physical things.
 For example, a very simple strategy to thrive as a modern day guitar for an entrepreneur and artist visual artist, Fatar for it to have all of your artwork open, open source, full resolution JPEG or PDF or whatever… And barbell that with charging a lot of money for your products, physical products, embodied workshop experiences etc.
For me, sublime beauty in the context of photography is high grain, gritty high contrast black-and-white. It is a simple aesthetic taste for myself; to me there is nothing more beautiful more sublime.
Also, taking photos of your loved ones. This involves your kids, your wife or your spouse, and even yourself.
Even my friend Josh White said it wisely: At the end of your life, are you going to care about all these photos that you shot of strangers, or are you going to care about photos that you shot of your loved ones? 
I think instead of thinking about love, better to think about heart, care, creation, what you care for.
For example, the word coeur– same as courage, curate, care.
It all comes down to the heart.
One of the via negativa ways we could live life; just don’t do anything you don’t care for.
For example when you’re talking to kids, best to ask “What don’t you want to be when you grow up?”
Also happiness is via negativities; better to ascertain what makes you miserable what you hate, what you despise… And figuring out how to subtract or delete that from your life, rather than doing things that make you “happy”.
For example, personal annoyances of myself include being stuck in traffic, dealing with subscriptions and subscription model things, clothes source things, modern day news and media and Facebook Instagram, YouTube, family an annoyances and drama, other peoples problems etc.
Also, typically I despise email; and also I typically hate being automatically subscribed to some BS newsletter that I did not opt in. Therefore the silver ethical rule here is interesting:
 If something annoys you, don’t do that to others.
For example, I hate when people automatically subscribe me to some email newsletter without me checking a button to confirm that actually wanted. Therefore I will never send an email newsletter to anybody who has not intentionally opted in.
 Also, trying to do things for other people that I would myself like. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever received an email or an email newsletter that I actually liked to work for. Therefore as a consequence, my simple strategy is to drive to send emails or email newsletters that people actually look forward to reading. 

Or in other words, make people actually positively excited to check their email inbox!
Ignore the “advice” of others, and also… best to simply observe what other people do.
Also, the best way to study success is to figure out what people don’t do, what they don’t own, etc. 
For example, Elon musk and Kanye West; neither of them wear watches.
Also, neither has an Instagram, both deleted it.
Also, Elon Musk doesn’t own a home or live in a home. I think he just rents some sort of random two bedroom one bath home hut somewhere in Austin Texas.
Also, Elon Musk does not own any Lamborghinis Ferraris or loser cars.

Also, the greatest courage of a Kanye West; he doesn’t censor himself, he says what is really on his mind.
Maybe is he the most courageous man alive? Maybe. There is no right and wrong, all is permitted. Therefore to not censor yourself in modern-day society is the ultimate act of courage? 
Beautiful body, beautiful thoughts.
How to gain more beautiful thoughts? My simple suggestion is maximum time in the direct sun, ideally topless. Also, sleep early — shoot for 8pm?
A simple suggestion is limit your coffee and caffeine intake only between 4 AM to 9 AM, or only the morning hours.
And also during the day, lift weights at least once, maybe even twice.
Also my supreme luxury; the last few days, in a single day I have done all three: at least one hot yoga session, at least one hike in nature, and at least one weightlifting session.
Why work? I thought which interest me while in Vietnam, when Cindy and I were living in Hanoi, paying only $320 USD a month for rent, a position in which literally even if we wanted to spend all our money, we cannot spend it fast enough. Eating out every day, living in a small hotel room, no possessions no nothing.
Living in America seems a bit foolish if you don’t need to. I think it is far superior to live in Hanoi, Saigon, Pom pen, ironically even Japan; I think when we were living in Kyoto, we were subbing an apartment for only $500 USD a month.
TRAVEL NOTES (PDF)– the simple financial life leverage is simple:
Earn US dollars, American standards, live abroad.
For example, Mexico City, Roma Norte, even Doctores. Condesa — all good.
Trippy told, if Cynthia was not employed in America, I see zero reason to live here. I would probably be living somewhere else; and also assuming I didn’t have a kid, I would definitely be some sort of weird digital nomad. 

People don’t seem to get it; the primary function of writing is meta-thinking, a fun leisure activity. A fun luxury.
This is where I don’t understand 99.9% of writers; it seems some sort of weird self-flagellation here. Most writers I know… don’t actually enjoy writing. 
This is where ChatGPT is no threat; honestly we got a rethink this whole K-12 education in college things; the point of writing isn’t right for the sake of good writing; the point of writing is to flesh out our thoughts, to share ideas that we find interesting.
Philosopher, philos, philos-sophia: it simply means love, lover of wisdom, lover of knowledge. That in ancient Greek times, it was essentially a humble flex; you would say “I love wisdom and I aspire towards wisdom and becoming wise, yet… I am not yet wise”.
For example, the troll Socrates: who said “I am only wise because I know I know nothing.” (rolls eyes).
Every child is born a philosopher. For example… when a child is pushing boundaries, making sense of the world, and asking why? He or she is trying to figure out how to situate themselves in the world. The big problem is a lot of parents, teachers, religious teachers or whatever… never really give children the opportunity for critical thinking.
What is critical thinking? Critical thinking… kritikos in ancient Greek simply means judge, to weigh. Therefore a critical thinker is simply somebody who hears something reads something or whatever… and thinks for themselves: 
What is the significance of this thought or idea?
For example, one thing I have discovered very useful to study is religious texts, reading the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and Jewish texts etc. Why? So much of the world is predicated on morality and ethics; for example America is a protestant Christian country, much of the Middle East is Islamic, believes in the teachings of Mohammed, and also, a lot of people in America Israel and other places in the world are Jewish, heritage from Judea… and therefore, a lot of cultural things are disseminated through the media. For example, when I was a kid in Bayside Queens in New York, at PS 169, Public school 169 in Bayside Queens, I think when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, at around 11 or 12 years old… I remember just lying in bed, in my bedroom, watching reruns or TV shows of Seinfeld. I really had zero idea what was going on, and later… I learned that Seinfeld was essentially a comedic situational comedy based on Jewish, Jewish American culture. For example hilarious episodes I remember like the soup Nazi, etc.
And so much of American culture is Yiddish Jewish!
Thus, understanding the culture you understand your world.
“You gotta respect the elohim were on a whole new regime!” – JAY Z
Something I realize which is really interesting about Jay Z is that I think he has figured it out a lot of things. People think Jay Z is dumb; but in fact, he is highly intelligent, not only street smart, but booksmart. He seems to have read a lot of Shakespeare, poetry, and religious books. Once again, a lot of America lives in ignorance; this is the downsides of Americans who have never traveled, don’t have a passport, or have never really lived or ventured beyond their own city, state, etc.
I still remember one of the most formative moments of my life when I first went to Beirut Lebanon, and I learned so much. I was a ripe 21, 22-year-old. I learned how the Lebanese were some of the most beautiful attractive intelligent people, very worldly, even my favorite philosopher NASSIM TALEB is Lebanese. 
I learned how the Lebanese were fluent in Arabic French and English and half a dozen other languages… how Beirut was known as the Phoenix; was it burned down to the ground and rebuilt seven or eight times? The true embodiment of the notion, What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger“, or the more precise thought:
If something has been burned down to the ground, and has been successfully rebuilt several times… it is a sign that it is robust, strong, and actually gains from a chaos disorder and fire.
For example, let us think and imagine this interesting thought; kind of like the movie Akira [AKIRA II]. Imagine that you’re a big monster, and every time that somebody tries to attack you, shoot you with missiles or whatever, you actually grow bigger, stronger and more powerful. 
This is a very interesting thought, because in life, I think a lot of us shirk away from conflict, drama, etc. Yet what if we should put ourselves in a position in which we actually gain from the attacks of others? That every time that somebody tried to attack you, you would actually literally become more muscular, stronger, bigger, gain more skeletal muscle, etc.
I think this is the general premise behind weightlifting; the idea that in someways, when you lift very very heavy weights, always increasing your one repetition maximum lift, that in someways, you’re actually doing positive damage upon your body, but overtime, with enough sleep rest restoration, meet consumption etc.… you actually become bigger, more muscular and also stronger.
Once you deadlift 7 plates and beyond– you can do anything.
A sound mind inside a sound body (Mens sana in corpore sano)
Mens sand (mind sane), in corpore sano (in body sane).
So… what is the mind? 
My belief is that the mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That is, your mind and some sort of thing that you could just upload to the cloud and store forever. No. The mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That without a body you have no mind. That when your body dies, your mind also dies.
Let us consider everyone needs a body. You cannot just be a brain in some sort of fishbowl, connected to the internet. This is not a mind.
Also a very interesting thought I learned from studying philosophy — the notion of a ‘mortal soul’– that when you die and your body dies, your soul also dies.
Several things. First, a lot of philosophers actually have some sort of heritage within religion. For example, a lot of thinkers philosophers etc., especially the more modern ones, I referred to modern as everybody after Socrates… has some sort of influence from Christian, Catholic, Protestant Lutheran thought; The philosophers of Germany, and France, thoughts on nobility, the Holy Roman empire, conflicts and wars etc.
Even our best friend Nietzsche… was his father of pastor? A Christian minister?
Then the big problem:
If philosophers were deeply influenced by religion, their thoughts are more muddled.
True critical thinkers — before the time of Jesus?
Philology — essentially you study ancient Latin and ancient Greek, and you learn about the history of words, how they came into play, and modern meanings. 
The reason why I find this so critical is that English is a very imprecise language. We all see the same words, but… in our minds we have different concepts and notions.
For example, when we talk about “family”, assuming you live in America and there are multicultural beliefs; the notion of family is very different if you’re Caucasian, Vietnamese American, Korean American, from Ethiopia etc.
Or religion. Notions of religion are different if you’re Jewish, from Israel or Palestine, from South Korea, from Phnom Penh Cambodia, from Japan etc.
Some thoughts on critical thinking:
Now what?
Think more, become more.
This holiday season, do yourself a favor and gift yourself a book, or many books for yourselves and others.
Certain books I love:
Free books and printed books. 
The best photo books are the classics. For example, the original decisive moment by Henri Cartier bresson. 
75 inspirational books you gotta own >
Also free downloads.
Brave new world of photography and AI!
Composition checker: my new entrepreneurial venture >
Check your photo compositions by uploading your photos to it and asking it for feedback.
For real human feedback, arsbeta.com
And always, when in doubt–
ERIC

Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.
The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.
Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
Demigod physique. 
And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 
“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.
Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.
Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?
When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”
In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 
Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 
I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 
In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).
ERIC

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Philosopher, philos, philos-sophia: it simply means love, lover of wisdom, lover of knowledge. That in ancient Greek times, it was essentially a humble flex; you would say “I love wisdom and I aspire towards wisdom and becoming wise, yet… I am not yet wise”.
For example, the troll Socrates: who said “I am only wise because I know I know nothing.” (rolls eyes).
Every child is born a philosopher. For example… when a child is pushing boundaries, making sense of the world, and asking why? He or she is trying to figure out how to situate themselves in the world. The big problem is a lot of parents, teachers, religious teachers or whatever… never really give children the opportunity for critical thinking.
What is critical thinking? Critical thinking… kritikos in ancient Greek simply means judge, to weigh. Therefore a critical thinker is simply somebody who hears something reads something or whatever… and thinks for themselves: 
What is the significance of this thought or idea?
For example, one thing I have discovered very useful to study is religious texts, reading the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and Jewish texts etc. Why? So much of the world is predicated on morality and ethics; for example America is a protestant Christian country, much of the Middle East is Islamic, believes in the teachings of Mohammed, and also, a lot of people in America Israel and other places in the world are Jewish, heritage from Judea… and therefore, a lot of cultural things are disseminated through the media. For example, when I was a kid in Bayside Queens in New York, at PS 169, Public school 169 in Bayside Queens, I think when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, at around 11 or 12 years old… I remember just lying in bed, in my bedroom, watching reruns or TV shows of Seinfeld. I really had zero idea what was going on, and later… I learned that Seinfeld was essentially a comedic situational comedy based on Jewish, Jewish American culture. For example hilarious episodes I remember like the soup Nazi, etc.
And so much of American culture is Yiddish Jewish!
Thus, understanding the culture you understand your world.
“You gotta respect the elohim were on a whole new regime!” – JAY Z
Something I realize which is really interesting about Jay Z is that I think he has figured it out a lot of things. People think Jay Z is dumb; but in fact, he is highly intelligent, not only street smart, but booksmart. He seems to have read a lot of Shakespeare, poetry, and religious books. Once again, a lot of America lives in ignorance; this is the downsides of Americans who have never traveled, don’t have a passport, or have never really lived or ventured beyond their own city, state, etc.
I still remember one of the most formative moments of my life when I first went to Beirut Lebanon, and I learned so much. I was a ripe 21, 22-year-old. I learned how the Lebanese were some of the most beautiful attractive intelligent people, very worldly, even my favorite philosopher NASSIM TALEB is Lebanese. 
I learned how the Lebanese were fluent in Arabic French and English and half a dozen other languages… how Beirut was known as the Phoenix; was it burned down to the ground and rebuilt seven or eight times? The true embodiment of the notion, What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger“, or the more precise thought:
If something has been burned down to the ground, and has been successfully rebuilt several times… it is a sign that it is robust, strong, and actually gains from a chaos disorder and fire.
For example, let us think and imagine this interesting thought; kind of like the movie Akira [AKIRA II]. Imagine that you’re a big monster, and every time that somebody tries to attack you, shoot you with missiles or whatever, you actually grow bigger, stronger and more powerful. 
This is a very interesting thought, because in life, I think a lot of us shirk away from conflict, drama, etc. Yet what if we should put ourselves in a position in which we actually gain from the attacks of others? That every time that somebody tried to attack you, you would actually literally become more muscular, stronger, bigger, gain more skeletal muscle, etc.
I think this is the general premise behind weightlifting; the idea that in someways, when you lift very very heavy weights, always increasing your one repetition maximum lift, that in someways, you’re actually doing positive damage upon your body, but overtime, with enough sleep rest restoration, meet consumption etc.… you actually become bigger, more muscular and also stronger.
Once you deadlift 7 plates and beyond– you can do anything.
A sound mind inside a sound body (Mens sana in corpore sano)
Mens sand (mind sane), in corpore sano (in body sane).
So… what is the mind? 
My belief is that the mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That is, your mind and some sort of thing that you could just upload to the cloud and store forever. No. The mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That without a body you have no mind. That when your body dies, your mind also dies.
Let us consider everyone needs a body. You cannot just be a brain in some sort of fishbowl, connected to the internet. This is not a mind.
Also a very interesting thought I learned from studying philosophy — the notion of a ‘mortal soul’– that when you die and your body dies, your soul also dies.
Several things. First, a lot of philosophers actually have some sort of heritage within religion. For example, a lot of thinkers philosophers etc., especially the more modern ones, I referred to modern as everybody after Socrates… has some sort of influence from Christian, Catholic, Protestant Lutheran thought; The philosophers of Germany, and France, thoughts on nobility, the Holy Roman empire, conflicts and wars etc.
Even our best friend Nietzsche… was his father of pastor? A Christian minister?
Then the big problem:
If philosophers were deeply influenced by religion, their thoughts are more muddled.
True critical thinkers — before the time of Jesus?
Philology — essentially you study ancient Latin and ancient Greek, and you learn about the history of words, how they came into play, and modern meanings. 
The reason why I find this so critical is that English is a very imprecise language. We all see the same words, but… in our minds we have different concepts and notions.
For example, when we talk about “family”, assuming you live in America and there are multicultural beliefs; the notion of family is very different if you’re Caucasian, Vietnamese American, Korean American, from Ethiopia etc.
Or religion. Notions of religion are different if you’re Jewish, from Israel or Palestine, from South Korea, from Phnom Penh Cambodia, from Japan etc.
Some thoughts on critical thinking:
Some thoughts on critical thinking:
Philosopher, philos, philos-sophia: it simply means love, lover of wisdom, lover of knowledge. That in ancient Greek times, it was essentially a humble flex; you would say “I love wisdom and I aspire towards wisdom and becoming wise, yet… I am not yet wise”.
For example, the troll Socrates: who said “I am only wise because I know I know nothing.” (rolls eyes).
Every child is born a philosopher. For example… When a child is pushing boundaries, making sense of the world, and asking why? He or she is trying to figure out how to situate themselves in the world. The big problem is a lot of parents, teachers, religious teachers or whatever… Never really give children the opportunity for critical thinking.
What is critical thinking? Critical thinking… kritiklos in ancient Greek  simply means judge, two way. Therefore a critical thinker is simply somebody who hear something read something or whatever… and thinks for themselves: 
What is the significance of this thought or idea?
For example, one thing I have discovered very useful to study is religious text, reading the Bible, the Quran, the Torah and Jewish text etc. Why? So much of the world is wrong on morality and ethics; for example America is a protestant Christian country, Much of the Middle East is Islamic, believes in the teachings of Mohammed, and also, a lot of people in America Israel and other places in the world are Jewish, heritage from Judea… and therefore, a lot of cultural things are disseminated through the media. For example, when I was a kid in Bayside Queens in New York, at PS 169, Public school 169 in Bayside Queens, I think when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, at around 11 or 12 years old… I remember just lying in bed, in my bedroom, watching reruns or TV shows of Seinfeld. I really had zero idea what was going on, and later… I learned that Seinfeld was essentially a comedic situational comedy based on Jewish, Jewish American culture. For example hilarious episodes I remember like the soup Nazi, etc.
“You gotta respect the elohim were on a whole new regime!” – JAY Z
Something I realize which is really interesting about Jay Z is that I think he has figured it out a lot of things. People think Jay Z is dumb; but in fact, he is highly intelligent, not only streetsmart, but Booksmart. He seems to have read a lot of Shakespeare, poetry, and religious books. Once again, a lot of America lives in ignorance; this is the downsides of Americans who have never traveled, don’t have a passport, or have never really lived or ventured beyond their own city, state, etc.
I still remember one of the most formative moments of my life when I first went to Beirut Lebanon, and I learned so much. I was a ripe 21, 22-year-old. I learned how the Lebanese were some of the most beautiful attractive intelligent people, very worldly, even my favorite philosopher NASSIM TALEB is Lebanese. 
I learned how the Lebanese were fluent in Arabic French and English and half a dozen other languages… How being rude was known as the Phoenix; was it burned down to the ground and rebuilt seven or eight times? The true embodiment of the notion, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger “, or the more precise thought:
if something has been burned down to the ground, and has been successfully rebuilt several times… It is a sign that it is robust, strong, and actually gains from a tax disorder and fire.
For example, let us think and imagine this interesting thought; kind of like the movie Akira. Imagine that you’re a big monster, and every time that somebody tries to attack you, shoot you with missiles or whatever, you actually grow bigger. 
This is a very interesting thought, because in life, I think a lot of us shirk away from conflict, drama, etc. Yet what if we should put ourselves in a position in which we actually gain from the attacks of others? That every time that somebody tried to attack you, you would actually literally become more muscular, stronger, bigger, more skeletal muscle, etc.
I think this is the general premise behind weightlifting; the idea that in someways, when you lift very very heavy weights, always increasing your one repetition maximum lift, that in someways, you’re actually doing positive damage upon your body, but overtime, with enough sleep rest restoration, meet consumption etc.… You actually become bigger, more muscular and also stronger.
So… what is the mind? 
My belief is that the mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That is, your mind and some sort of thing that you could just upload to the cloud and store forever. No. The mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That without a body you have no mind. That when your body dies, your mind also dies.
Let us consider everyone needs a body. You cannot just be a brain in some sort of fishbowl, connected to the Internet. This is not a mind.
Several things. First, a lot of philosopher actually has some sort of heritage within religion. For example, a lot of thinkers philosophers etc., especially the more modern ones, I referred to modern as everybody after Socrates… Has some sort of influence from Christian, Catholic, protestant Lutheran thought; The flossers of Germany, and France, thoughts on nobility, the holy Roman empire, conflicts and wars etc.
Even our best friend Nietzsche… was his father of pastor? A Christian minister?
Philology — essentially you study ancient Latin and ancient Greek, and you learn about the history of words, how they came into play, and modern meanings. 
The reason why I find this so critical is that English is a very in precise language. We all see the same words, but… in our minds we have different concepts and notions.
For example, when we talk about “family”, assuming you live in America and there are multicultural beliefs; the notion of family is very different if you’re Caucasian, Vietnamese American, Korean American, from Ethiopia etc.
Or religion. Notions of religion are different if you’re Jewish, from Israel or Palestine, from South Korea, from Phnom Penh Cambodia, from Japan etc.
Something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, ebook, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Consider this a practical primer, cutting through the BS:
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show “Hey Arnold” in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… this was the true “functional” fitness.
The inspiration — Hector lifting an insanely massive stone (barely 2 strong men could lift it)… using it to break down the door of the ships of the other side.
Anyways, the reason why that period of covid was so good is that it was in the middle of beautiful Providence Rhode Island summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like zen, or taoism… it is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is stoicism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates. I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon (via Nietzsche). Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
Trust nobody who uses rationality or logic as their tyrannizing weapon. 
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
Demigod physique. 
And this is the true courage of Kanye West; he literally put everything on the line, and even lost his spouse and I think maybe his kids? All for the sake of revealing inequities. 
“I throw these Maybach keys fucking c’est la vie! I know that we the new slaves.”- Ye
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher… Democritus?; better to laugh about the follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “Perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” It will just be humorous.
Honestly, laughter, and kind of being able to joke about things might be the best way to live life and deal with setbacks. 
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… but Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
A pro tip is when it comes to websites, read the alternative text, the header text, the stuff that shows up in the tab of your browser window. If the website, the automotive retailer tries to market themselves as a “luxury” brand, typically it is actually a sign that it isn’t a luxury brand it isn’t luxury brand.
Thought: what are some good examples of true luxury brands which don’t overly calls itself luxury? 
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… and luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury?
When somebody asked Diogenes the cynic; “What is the best human good”? He said “Freedom of speech, speaking your mind, having the power to see whatever is on your mind.”
In fact, my current joy is becoming more and more free talking, and free riding. What that means is this; I’m ain’t going to censor myself no more, even if I might be politically incorrect insensitive or whatever. 
Also, I would prefer to speak my mind and seriously hurt the feelings of others, rather than soften it for the sake of the other person. 

Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different knives for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, not something you would use to slice an apple with. Similarly speaking, if you’re going to scoop out the insides of an avocado, better to use a spoon rather than using a fork, or a knife. 
I think the problem is when some people get too into stoicism (I prefer writing stoicism with a lowercase), they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned stoicism in his writings, his collections of thoughts, which we moderns call THE MEDITATIONS… it was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work out thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever in flux and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… my stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, vs just working out by myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… you probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an Android phone, a smartphone, a 4G or 5G internet connection, wifi, a laptop, have to buy groceries somewhere… you’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern-day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: Have you ever been out in public, and you see some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: For example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing a mother… therefore if somebody spew some hate on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
Self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically self flagellate themselves. Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example in street photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… are small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… you are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, laughing and having fun. 
In fact, I’ve actually personally discovered that the reason why a lot of people hate me is because I am so happy jovial and gay. They are secretly suspicious or envious of me? 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… and then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; How much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that LA was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. As long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic trait; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home. Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… this literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandino Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… they are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… and giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Barry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage. The only designers with courage include Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Elon Musk, Kanye West. 
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just host it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free ebook PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
What is the secret to the maximum amount of happiness in life? The maximum amount of danger. (Nietzsche).
ERIC

So something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, e-book, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that stoicism is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show Hey Arnold in which I was raised with… the notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups– I learned how to do muscle ups, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock and huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there pick it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead presses with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… This was the true “functional” fitness.
Anyways, the reason why that period of COVID-19 was so good is that it was the middle of beautiful Providence summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… and one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, talk shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who were really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. And of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclose us. For example, almost universally most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside space.
Cramped indoor spaces promote antisocial behavior.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and over time he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how loosey goosey it is. It is kind of like Zen, or Taoism… It is not really quantified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Nassim Taleb and his ANTIFRAGILE book. I was curious, and my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “The ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Diogenes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately Diogenes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true soul in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… there was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring philosophers to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weak and anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
Also, physical fitness is critical to any stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of Croton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pen and pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose.
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. In fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stocks, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually misread the financials… the whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
Also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… the kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, unemotional, logical and rational.
Also, with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global armageddon, global financial ruin, etc. I call it “fear porn”.
Therefore stoicism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize stoicism in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is theism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and social pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates.  I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “Why was Socrates so ugly?
Monster in face, monster in soul.
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon. Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and IL PRINCIPE– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher; better to laugh about the Follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” it will just be humorous.
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… But Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… And luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury? 
Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different eyes for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, Not something you would use to crack a walnut with.
I think the problem is when some people get 2 inches Stoicism, they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… Let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned Stoicism in his writings, his Collection of thoughts, which we modern called the meditations… Was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever influx and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… My stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, versus just working up on myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… You probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an android phone, a smart phone, a 4G or 5G Internet connection, Wi-Fi, a laptop, Have to buy groceries somewhere… You’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: have you ever been out in public, and you some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells is terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… Do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: for example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing mother… Therefore if somebody spew some hit on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
 self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically… Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example instruct photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… It small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… You are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, Laughing and having fun. 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… And then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… Seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; how much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that Ali was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. as long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… Light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic treat; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to  have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home… Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… This literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandinho Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just Capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… They are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… And giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Berry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage.
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in Stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just hosted it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own Web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as a big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free e-book PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… it is worth it.
ERIC
So something I have been meaning to write or create or do is like some sort of book, e-book, pamphlet, or introductory primer to stoicism. I really think that it is probably one of the most useful and philosophical models to live normal every day real life. Yet, I haven’t really found a good instructional guide on it, especially when I was self teaching it to myself.
Stoicism, stoic, the stoa in ancient Greece– essentially the stoa was like some sort of portico, patio, pillar, outside, essentially a spot where guys would just hang out, talk shop, talk philosophy, etc.  
I think about the show Hey Arnold in which I was raised with… The notion of “stoop kid“, the notion of a stoop is that in a lot of cities, especially the east coast in New York, you have this little stoop or porch, stairs that go outside your front door… and you could just hang out there, engage in social and neighborhood life etc.
One of my happiest moments was when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, and then COVID-19 hit. Everything was closed, besides the park. I can still go to the park, hang out, workout, do chin ups I learn how to do muscle up, more bodyweight calisthenics stuff, and also… I had a lot of fun with this “rock toss“ challenge and workout… in the middle of the park was a huge ass rock a huge ass stone, and every single day I would go there picked it up, and then eventually work out with it; throwing it around for fun, doing overhead prices with it, clean and jerks, squats, and eventually I would just throw it around for fun. Funny enough it might have been the most fit I was in my life… This was the true “functional” fitness.
Anyways, the reason why that period of COVID-19 was so good is that it was the middle of beautiful providence summer, so nice and bright and warm and lovely… And one of the good things was going to the park was like an open forum, a new anatheum for a lot of really cool guys to come, hang out, poke shop, go topless and shirtless, workout and hang out.
I met some really interesting people during that period of time. I met some guys who are really cool. For example, one guy I met was in the US military Navy, I think he was training to be a Navy seal or Delta force or something. Another guy in some sort of ROTC training, another cool guy from the hood, and also I would say I probably met half a dozen friendly drug dealers there. and of course a lot of people who believed in conspiracy theories; really friendly, a little weird, but overall good guys.
Anyways, one of the biggest benefits of hanging out at that outdoor park, open air, nothing but green grass, the beautiful sun and the fitness equipment was that I think having this sort of open air environment is actually very conducive to socializing, thinking and thought, and pro social behavior. My theory about a lot of modern day antisocial behavior has to do with the structures which enclosed us. For example, almost universe leave most guys at the gym are extremely antisocial. Why? My theory is that because most gyms have closed, cramped narrow ceilings, and do not have access to natural light, or outside.
The only good gym I went to which was interesting was the golds gym in Venice, which has this really big outdoor workout area. I think this is much more natural and more fun and better; to be able to work out directly outside outdoors, with your shirt off.
Stoics, stoicism — it was originally I think codified by this guy named Zeno, and overtime he picked up some followers. Essentially the whole thing happened organically; Zeno would first share his thinking on philosophy ethics and pragmatic ways to deal with other people and the downsides of life, he built a following, and then his followers would propagate the thoughts and start their own little schools of thoughts, their own little stoic clubs.
Would I like about stoicism is how Lucy it is. It is kind of like Zen, or Taoism… It is not really qualified as a religion, or a strict moral order. In fact, a lot of the ancients Stoics would meditate on random stuff like cosmology, natural sciences like Seneca, how volcanoes worked or whatever. I think nowadays in today’s world, we focus primarily on the pragmatic side; how to deal with fear, uncertainty, downsides etc.
I think I might’ve first learned about stoicism from Naseem Taleb and his anti-fragile book. I was curious, in my curiosity went to deep. To quote NASSIM TALEB and the Venetian saying “the ocean goes deeper, the deeper you wade into it.”
I literally consumed every single book I could find on stoicism, even the obscure ones. Funny enough, a lot of the stoic thinkers tried to claim other philosophers as being stoic, like Seneca did with Diogenes the cynic. 
Cynic, cynicism, actually comes from the word canine, the dog. Dienes was considered the “dog” philosopher, first used as a pejorative, but ultimately dienes reappropriated that title for fun! He saw dogs as tough, almost like wild wolves, rather than seeing them as a negative thing.
Even Achilles when he was raging against king Agamemnon, he called him “dog faced“ as a heaping insult.
First, Seneca. Seneca the younger, his dad was called Seneca the elder.
In fact, this is such a big deal because Cindy and I named our first son, Seneca, directly after the stoic philosopher. This is true in the game; if you name your kid after your favorite philosopher, certainly it is a sign that you really liked that philosopher, or found them impactful.
 The reason why I really like Seneca the stoic philosopher is because he had real connections to real reality. What that means is he wasn’t just on the sidelines; he actually existed in the real world, engaged in real politics, was even advisor to the emperor Nero, the bad one, who eventually low-key coerced Seneca to commit suicide, in a manly, dignified manner.
I think this was because maybe… There was actually a plan to overthrow Nero, and essentially Nero found out. 
I really like Seneca because his writing is accessible, practical and pragmatic, and interesting.
A lot of thinkers tend to lack connections to real reality, I have no tolerance for boring phosphorus to talk about metaphysics, which is things which are not physical. Like thoughts ideas, the universe, electricity and energy, strange phenomenon and conspiracy theories on ghosts, “energy” whatever.
For a long time, I would hear the term “metaphysics” being thrown around, and I had zero idea what it actually meant. 
Meta– on top of. Or nestled within.
Physics — the physical, physical phenomenon like gravity, first principles.
The reason why metaphysics philosophers tend to be a bunch of losers is that they are all weaken anemic, nerds or geeks or weaklings who seem to have some sort of physiological degeneracy, which encourages them to opine or talk or think about impractical things, superficial things.
Personally speaking, I think philosophy must be practical. 
Practical, praxis, practice — to do!
I have a very funny ideal; the general idea is that your body looks like a demigod, and your physiology is out of control. The general idea is one must be tall, strong, highly muscular, low body fat percentage, I’m not exactly sure what my body fat percentage is, but maybe it’s around 5%.
 Also, physical fitness is critical to any Stoic. My ideal is to walk 50 miles a day, eat 20 pounds of meat like Milo of crouton a day. And also, abstinence from silly things like media, alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.
Trust no thinker who does drugs!
Even our best friend Nietzsche said that coffee was bad, because it would make people dark and gloomy. He encouraged 100% cocoa powder instead. 
Simple technique:
First, look at a picture or a portrait or a full body shot, ideally topless of the artist, philosopher or thinker or individual… Then judge their thoughts later.
Why? My theory is this: the thoughts of an individual is hugely affected by their bodily physiology.
For example, an extreme example: if somebody is locked inside a solitary confinement cell, and not permitted to go outside for years, but, he had a pin pad and would jot down some thoughts… Would be the quality of these thoughts? Certainly dark and morose. 
In today’s world, why does it matter, what is the significance of stoicism, etc.?
First and foremost, I think we are living in a troubling time, especially with the advent of modern day Internet based media and advertising. I think 99% of what is propagated on the Internet is fear mongering, and what is hate? Hate is just fear.
The first thought on stoicism is that it is just fear conquering. What I discovered about street photography, is that 99% of it is conquering your fears. Conquering your fears of upsetting other people, getting in some sort of verbal or physical altercation etc. in fact my bread and butter workshop is my conquering your fears and street photography workshop, the workshop which is still interesting to me even after a decade.
Why is this so important? I think it is rooted in almost everything; conquering your fears is rooted in entrepreneurship, innovation, risktaking and real life.
Even my speculation in crypto. 99.9% of crypto speculation is just balls. Having the balls to make big bets, and when things go south, knowing how to master your emotions.
A simple extra I have is this: just imagine it will all go down to zero.
It was useful because when I was in college, my sophomore year I got really into trading stock, and I eventually lost my whole life savings, maybe around $3500 USD, and some bad penny stock which I actually miss read the financials… The whole time I thought the company was making a profit, but actually it was taking a loss. I actually didn’t know that if profits are written in parentheses, it means a loss.
It was funny because my initial start as an investor was back in high school, I bought some Adobe stock when I was a high school junior, and also some mutual funds, which both went up after about 4-5 years.
 also I remember in elementary school computer class, when I was in the sixth grade in Bayside Queens, there was some sort of stock stimulation trading game, and actually it was funny… The kids who made the most money and were the most successful just put 100% of everything into Apple, note this is when we were only 12 years old, and I was born in 1988.
Funny enough, it seems that stoicism actually plays well with capitalism. Why? According to modern day capitalist thinking, the best way to approach life is to be objective, strong, stoic, emotional, logical and rational.
Also,  with modern day media there is so much fear mongering in the news, about some sort of global Armageddon, global financial ruin, etc.
Therefore do ism as a mindset is useful to think and position your mind in such a way that you could consider that life is all upside, no downside.
In fact, if I could summarize the in one sentence, it is that life is all upside, no downside. Inspired by NASSIM TALEB.
So, is theism useful to you if you’re a man or a woman? Does it matter?
The good thing is I think it could apply to both sexes. Conquering sexism and suicidal pressures is useful if you’re woman, and also if you’re a man.
Also, gender is social. Lot of the expectations set on us by society is socialized and gamed to a certain degree.
First, we got to unchain ourselves from modern day ethics and morality. I believe that all modern day philosophy and thinking and ethics and religion is bad.
For example, the notion of turning the other cheek is a patently bad one. Why did Jesus turn his cheek? It is because he lacked on army.
Also, philosophically I think we should put no trust in Socrates.  I thought which has puzzled me for a long time was this “why was Socrates so ugly?
I think Socrates was a degenerate, and he lacked any sort of real power. Therefore he turned logic and rationality into his terrorizing weapon. Back in the day, you didn’t need logic or rationality to have things your way, you simply was able to dictate that which you wanted to pause it, Because you had a military force behind you. Just think about Machiavelli and il principe– the reality of being a mercurial prince, king, and military leader is hard, Stoic, “immoral”. But ultimately it all comes down to war, conquest, the military.
In fact, I believe that all should have the body and strength of some sort of super soldier. Essentially look like all the guys from the movie 300, this is our ideal.
The fun thing about stoicism is that you could just make it up as you go, devise your own strategies and whatever.
“Fucking c’est la vie!” My favorite Kanye West line.
Essentially the general idea is that in life, one should not take things too seriously. Laughter is golden, I forget the philosopher who was called the laughing philosopher; better to laugh about the Follies of human beings rather than to be dark and morose about it.
Also, thoughts from the Odyssey; if you look far enough  into the future, everything becomes comedic and hilarious.
So when you’re in some sort of bad situation, just think to yourself “perhaps one day, 20 or 30 years from now… I will look back at this and just laugh!” it will just be humorous.
Problems in modern day life:
A funny thing I have learned is that when you call something something, it isn’t that.
For example, if someone calls something a “luxury car”, it ain’t. For example, a true modern day luxury car is maybe a Tesla, but Tesla never calls itself a luxury car. Also the ultimate luxury technology company is probably Apple… But Apple is very intelligent and not calling themselves a luxury brand.
In someways, we can think and consider stoicism as our new luxury. In fact, having luxury, luxury of mind and soul… And luxury of freedom of speech, isn’t this the ultimate luxury? 
Similarly speaking, when people call themselves “influencers”, they are not influencers.
Ultimately I think we should think of stoicism just like having another tool inside our tool kit. For example, if you’re a chef, you’re going to have different eyes for different purposes. If you’re going to cut a big piece of meat, you probably want a big ass meat cutting knife, Not something you would use to crack a walnut with.
I think the problem is when some people get 2 inches Stoicism, they think that everything needs to be consistent, and must fit into this nice little neat box of what is considered “stoicism“. This is a bad line of thinking… Let us consider that Marcus Aurelius never even mentioned Stoicism in his writings, his Collection of thoughts, which we modern called the meditations… Was just essentially his personal diary, to help him conquer his own personal fears and thoughts, I don’t think he ever intended it to be published publicly. I think he just wrote it to himself as self therapy. And I think the only stoic philosopher he even mentions is maybe Epictetus.
For myself, I just come out with certain to work thoughts and techniques because it helps me, and when I find these tricks or techniques or secret hacks or cheat codes… My passion is to simply share it with others. 
And ultimately, things are ever influx and evolving and changing and adapting.
For example, I’ve discovered the quality of my thinking is different when I am in Culver City Los Angeles, compared to being in the boring suburbs of Orange County.
Also depending on my social environments… My stoic thoughts are different when I am in a gym, versus just working up on myself in my parking spot in the back of my apartment.
Also, the quality of my thoughts is different when living with family members or other people versus just living with myself Cindy and Seneca.
Assuming you’re not growing your own vegetables and living in the middle of nowhere… You probably have some interaction with other human beings. As long as you have an iPhone, an android phone, a smart phone, a 4G or 5G Internet connection, Wi-Fi, a laptop, Have to buy groceries somewhere… You’re still going to have to interact with other human beings.
And this is good. There is no other greater joy than other human beings.
In fact, modern day society is strange because in someways, the ethos is to be antisocial and to be cowardly. But in fact, the best way to think about things is that real life is interaction with other human beings, and social conquest. One can imagine a lot of modern day entrepreneurship as simply a big dick swinging contest. He who is the most masculine confident tall and strong and stoic shall win.
Assume that everyone is mentally insane: have you ever been out in public, and you some sort of crackhead or strange homeless person who acts radically, smells is terrible, and is obviously mentally ill? Do you hate them for it? When they say something weird to you… Do you take it personally? No. Why? They are crazy. Perhaps we should just adopt this stoic mindset towards other people; some people are actually physiologically ill, mentally unwell… don’t trust the opinion of nobody.
A lot of people are trying to actually deal with their own inner demons: for example, becoming the successful photographer and street photographer I am today… I’ve dealt with some individuals who would say anonymous bad things about me, and later I found out that their mom just died or something. I cannot imagine what it feels like losing mother… Therefore if somebody spew some hit on me because something bad happened to them, I’m not gonna take it personally.
 self-flagellation: I think a lot of people who are sick, mentally or physiologically… Essentially the way that they deal with other people or themselves is some sort of metaphorical self-flagellation.
For example… you know those strange individuals who have the whip and whip themselves, and inflict pain on themselves? I think some people do this metaphorically to themselves and others.
You just want to stay away from them.
My personal theory on fear is that a lot of it is tied to morality and ethics. I think the general idea is not necessarily that we are afraid of anything… I think the true fear is that we’re afraid that we are some sort of bad evil unethical immoral person.
For example instruct photography, the general ethical thought is that it is immoral to take a photo of somebody without their permission, because there is some sort of it inherent evil behind it. Is this true? No. Taking photos and not really a big deal.
I think it is because some people are just overly sensitive, which once again comes from some sort of physiological weakness.
For example, if you’re a weightlifter who could lift 1000 pounds, assuming you’re not taking any steroids or anything… It small things going to bother you? No. But let us assume that you are a skinny fat man, all you do is drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and watch Netflix, and you spent too much time on Reddit… You are 40% body fat, and have never lifted in your life. And also your testosterone is low and you never go outside. Certainly the quality of your thoughts is going to be different than if you’re a happy gay monster, lifting weights outside in the direct sun, Laughing and having fun. 
Probably one of my worst experiences was this jarring transition; I was super happy insanely happy being in Vietnam in 2017; with a beautiful weather, the beautiful light, the happy people the great amenities etc.… And then that winter Cindy and I went to Europe, in Marseille Berlin and Prague, and maybe London… Seriously the worst winter of my life. Why? I wonder if so much miserable feelings and thoughts simply comes from the darkness and lack of light. a lot of Europe is actually quite miserable; dark, unhygienic, morose.
Even Nietzsche had a thought about Schopenhauer; how much of these emo European philosophers came from the fact that it was just complaining about the cold weather in Germany etc.?

For myself, my ideal weather is Southeast Asia; I love being in Phnom Penh Cambodia, Vietnam etc. In the states, am I the only one who loves living in Los Angeles? Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar said that Ali was the best for women weed and weather… I would definitely say the biggest upside of living in Los Angeles is the light, the sunlight. It actually does get quite cold here, but usually most reliably even in December during the winter time, the sun will always come up. as long as there is bright sunny light, I will be happy. And I think maybe for myself, considering that I am a photographer, and photography means painting with light… Light for me is critical.
I also wonder how much of it is a physiological thing and a genetic treat; for example I could even recall being a young child, and my mom telling me that the most critical thing in finding a home or an apartment was light and natural light. Even now… 90% of my happiness comes from being able to  have access to natural light, ideally floor to ceiling windows facing directly the sun, having some sort of modern temperature regulated apartment and home… Even living in our tiny studio minimalistic luxury apartment in Providence Rhode Island, where it was always 75° warm and cozy, and not frigid and damp and cold and dark and humid… I was always good. But moving to an older house, where it always felt damp and cold… This literally lowered my happiness by 1000%.
Therefore, if you’re feeling miserable sad or whatever… I say spend three months living in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, or go to Phnom Penh Cambodia. I wonder if 90% of peoples misery is simply due to the weather.
”Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore!” – Fernandinho Galliani, via Nietzsche
My stoic ideal is somebody who is happy, gay, smiling, no headphones or AirPods on, no sunglasses on, no hat, no facial hair, no baggy oversized clothing, no tint in their car. Somebody who makes great eye contact, laughs, stands up upright, jokes, and fools around. Like an overgrown child.
Also, lift weights at least once every day, ideally in the direct sun. Just buy some weightlifting equipment on Titan.fitness, I like the farmers carry handles, the Olympic loadable dumbbell, and also the Texas power squat bar. Just buy some cheap weights, and or buy a heavy 400 pound sandbag, and just have fun throwing it around.
A true stoic should look something like Hercules or Achilles. Or like ERIC KIM; I have the aesthetic and the physique of Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB except with a lot more muscle. Like my friend Soren says, the Adonis physique and proportions.
I think a real stoic is sexy, happy and fun. Who doesn’t take life too seriously; and think of everything like a fun game. A real stoic would be joyful and cheery like three-year-old child without any adulteration from the outside world.
I don’t like talking with or hanging out with adults, uninteresting.
At what point or age do people become so emo?
Typically, highschoolers are very optimistic. Even college students. But I think at least in maybe college in high school nowadays… the bad trend is towards “over concern”, about the world the planet ethics animals etc.
I find a lot of this thinking superficial, performative, and uncritical. I think “animal rights“, “saving the planet” is this new pseudo world religion; which is just Capitalism 3.0. I find the whole pet industry the whole dog industry to be insanely bizarre, and I trust nobody who talks about “saving the planet“ who owns an iPhone, owns any sort of car, or has an Amazon prime subscription. Certainly not any vegans.
Animals are animals. They are lower on the hierarchy and totem pole on earth. Man is the apex predator, the apex bully and the apex tyrant.
Should we care for animals or “animal rights”? No. Animals are our slaves.
If you consider even dogs and pets… They are essentially our emotional slaves. People talk a lot about the virtuosity of dogs being loyal or whatever… And giving you unconditional love. This seems like some sort of emotional slavery.
The only dogs I respect are some sort of canine dogs, some sort of attack or defense dogs, or hunting dogs. For example, John Wick 3; Halle Berry and her dogs. An animal should either be a weapon, or nothing.
Essentially it looks like men no longer have a backbone. No more spine.
I trust nobody who owns a dog.
Let us not forget; they call it dog ownership, or “owning a pet”. There is no more concept of “human ownership, or “owning a human.”
What is the end goal of humanity? To me it is towards entrepreneurship, innovation, art and aesthetics, philosophy etc. Design.
Stoicism should be considered a tool which could aid you in these things.
For example, I think 99% of entrepreneurship is courage. Stoicism could help you with that.
I also think with design, great design is also 99% courage, having the courage to attempt something that won’t sell or be received well… stoicism is all about practical courage.
Also, weightlifting. To attempt to lift a certain weight you have never attempted before takes great courage. For example, me atlas lifting 1000 pounds; that is 10 plates and a 25 on each side, this is true stoic training. Why? The fear of injury is what holds most people back; if you had successfully conquered this fear and not injured yourself, this is pure stoic bliss.
I think the only and the only proper way to lift weights is one repetition maximum training. That is; what is the maximum amount of weight you’re able to successfully lift or move, even half an inch?
To me, the courage is the success. Even if you had the courage to attempt it… that is what is considered success. 
Simple exercises to do include the atlas lift, innovated by ERIC KIM, or a one repetition max rack pull.
Or, a high trap bar deadlift, heavy Farmer’s walks, or heavy sandbag carries. Or even a simple thing you could do is go to the park or to the local nature center, find the biggest rock there and just see if you could pick it up.
If you’re interested in Stoicism, and have had some interesting thoughts on stoicism, one of the most noble things you could do is start your own blog. I think blogs are 1000 times more effective than publishing some sort of static printed book; I think the problem in today’s world is that everyone is seeking some sort of legitimacy by being picked up by some sort of legitimate publisher and getting “published“, and seeing your printed book at Barnes & Noble whatever.
I say it is better to be open source, free and permissionless, decentralized. Just publish your thoughts and book as a free PDF, and just hosted it on dropbox, Google Drive, or your own Web server. Share the link freely, and also just publish the raw text as a big blog post. 
Even Sam Bankman-Fried wisely thought; 99.9% of books could just be summarized as a big blog posts.
Don’t trust any modern day published book which isn’t free, because… there is some sort of hidden clout chasing somewhere. 
Even one of the worst compromises that led to the demise of Ray Dalio was the fact that he took his Principles book, which was essentially a free e-book PDF on his website, and then took it off, because I think he got a book deal with Simon and Schuster. After he did that, he lost my respect.
If you’re already independently wealthy, and you don’t crowd source your self-esteem… why would you need to externally validate yourself by getting some sort of constipated publisher and annoying editor?
Editors are bad.
Start your own blog and start blogging your own thoughts on stoic philosophy, and even start a YouTube channel and start vlogging on it. My generalized thought is simple: if your thought your idea your blog post your video or whatever could even impact the life of one other human being on planet earth… It is worth it.
ERIC
Why is it that people prefer to buy a Lamborghini or Ferrari over a Shelby Cobra? 
Simple heuristic:
Don’t trust nobody who owns, or bought a foreign car; this includes BMW, Mercedes, Audi, AMG, Lamborghini Volkswagen, Ferrari, Land Rover, Range Rover, anything produced by the Volkswagen group or Tata group, Porsche, etc.
The funny thing is it seems in today’s world, having a Toyota or a Honda is almost like having an American car?
Simple rule:
If you want to be a true American, if you want a sports utility SUV car, just by a Ford Explorer ST, which is essentially a cop car. 
If you want some sort of sports muscle car, ultimate flex… Buy some sort of Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra car, or even… the Ford GT. I think Brad Pitt owns one. Mustang GTD
In America, if you only care about money, I don’t think you’re a true American. What does a real American care for? Diversity, access, democracy, egalitarian values, and meritocracy which means the goods you are delivered is based on merit, hierarchy and ranking.
Apparently when Peter Thiel was an undergraduate in college he wrote a book called The Diversity Myth… I think he wrote it when he was at Stanford as an undergraduate, something about how too much focus on diversity is bad. I haven’t read the book, but I think what it means is that trying to do things like affirmative action in his eyes is bad.
My personal thought is it is obvious; obviously if you have a kid from the hood, a kid from Compton, certainly his or her GPA or SAT score is not going to be as good as a kid who went to some sort of elite private school in Beverly Hills. Therefore there needs to be dynamic weighing here.
For example, if you’re the Valevictorian or the top #1 student in a ghetto school… your application to college should be weighed higher than a kid who went to an elite private school, who is only the top 100.
Therefore it isn’t necessarily “affirmative action”, but rather, wisdom in evaluating someone’s social economic status as part of their application.
Certainly diversity is good, but it is not good when you try to force it.
For example, trying to force more gender equality or racial equality when it isn’t really warranted seems like a bad idea.
This is where the philosophical thing matters; we must ask ourselves and consider… does it really even matter in the first place? If so, why?
Being an American or a true American has nothing to do with gun ownership. I’m not anti-guns per se; I did Boy Scouts and shot a rifle and a shotgun, got both my merit badges and also an archery merit badge when I was a high schooler.
I think the strange notion is that somehow… if you own a gun, or have a gun somewhere at home or whatever… it makes you more manly? (It does not).
I wonder… Is it that people hate Jewish people because they’re so smart wise and good with money?
Also, I don’t really trust any Christians, or God-fearing people especially in the news and mainstream media, even underground media etc.
For example, I really enjoyed the Kanye interview on info wars, but the guy who hosts the show… seems like a strange guy. Anybody who takes the Bible literally is not to be trusted.
How did Jewish people become so successful? Simple: they make money don’t spend it.
Also, I think Jewish people, that is consider how much trials and tribulations and anti-Jewish sentiment and bad things happened to them throughout their whole existence. If they were able to survive it all, probably a good sign.
One of the funniest things that my friend Daniel Schaeffer told me he was… “I’m Jew…ish”.
I might be wrong here, but I think that there is a huge list of really really famous and influential Jewish people in America, which include I think, Gal Gadot, Joseph Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David etc.
Also, Steven Spielberg, Kirk Douglas (changed his last name to blend into Hollywood), a lot of really famous people in Hollywood.
Also I think John Stewart, he changed his last name.
I think a simple strategy what you could do is just Google it, famous Jewish people who changed their last names or famous Jewish people in the media.
I think even Lenny Kravitz is Jewish?
Apparently there is “Jewish” sounding last names, anything related to Gold or Goldsmith, because a lot of Jewish people were once gold merchants back in the day, or anything with “itzh” or “Horowitz” etc… “itz”. Ben Horowitz.
Also a lot of really mainstream American words are actually Yiddish! For example, “chutzpah”, “schlep”, “schmuck”, etc. 
I didn’t know… But my friend Janae told me “I’m such a bad Jewish American, I had no idea that Seinfeld was a TV show about Jewish American culture”. I then responded, in shock, “It is??”
I have a theory that everyone is looking for some sort of scapegoat. My personal thought on why people believe in conspiracy theories is because nobody likes to think that they themselves are the cause of their own pain suffering etc., and they think of it like some sort of virtuous task and duty to uncover all the “evils” or “injustices” in the world.
For example, I’ve actually met a lot of Palestinian Americans who fall victim to conspiracy theories. Why? To psychoanalyze; they have been seriously fucked over. Even the whole conflict right now in the Gaza Strip, it really does seem that the Palestinians are the victims here. Israel, funded by the American government in military, America is really the bad guy here. 
Even China; China is not a threat. When I was in Phnom Penh Cambodia, I would keep reading these newspapers on how mainland China would complain that they only have one military base somewhere in Africa, whereas America has thousands. As long as Americas military powder is 1000X that of everyone else in the world, America is fine. 
Even Russia, not a threat. I think people just like to paint Putin as the devil, because once again, people like having some sort of devil figure, some sort of Adolf Hitler to see as the enemy.
In South Korea if you’re a man, you’re required to have at least 2-3 years of military duty. I think it’s a good idea if America did the same. Or if they instituted more ROTC programs in high school, optional.
And also, I think having some sort of part-time army reserve officer military training programs for normal civilians like myself is a good idea. Even my friend Andrew, became a part-time naval officer, more for pride. Harvard undergraduate graduate, professor now.
Apparently Westpoint is a really good institution. Maybe if Seneca gets a full ride there I will send him there. 
I think people are actually low-key praying and wishing for some sort of global armageddon. Why? Once again, a lot of people who are miserable in life want to see the world go into shambles. 
I am highly dubious of a World War III, or some sort of true international military demise. Why? Rich mainland Chinese oligarchs don’t want nobody to take their Rolls-Royce, or their mansions in Vancouver Canada.
Also, Americans like their consumerism, and capitalism.
Whether America likes it or not, it seems that they are in bed with China. As long as Apple still produces iPhones in China, ultimately… economically we will not see any real antagonism between both countries.
Money, capital, economics is the new world religion. Everybody globally… the only thing that people seem to really care for is to continue to self richen themselves. 
As a consequence, I think we will see a decline in military intervention and deaths, and other bad world issues.
People want to see the ones and zeros and commas increase in their bank account, not more deaths and casualties.
Simple things: 
I am already independently rich and wealthy from my savings and cryptocurrency, and I also live like a poor person, which means that I’m making more money than I could spend it. Because I don’t even like spending money in the first place.
In fact, besides myself and maybe NASSIM TALEB… I don’t think I really know any other free thinkers? Everyone is either hooked to some sort of algorithm, social media platform, YouTube… or podcast… no freedom. This is where I don’t really put any trust in anything that Tim Ferriss says, or even Joe Rogan, because they are run by advertisers.
Who not to trust? Anybody and everybody on YouTube, or has any sort of podcast which is supported by advertisers.
Maybe it is a good idea to make money elsewhere, for example, I think I’ve made more money in cryptocurrency speculation than I have in my whole decade plus of teaching photography workshops.
Also selling products is a good idea  because… especially if it is your own products, have more faith and leather than information. HAPTIC INDUSTRIES — in the world of AI and artificial information, having physical leather products is a good idea because it will outlast you. HENRI x ERIC KIM STRAPS.
Ultimately after you’ve made your trillions of dollars, what is it that people really care for? Art.
How many Jackson Pollocks, Basqiats, or Picassos do you own? 
It is wise to understand a Ferrari as an art object, not as a car. Just go to the Peterson automotive museum and go into the vault; these cars are art objects.
Art is the main disruptor here; this is where I am so into [AI art](). Maybe I will do some AI art workshops in the near future.
Trust ChatGPT more than you trust Google or weird Internet conspiracy website forums. Also, delete Reddit and stop using Reddit; I legit think it is the worst thing for humanity, perhaps even worse than pornography.
Quit reddit, not porn.
In fact, maybe it is best to just think about pornography like entertainment. Men who watch sports, drink alcohol or smoke weed, without having actually ever played the sport, sports is like some sort of domestication of the modern day human, a modern day pornography for men. At least sexual pornography is a positive motivator, drinking beer, eating french fries and watching football if you have never played football yourself in real life… seems worse.
Even basketball; my simple heuristic is if you decide to watch basketball, maybe one should play real life basketball at least once a week.
EXPERIENCE EK— unlock your true potential.
As a special holiday promo: order over $300 USD at the HAPTIC SHOP, and get a free 3x set of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE (three bags designed to awaken your creative senses). While supplies last.
Going on a hike. Leave your phone in the car and just enjoy a nice walking nature, just walk slowly. Do it in vibram five finger shoes or even barefoot. 
Order some weight lifting equipment on titan.fitness and have fun at home.
FaceTime a loved one. The best gift to give somebody is just a simple phone call!
Infinite ideas on the ERIC KIM BLOG: Some new thoughts:

If this part even one interesting thought within you, feel free to forward to a friend!
The new life goal should be to save money, not to waste it.
Instead of wasting money, better to use that money towards buying meat at Costco, weightlifting equipment, plates and bars and barbells, iron etc. Physical fitness is the ultimate luxury.
***
Why is it that people prefer to buy a Lamborghini or Ferrari over a Shelby Cobra? 
Simple heuristic:
Don’t trust nobody who owns, or bought a foreign car; this includes BMW, Mercedes, Audi, AMG, Lamborghini Volkswagen, Ferrari, Land Rover, Range Rover, anything produced by the Volkswagen group or Tata group, Porsche, etc.
The funny thing is it seems in today’s world, having a Toyota or a Honda is almost like having an American car?
Simple rule:
If you want to be a true American, if you want a sports utility SUV car, just by a Ford Explorer ST, which is essentially a cop car. 
If you want some sort of sports muscle car, ultimate flex… Buy some sort of Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra car, or even… the Ford GT. I think Brad Pitt owns one.
In America, if you only care about money, I don’t think you’re a true American. What does a real American care for? Diversity, access, democracy, egalitarian values, and meritocracy which means the goods you are delivered is based on merit, hierarchy and ranking.
Apparently when Peter Thiel was an undergraduate in college he wrote a book called The Diversity Myth… I think he wrote it when he was at Stanford as an undergraduate, something about how too much focus on diversity is bad. I haven’t read the book, but I think what it means is that trying to do things like affirmative action in his eyes is bad.
My personal thought is it is obvious; obviously if you have a kid from the hood, a kid from Compton, certainly his or her GPA or SAT score is not going to be as good as a kid who went to some sort of elite private school in Beverly Hills. Therefore there needs to be dynamic weighing here.
For example, if you’re the Valevictorian or the top #1 student in a ghetto school… your application to college should be weighed higher than a kid who went to an elite private school, who is only the top 100.
Therefore it isn’t necessarily “affirmative action”, but rather, wisdom in evaluating someone’s social economic status as part of their application.
Certainly diversity is good, but it is not good when you try to force it.
For example, trying to force more gender equality or racial equality when it isn’t really warranted seems like a bad idea.
This is where the philosophical thing matters; we must ask ourselves and consider… does it really even matter in the first place? If so, why?
Being an American or a true American has nothing to do with gun ownership. I’m not anti-guns per se; I did Boy Scouts and shot a rifle and a shotgun, got both my merit badges and also an archery merit badge when I was a high schooler.
I think the strange notion is that somehow… if you own a gun, or have a gun somewhere at home or whatever… it makes you more manly? (It does not).
I wonder… Is it that people hate Jewish people because they’re so smart wise and good with money?
Also, I don’t really trust any Christians, or God-fearing people especially in the news and mainstream media, even underground media etc.
For example, I really enjoyed the Kanye interview on info wars, but the guy who hosts the show… seems like a strange guy. Anybody who takes the Bible literally is not to be trusted.
How did Jewish people become so successful? Simple: they make money don’t spend it.
Also, I think Jewish people, that is consider how much trials and tribulations and anti-Jewish sentiment and bad things happened to them throughout their whole existence. If they were able to survive it all, probably a good sign.
One of the funniest things that my friend Daniel Schaeffer told me he was… “I’m Jew…ish”.
I might be wrong here, but I think that there is a huge list of really really famous and influential Jewish people in America, which include I think, Gal Gadot, Joseph Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David etc.
Also, Steven Spielberg, Kirk Douglas (changed his last name to blend into Hollywood), a lot of really famous people in Hollywood.
Also I think John Stewart, he changed his last name.
I think a simple strategy what you could do is just Google it, famous Jewish people who changed their last names or famous Jewish people in the media.
I think even Lenny Kravitz is Jewish?
Apparently there is “Jewish” sounding last names, anything related to Gold or Goldsmith, because a lot of Jewish people were once gold merchants back in the day, or anything with “itzh” or “Horowitz” etc… “itz”. Ben Horowitz.
Also a lot of really mainstream American words are actually Yiddish! For example, “chutzpah”, “schlep”, “schmuck”, etc. 
I didn’t know… But my friend Janae told me “I’m such a bad Jewish American, I had no idea that Seinfeld was a TV show about Jewish American culture”. I then responded, in shock, “It is??”
I have a theory that everyone is looking for some sort of scapegoat. My personal thought on why people believe in conspiracy theories is because nobody likes to think that they themselves are the cause of their own pain suffering etc., and they think of it like some sort of virtuous task and duty to uncover all the “evils” or “injustices” in the world.
For example, I’ve actually met a lot of Palestinian Americans who fall victim to conspiracy theories. Why? To psychoanalyze; they have been seriously fucked over. Even the whole conflict right now in the Gaza Strip, it really does seem that the Palestinians are the victims here. Israel, funded by the American government in military, America is really the bad guy here. 
Even China; China is not a threat. When I was in Phnom Penh Cambodia, I would keep reading these newspapers on how mainland China would complain that they only have one military base somewhere in Africa, whereas America has thousands. As long as Americas military powder is 1000X that of everyone else in the world, America is fine. 
Even Russia, not a threat. I think people just like to paint Putin as the devil, because once again, people like having some sort of devil figure, some sort of Adolf Hitler to see as the enemy.
In South Korea if you’re a man, you’re required to have at least 2-3 years of military duty. I think it’s a good idea if America did the same. Or if they instituted more ROTC programs in high school, optional.
And also, I think having some sort of part-time army reserve officer military training programs for normal civilians like myself is a good idea. Even my friend Andrew, became a part-time naval officer, more for pride. Harvard undergraduate graduate, professor now.
Apparently Westpoint is a really good institution. Maybe if Seneca gets a full ride there I will send him there. 
I think people are actually low-key praying and wishing for some sort of global armageddon. Why? Once again, a lot of people who are miserable in life want to see the world go into shambles. 
I am highly dubious of a World War III, or some sort of true international military demise. Why? Rich mainland Chinese oligarchs don’t want nobody to take their Rolls-Royce, or their mansions in Vancouver Canada.
Also, Americans like their consumerism, and capitalism.
Whether America likes it or not, it seems that they are in bed with China. As long as Apple still produces iPhones in China, ultimately… economically we will not see any real antagonism between both countries.
Money, capital, economics is the new world religion. Everybody globally… the only thing that people seem to really care for is to continue to self richen themselves. 
As a consequence, I think we will see a decline in military intervention and deaths, and other bad world issues.
People want to see the ones and zeros and commas increase in their bank account, not more deaths and casualties.
Simple things: 
I am already independently rich and wealthy from my savings and cryptocurrency, and I also live like a poor person, which means that I’m making more money than I could spend it. Because I don’t even like spending money in the first place.
In fact, besides myself and maybe NASSIM TALEB… I don’t think I really know any other free thinkers? Everyone is either hooked to some sort of algorithm, social media platform, YouTube… or podcast… no freedom. This is where I don’t really put any trust in anything that Tim Ferriss says, or even Joe Rogan, because they are run by advertisers.
Who not to trust? Anybody and everybody on YouTube, or has any sort of podcast which is supported by advertisers.
Maybe it is a good idea to make money elsewhere, for example, I think I’ve made more money in cryptocurrency speculation than I have in my whole decade plus of teaching photography workshops.
Also selling products is a good idea  because… especially if it is your own products, have more faith and leather than information. HAPTIC INDUSTRIES — in the world of AI and artificial information, having physical leather products is a good idea because it will outlast you. HENRI x ERIC KIM STRAPS.
Ultimately after you’ve made your trillions of dollars, what is it that people really care for? Art.
How many Jackson Pollocks, Basqiats, or Picassos do you own? 
It is wise to understand a Ferrari as an art object, not as a car. Just go to the Peterson automotive museum and go into the vault; these cars are art objects.
Art is the main disruptor here; this is where I am so into AI art. Maybe I will do some AI art workshops in the near future.
Trust to ChatGPT more than you trust Google or weird Internet conspiracy website forums. Also, delete Reddit and stop using Reddit; I legit think it is the worst thing for humanity, perhaps even worse than pornography.
Quit reddit, not porn.
In fact, maybe it is best to just think about pornography like entertainment. Men who watch sports, drink alcohol or smoke weed, without having actually ever played the sport, sports is like some sort of domestication of the modern day human, a modern day pornography for men. At least sexual pornography is a positive motivator, drinking beer, eating french fries and watching football if you have never played football yourself in real life… seems worse.
Even basketball; my simple heuristic is if you decide to watch basketball, maybe one should play real life basketball at least once a week.
EXPERIENCE EK– unlock your true potential.
As a special promo: order over $300 USD at the haptic shop, and get a free 3x set of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE (three bags designed to awaken your creative senses). While supplies last.
HAPTIC SHOP >
Going on a hike. Leave your phone in the car and just enjoy a nice walking nature, just walk slowly. Do it in vibram five finger shoes or even barefoot. 
Order some weight lifting equipment on titan.fitness and have fun at home.
FaceTime loved one. The best gift to give somebody is just a simple phone call!
Infinite ideas on the ERIC KIM blog: Some new thoughts:

If this part even one interesting thought within you, feel free to forward to a friend!
ERIC KIM NEWS >
The new life goal should be to save money, not to waste it.
Instead of wasting money, better to use that money towards buying meat at Costco, weightlifting equipment, plates and bars and barbell, iron etc. Physical fitness is the ultimate luxury.
ERIC KIM BLOG
***
Men… typically 10-50 pg/mL
For women —
Beginning of menstrual cycle, Follicular phase … 30-120 pg/mL… ovulation peak 130-370pg/mL, post-menopause 10-20.
For women estrogen 10x to 30x higher in theory!
Men: 300-1,000 ng/dL … vs female (15-70 ng/dL)
Numerical differences
The numerical differences in estrogen and testosterone levels between males and females are quite marked, and they reflect the distinct physiological roles these hormones play in each sex. Here are the typical ranges:
Estrogen (Measured in Picograms per Milliliter – pg/mL)
- Females:
- Estradiol (the primary form of estrogen):
- Follicular phase (beginning of menstrual cycle): about 30-120 pg/mL
- Ovulation peak: approximately 130-370 pg/mL
- Luteal phase (post-ovulation): roughly 70-250 pg/mL
- Postmenopause: generally <10-20 pg/mL
- Males:
- Estradiol: typically ranges from 10-50 pg/mL
Testosterone (Measured in Nanograms per Deciliter – ng/dL)
- Males:
- Total testosterone: generally about 300-1,000 ng/dL
- Free testosterone (the portion not bound to proteins): around 5-21 ng/dL
- Females:
- Total testosterone: typically ranges from 15-70 ng/dL
- Free testosterone: usually about 0.7-3.6 ng/dL
Interpretation
- These values can vary based on the individual, the time of day (hormone levels can fluctuate), age, and health status.
- In females, estrogen levels are particularly dynamic and change throughout the menstrual cycle.
- In males, testosterone levels generally decline with age, but this decline is usually gradual.
- Hormone levels are influenced by various factors including genetics, lifestyle, body composition, and overall health.
- It’s important to note that hormone levels are just one part of a complex physiological picture. Levels that are outside the typical range don’t automatically indicate a problem but might prompt further medical evaluation.
Estrogen, a key hormone in the human body, plays a vital role in both female and male physiology, although it is more prominent in females. Its functions and effects are diverse:
- Reproductive Health: In females, estrogen is crucial for the development and functioning of the reproductive system. It regulates the menstrual cycle, prepares the uterus for pregnancy, and supports the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breast growth.
- Bone Health: Estrogen helps maintain bone density. It plays a role in the bone remodeling process, helping to prevent bone loss. This is why the risk of osteoporosis increases in women after menopause when estrogen levels decline.
- Cardiovascular Health: Estrogen has a protective effect on heart health. It helps maintain the flexibility of blood vessels, ensuring proper blood flow, and also influences cholesterol levels, promoting a higher level of HDL (good cholesterol) and a lower level of LDL (bad cholesterol).
- Mood and Brain Health: Estrogen can impact mood and cognitive function. It’s thought to have a protective effect on brain health and may be linked to mood stabilization. Changes in estrogen levels can affect neurotransmitters in the brain and are associated with mood swings or depression in some cases.
- Skin and Hair: Estrogen contributes to skin health by increasing skin thickness and improving moisture levels and elasticity. It also impacts hair growth, influencing hair texture and density.
- Metabolism: Estrogen affects body composition and metabolism. It influences how the body stores fat and can affect appetite and energy expenditure.
- Sexual Function: In females, estrogen is important for vaginal health, maintaining the lining of the vagina and vaginal lubrication. It also plays a role in sexual desire, although this is complex and influenced by multiple factors.
- Development During Puberty: In females, estrogen is crucial for the changes that occur during puberty, including breast development, the growth of the uterus, and the onset of menstrual cycles.
- Menopause Management: In postmenopausal women, estrogen therapy is often used to manage symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and mood swings, as well as to prevent osteoporosis.
In males, estrogen is present in smaller amounts and is important for sexual function and bone health. It’s a common misconception that estrogen only affects females; in reality, it plays several important roles in male physiology as well.
The balance of estrogen with other hormones, such as progesterone in females and testosterone in males, is crucial for overall health. Imbalances can lead to various health issues.
To infinity and beyond!
Book review of Going Infinite, and also some thoughts on walking:
So I just finished going infinite by Michael Lewis, highly recommended read. Why? Very very fun read, and also… Fascinating insight into the world of crypto, money, currency, Fiat currency etc.
Quick summary:
Some interesting things:
First, learning about Jane Street, one of the high frequency trading firms, a bunch of quant, quantitative folks, doing some sort of hedging, maybe dynamic hedging as Nassim Taleb calls it — essentially a lot of the trading world is automated by algorithms, and bots. Jane street recent news.
It also seems that a lot of this is run by people who are highly mathematically trained, people who are essentially mathematical thinkers.
Maybe this is where math is interesting; it isn’t math for math, but instead, the purpose of math is to think more critically, and to also think quicker.
I think essentially what happened was all of the customer accounts of ftx.com were funneled into Alameda research, which then either directly or indirectly went to Sam’s discretionary spending fund on political matters, building infrastructure for the headquarters in the Bahamas etc.
Also, the demise and downfall of ftx.com was that it relied too much on hedging; essentially let us say that $10 billion worth of US dollars worth of crypto was in the platform, customer money… and let us assume that at once, 100% of the customers would want to pull their money. This would not be possible because at one point a time, ftx.com might only have a total of 10% of the customer funds.
I think this is actually what happens similarly in traditional banks as well. A bank never has all the customer money, they essentially use your money as leverage to speculate elsewhere.
Also this is where I’m starting to get more skeptical of traditional IRAs, 401(k) plans, Roth IRA etc.; once again, certain companies and corporations in the US government are trying to leverage your money right now to make a profit on something, while you have to sit there and just twiddle your thumbs.
It seems that I think, the best trading platform is Coinbase. I see it like it is the PayPal, the new PayPal for crypto.
Also, I am not really like a crypto anarchist; I like the government, I like being able to transfer it into my normal American Bank account, and I like the idea that if I wanted to, I could easily convert it into US dollars. Of course it all comes with the fee; but that fee is nominal for the convenience and the practicality of things.
I recently converted 90% of my bitcoin into chainlink, and one of the driving factors is what if chainlink becomes like the next SWIFT for international banks? This would help a lot of the global finance industry.
For example, my mom currently lives in South Korea, and having to transfer money from my US Bank account to her South Korean bank account and vice versa was a major pain in the ass. Having to literally go to a bank teller in real life and having to sign all these paper forms was insanely cumbersome annoying and time-consuming. It should all be able to be done digitally, in terms of cryptographic truth.
Also, another subtle funny thing; a lot of hourly wage service workers have to punch in punch out, but… it seems difficult to know for 100% certain or not if they actually truly showed up for work or not. Maybe chainlink could solve that.
I still love bitcoin and I think bitcoin is sexy, and I think that everybody should own at least one bitcoin, just in case it goes to $10 million a bitcoin or who knows even $100 million a bitcoin by the time that we are about to die.
Also, I think everything in crypto should be done in the spirit that literally it could all go to zero. It probably won’t, but it might go down to just one percent of the value what it was worth before. For example I was able to ride digibyte from 20 cents a dgb to maybe 50 cents a digibyte, in which I literally traded to chainlink, and then converted it all back into bitcoin. But now, digibyte in now in shambles, worth less than a penny.
The reason I like chainlink is that it actually does something useful. To create a technology which actually does something is a good idea. Bitcoin is great, but ultimately I think of bitcoin more like digital electronic gold. Most people never spend their gold, they just hoard it.
Data.chain.link
A very useful technology and service that chainlink provides is giving you an accurate price of certain cryptocurrency assets. For example, if you really wanted to precisely know the price of one bitcoin pegged to the US dollar, down to the cent… who do you trust? Because some platforms give you slightly different numbers. Ultimately we want ultimate truth, the most accurate number. Chainlink will offer that.
The reason why this is critical is that one thing I learned from going infinite and flash boys… literally even a quarter of a penny, if leveraged and hedged with trillions of dollars can make a fat profit. These really really big firms will want accuracy of crypto prices down to even a fraction of a penny.
So one character I find very interesting is Eric Schmidt, the ex CEO of Google. He made Google to become the Google it is today. Apparently one of the things he said, a strategy that he had when see you at Google was genius; “We made sure to put a little bit of Google into everything”. YouTube video.
Quite genius. I think nowadays almost every single product tracking thing is somehow connected to google analytics and Google Adsense somewhere. Even when you Google something and open up the hyperlink and click it, there is this long ugly URL with a bunch of Google tracking code in it.
Also I find Eric Schmidt interesting because he was mentioned in the going infinite book. Even apparently ERIC Schmidt I think… ran for Senate or something, it might hold a board seat somewhere?
Now this is the killer: Eric Schmidt joined chainlink as part of their board of trustees. This is good news for chainlink, because then what it means is that I think… ERIC Schmidt, probably owns a substantial number of chainlink in his own personal account, and now that he has political power, he will most likely use his political power to enrich himself. Therefore as a consequence, if you own chainlink, it is a good promise that ERIC Schmidt is probably behind the scenes, helping you become richer.
I took some screenshots, but essentially all the rich people are banding together to become richer together. Apparently there’s lots of private parties in which Jeff Bezos shows up, a few of the Kardashians, etc.
I find this interesting not from a conspiracy theory perspective, but essentially the elite are essentially giving each other back rubs, maybe wealth is just a huge circle jerk.
I love Michael Lewis for his candor, his humor, his offkilter humor. And also would I like by Michael Lewis now because he is so successful, I think he’s just really writing these books out of self interest and fun. You could tell that he is actually legitimately interested in the life of Sam Bankman-Fried, expensively interviewing his parents, his friends etc.
You cannot fake passion and enthusiasm and fun. It is a hugely entertaining read and insightful. Highly recommend.
ERIC
Walk more, think less.
I think one of the really big critical issues here is that in modern day times, we spend too much time thinking, not enough time walking.
My vision is that the future, we are essentially going to be like elite homeless people. That the new tech trillionaires of the future, we will be like some sort of off the grid, Zen Stoic monks. We will be mostly shirtless, walking around 50 miles a day, aimlessly for fun, lifting weights here and there for fun, and not have access to a phone, and not be contactable.
We will bask in the sun, and we will only prefer to lift weights in the direct sun, topless.
We will be maximally friendly, courteous, fun. Like overgrown children. Yet we will also be insanely wise, intelligent critical and deep.
If you haven’t already, don’t be a cheapo and just subscribe to the ChatGPT plus. This is literally the ultimate life hack.
Just become a street vlogger like ERIC KIM. Just walk around a lot, vlog any random thoughts on your mind and upload it to YouTube and your own blog. As long as you get more than two views, consider it successful!
Also, double dip; shoot photos and make photo art, and also use DALL-E, DALL-E 3 to make AI art! And simple; keep it all open source.
Money can buy you experiences, and also leather products.
The more I use HAPTIC PRODUCTS, the more I love it. For example this ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO CASE Cindy and I made and designed back in Saigon in 2017… I still use it every single day, and the beauty of it is that the more I use it, the more comfortable it becomes, the more it becomes.
This is ultimate wabi-sabi— the general idea with leather which I love is that it will last longer than you. You can hand it down to your kids!
You don’t buy a HAPTIC PRODUCT for yourself, you buy it for your future children (ripoff some watch, Rolex, AP ad I saw somewhere).
All access to some of the most interesting thoughts on the planet.
Some more fun thoughts on walking:
A thought in modern day society: we think too much.
For example, some modern day ills include the fact that we wake up, we stay at home, work from home, never leave the apartment or the house all day, or even worse… we go to the office, stay in the office, don’t leave all day, eat lunch at our desk in front of our laptop or computer… even worse, if you’re hardcore you don’t leave the office for days weeks or even months… You just sleep in a beanbag next to your desk or in a sleeping bag under your desk.
This is the big issue I’ve discovered:
I think what the modern day man or person strives to be is to become the ultimate productivity machine robot who doesn’t need anything. That somehow you could optimize yourself out of going outside, getting natural light by just popping some vitamin D tablets, don’t need to exercise, and if you exercise, the minimum amount of exercise necessary not to atrophy your body, Find no need of the sun, or no need to walk because it is “inefficient”.
In fact, I wonder if this whole bizarre trend of “running“, or “jogging“, is because people don’t think that walking is “effective”, or “efficient “. People are somehow trying to maximize their movement activity; they don’t think of walking as “exercise“, and somehow that it doesn’t “burn calories” (the calorie in, calorie out myth).
As a consequence, modern day man becomes strange. A strange plant. Lacking natural light and melanin in their skin, lacking ability to make iContact with people in embodied reality, and prefer to not interact with any humans. Thus the trend towards mobile orders etc.
A lot of people like to think about ancient hunter gather lifestyles whatever… I prefer to think about ancient Greece, ancient Sparta. Before money was invented, and you could only measure your wealth by how many cattle you owned. Or how many men you governed.
For example, in the Iliad, I think it was Nestor who told Achilles that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he commanded more men.
I think a lot of us are dealing with some sort of modern day pain suffering and discontent and we’re not really sure what to do about it. I think this is why we seek out “therapists”, see psychiatrists, get prescribed some sort of generic medication, etc. In fact, besides the extreme edge cases, I think medication should be avoided at all costs. I think when people are depressed, it is a physiological and physical depression. Not enough time outside walking, in the direct elements, in the direct sun, not enough exercise and lifting weights, over consumption of alcohol, caffeine, coffee, drugs, marijuana etc. I don’t think anything is wrong moralistically with marijuana… but I distrust anybody who consumes or takes or does marijuana on a daily basis. Marijuana does strange things to your mind.
I trust nobody who is woke, who tokes!
Also, if you’re reliant on marijuana to fall asleep at night, once again… not a good sign.
I think what we are having an issue with in modern day society is more of a moralistic and ethical one. The thought is we are born to be productive, and our self-worth and value is simply predicated on how productive we are, how much money we make, how much we increase our money number in our savings account, buying houses etc.
Therefore, anytime we are not actively doing that… we feel some sort of inner guilt, shame, and we lose respect for ourselves. We end up self-flagellation ourselves.
Several things; first and foremost, any human being who uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc.… they’re hopped on a strange matrix simulation like dopamine machine. I think using social media and having notifications on your phone might actually be worse than gambling. At least gambling has to do more with money… social media has to do more with your self-respect, your self-esteem esteem.
“I’ve been awakened by an enlightened man’s dream… checking Instagram comments to crowd-source my self-esteem”— KANYE
Very simple. Just stop using social media, uninstall all of the apps from your phone, or just delete them.
For example, I think one of the most glorious moments of my life, one of the greatest things I have done in my life as a photographer and “influencer“, was deleting my Instagram in 2017. Why? Since then, I feel like I unhooked my brain from the matrix. I took the red pill. Anyone who still uses Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, listens to podcasts, has Spotify, Netflix, etc. is still on the blue pill.
Why? The best way to have more interesting thoughts is via negativa— actively canceling out, or deleting, or getting rid of external stimuli in the spirit of books, blog posts, media, Reddit, the news, etc. In fact the big problem in today’s world is that we are almost like in a human centipede consumption of information use and media; one media outlet regurgitates and quotes the other one, which quotes the other one, which might’ve ultimately just been written by ChatGPT or some sort of AI bot. In fact I’ve been experimenting a lot with chatGPT4, the paid premium one, and what I’ve discovered is funny; even ChatGPT doesn’t know that it was written by ChatGPT.
For example, for fuzzies, I ChatGPT’d myself. I would open up ChatGPT 4, the premium paid one, and asked simple things like “who is ERIC KIM“? ChatGPT with then do an effective summary and overview of me my life story in my life loss etc., and then I just copied and pasted the information, and literally published a blog post on what ChatGPT said. I then later a few days later, ask ChatGPT “ERIC KIM philosophy“, and then once again, it re-summarized things and actually linked back to my blog giving me a citations and footnotes, but the funny thing was… the citations and footnotes gave me were actually the blog post written by ChatGPT itself!
Or another words, ChatGPT doesn’t know that I am ERIC KIM.
To think is to sit on your butt and ruminate and think. No no no… to think is to walk. In fact maybe we should stop call it “thinking”, but just walking.
My personal thought is the noveau luxury is walking. If you have the privilege of having a 100% pedestrian lifestyle, 100% biped lifestyle, in which you’re just literally walking everywhere, without having to use the agency of a car, it is a sign that you are truly truly rich and wealthy. Secondly if you don’t always have to check your phone. Thirdly, if you could have all the notifications on your phone disabled.
First without thinking about it too much… just think about this: if you walked 50 miles a day, I think 99.9% of your life cares concerns and worries would disappear. Especially if you do it in nature. With uneven surfaces, different grades and elevations, no two steps are alike.
One of the greatest things about being in nature, just going on a simple hike, is that sometimes it is steep, sometimes it is level, sometimes it is dirt, sometimes it is pavement, sometimes it is gravel, sometimes it is grass, etc. Having variation in the texture of the environment and the terrain is critical.
In modern day times, everything is flat. And everything is the same thing; typically just concrete.
I actually wonder and think, I wonder if a lot of the issues with modern day health and physiology has to do with the fact that everything is flat. I think the reason why we are bipeds is that as a biped, we are very very very good at traversing uneven terrain. In fact, one could even argue that human who is upright and biped could better navigate rocky and mountainous terrain compared to a four-legged animal.
Also the best thing you could buy with money is vibram five finger shoes. Just buy it for yourself for Christmas or ask somebody to buy for you.
One of the biggest issues I’ve discovered about the whole “hiking” notion is that people think too much that it has to be done a certain way. We think that somehow we have to buy those silly hiking poles, buy a hat, buy some hiking boots at REI or whatever, and wear all this expensive outdoor clothing.
Technically you could just do a barefoot, or… get some vibram five finger shoes, and just go on a fun walk!
Another weird thing I’ve discovered is we think we got to purchase the thing in order to somehow justify getting into a certain lifestyle. For example, we think we got to buy some sort of off-road four-wheel-drive car some sort of Subaru or jeep or sports utility SUV car in order to do “outdoorsy” stuff. This is silly. For a while Cindy and I work on hardcore hiking and camping stuff, and literally 99.99% maybe even 100% of the places we went to, we were able to simply do it in a simple four-door sedan, the Ford fusion which is just a normal sedan with a front wheel drive car.
I think this is the insidious nature of capitalism and consumerism; it makes you feel insecure and uncertain and unqualified, and we think that in order to do the thing that we want to do, we must buy the things in order to do it.
I can’t speak for you or others. I think everyone has different talents, different skills, different desires.
First, I think having some sort of life dreams and goals is a good one. And striving with all your might to meet them and accomplish them and achieve them.
Then the next question is… then what? Should you just keep doing this into infinity? Ad infinitum?
Maybe not. Or maybe.
For example with weightlifting, a simple path is just to keep increasing your one rep max until the end of time. I don’t think this is a bad idea.
But also at the same time, you don’t need to be tied down to this either. Technically real life, reality is not metricated.
For example, if you think about the Iliad, Achilles, Hector, nobody could care less about “how much you can bench“. It was a simple binary; if you were in hand to hand battle with another fighter or warrior, would you kill him, or would he kill you? Who was the more courageous and superior and dominating force?
Also well interesting is that it seems that in the Iliad, nothing was really accidental or by chance. For example when warriors would go to battle, one warrior would not “accidentally“, get killed by the other warrior. It really did come down to courage, skill, power, who was the better fighter.
Even the final bout between Achilles and Hector; Hector was essentially hoodwinked and tricked… He was deceived into thinking that he had his charioteer, his trusted fighting buddy by his side to take on Achilles, because Hector was no dummy; he actually knew that Achilles was the superior fighter, and if you went head on with Achilles, he would lose. He was hoodwinked by one of the gods, who made an illusion and made themselves appear to be the friend of Hector.
So then the question is in real life, what do you seek to do, achieve, etc?
Heraclitus one said, “The greatest glory is to seek immortal glory amongst men, yet the majority of men stuff themselves like cattle.”
Who will not be remembered?
I don’t think that any modern day tech CEO will be remembered, nor cared for. Exceptions include CEOs who were also founders.
Also, I think people who will be forgotten include people who sell their companies. I don’t know… If you ultimately decide to sell your company, even for $10 billion… I think it is a signal that you care more about money than the thing you built. Why? As long as your business is making an income and you can somehow pay yourself a base salary, pay your rent, your utilities, your meat, etc.… what else need do you have for money?
This is where I give Mark Zuckerberg great credit. In the early days of Facebook he had so many offers to be bought out, but he stuck to his guns and refused. Highly intelligent.
Some people I think who compromised include Jack Dorsey of Twitter, I’m even starting to get a little bit suspicious of the cofounders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; why did they end up leaving running Google and building the board of Alphabet instead?
Perhaps one graceful exit is Jeff Bezos at Amazon; I think he’s put in his fair share and his duties; I think space travel was his ultimate dream, and if you read invent and wonder, I think he really did stay true to his principles and never compromised. Also, him publicly exposing his controversial affair in the public, was insanely bold ballsy and respectful. He refused to be blackmailed. What a true mensch.
I think Elon Musk might be remembered forever. Why? Through pure force of will, might, and craziness… He was able to achieve the impossible. His thinking was only limited by physics, the laws of physics, first principles. Aristotle would have been proud of him.
Second, Kanye West. I really don’t think there is any thinker innovator or artist quite as bold, innovative, and amazing as him. Even now, randomly in the middle of the night, this morning I thought about his “Runaway“ song, and his perfect album my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Actually if you think about all the albums and songs he has ever produced, he was so ahead of the game, so innovative and unique, he really did care for creating true magic in his music.
Also Steve Jobs. It seems that nowadays kids don’t really know who he is, but, for innovators and thinkers like myself and countless others, they will always sight Steve Jobs as an inspiration. Also, it seems that Steve Jobs died at the right time; he fulfilled all of his creative visions, never compromised his beliefs, and I think he set the path for other creatives down the line.
I think the last vision of Steve Jobs was to create a creative company so infused with creativity that it would stand the test the time. I think he was quite successful.
The big question at hand is what is the value of thinking? Why think?
I think some people think, engage in thinking because they hope that it will lead to some sort of money making opportunity.
For me, I love thinking and sharing my thoughts because it is fun! To me, a life devoid of thoughts or interesting thoughts is not a life worth living.
Very simple: only pursue and do that which you are genuinely interested in, ignore everything else.
Also, in terms of happiness and food… maybe the single most critical thing to improve your happiness is to increase the quality of your meat. Beef, beef liver beef heart beef intestines, lamb, grass fed ground beef etc. Wagyu ground beef at Costco is great.
In fact, I have a theory that a lot of the modern day issues that we got is that we’re under nourished. We aren’t eating enough red meat, enough beef or lamb. Pork is not meat, chicken and turkey is not meat.
Another bizarre thing I’ve learned is the way that some people live their lives and they decide what to eat, what not to eat, how to live, how not to live, how to talk, what to say what not to say based simply on other people; they center themselves or don’t really see what’s on their mind because they’re afraid of:
“How do you think that makes me feel?”
But we don’t do the opposite; we don’t then tell that person the same. That “How does that make me feel?”
For example this nonsense behind gender pronouns. That you demand that I call you a certain pronoun, but what if I don’t feel comfortable calling you that pronoun?
One of the good reasons I think of building your own gym at home is that it reduces a lot of the friction. For example I generally love the gym and I think gym life is good, but here in LA I haven’t been able to find any good gyms; they all suck. Therefore this motivated me to build my own gym, just in my back yard, parking lot garage, in the back of my apartment.
I love this off the grid approach because literally… there is no friction. I don’t have to jump in the car and I don’t have to check in or scan my QR code or whatever whatever, I never have to wait for equipment etc.
If you have tight quarters, a simple solution is to just buy really really heavy kettle bell, 105 pounds and up. Or just buy a heavy sandbag, go to the playground and fill it up with sand, and just exercise with that picking it up and throwing it around. Even with us experienced weightlifters, I encourage buying the 400 pound sandbag on roguefitness.com or just get it on Amazon for cheap, fill it out with playground sand and experiment lifting that at home. Titan.fitness is also good.
I actually think that the most critical factor is to exercise outside, in the direct sun. If it is cold, just layer up.
Why exercise outside? It is more fun, more lively, more uplifting. Also one of the good benefits of working out at home is when you need to stop by the bathroom to pee, you could just pull yourself another espresso! Good luck doing that at any gym.
In fact I have an idea; I think all gyms should have some sort of coffee bar or espresso bar. Not these bad energy drinks, which is just fake sugar added.
If you’re interested in lifting with me, shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com, if you live in LA or anywhere in the southern California area.
Ultimately never forget that you’re an artist, a visual artist. Photography is just another tool in your creative tool kit.
Use dall-e, ChatGPT plus and premium, make your own AI generated art. Have fun with it, don’t take it too seriously.
Post it to your own self hosted blog, and keep updating! The ultimate sim of a blogger is this:
If somebody opens up a new tab and loads your blog, and they don’t see anything new.
ERIC
Always updating the ERIC KIM start here page with more fire.
Also, free and open source books here.
If this sparked even one fun creative idea within you, feel free to forward this to a friend!
“Happiness is walking (a lot).”
ERIC
A thought in modern day society: we think too much.
For example, some modern day ills include the fact that we wake up, we stay at home, work from home, never leave the apartment or the house all day, or even worse… We go to the office, stay in the office, don’t leave all day, eat lunch at our desk in front of our laptop or computer… even worse, if you’re hard-core you don’t leave the office for days weeks or even months… You just sleep in a beanbag next to your desk or in a sleeping bag under your desk.
This is the big issue I’ve discovered:
I think what the modern day man or person strives to be is to become the ultimate productivity machine robot who doesn’t need anything. That somehow you could optimize yourself out of going outside, getting natural light by just popping some vitamin D tablets, don’t need to exercise, and if you exercise, the minimum amount of exercise necessary not to atrophy your body, Find no need of the sun, or no need to walk because it is “inefficient”.
in fact, I wonder if this whole bizarre trend of “running“, or “jogging“, is because people don’t think that walking is “effective”, or “efficient “. People are somehow trying to maximize their movement activity; they don’t think of walking as “exercise“, and somehow that it doesn’t “burn calories” (the calorie in, calorie out myth).
As a consequence, modern day man becomes strange. A shroud planned. Lacking natural light and melanin in their skin, lacking ability to make iContact with people in embodied reality, and prefer to not interact with any humans. Thus the trend towards mobile orders etc.
A lot of people like to think about ancient hunter gather lifestyles whatever… I prefer to think about ancient Greece, ancient Sparta. Before money was invented, and you could only measure your wealth by how many cattle you owned. Or how many men you governed.
For example, in the Iliad, I think it was Nestor who told Achilles that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he commanded more men.
I think a lot of us are dealing with some sort of modern day pain suffering and discontent and we’re not really sure what to do about it. I think this is why we seek out “therapist”, see psychiatrist, get prescribed some sort of generic medication, etc. In fact, Besides the extreme edge cases, I think medication should be avoided at all costs. I think when people are depressed, it is a physiological and physical depression. Not enough time outside walking, in the direct elements, in the direct sun, not enough exercise and lifting weights, over consumption of alcohol, caffeine, coffee, Drugs, marijuana etc. I don’t think anything is wrong more logically with marijuana… But I distrust anybody who consumes or takes or does marijuana on a daily basis. Marijuana does strange things to your mind.
Also, if you’re reliant on marijuana to fall asleep at night, once again… Not a good sign.
I think what we are having an issue with in modern day society is more of a moralistic and ethical one. The thought is we are born to be productive, and our self-worth and value is simply predicated on how productive we are, how much money we make, How much we increase our money number in our savings account, buying houses etc.
Therefore, anytime we are not actively doing that… we feel some sort of inner guilt, shame, and we lose respect for ourselves. We end up self-flagellation ourselves.
Several things; first and foremost, any human being who uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc.… they’re hopped on a strange matrix simulation like dopamine machine. I think using social media and having notifications on your phone might actually be worse than gambling. At least gambling has to do more with money… social media has to do more with your self-respect, your self-esteem esteem.
“I’ve been awakened by an enlightened man’s dream… checking Instagram comments to crowd-source my self-esteem”— KANYE
Very simple. Just stop using social media, uninstall all of the apps from your phone, or just delete them.
For example, I think one of the most glorious moments of my life, one of the greatest things I have done in my life as a photographer and “influencer“, was deleting my Instagram in 2017. Why? Since then, I feel like I unhooked my brain from the matrix. I took the red pill. Anyone who still uses Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, listens to podcast, has Spotify, Netflix, etc. is still on the blue pill.
Why? The best way to have more interesting thoughts is via negativa— actively canceling out, or deleting, or getting rid of external stimuli in the spirit of books, blog post, media, Reddit, the news, etc. In fact the big problem in today’s world is that we are almost like in a human centipede living life of information use and media; one media outlet regurgitate and quotes the other one, which quotes the other one, which might’ve ultimately just been written by ChatGPT or some sort of AI bought. in fact I’ve been experimenting a lot with chatGPT4, the paid premium one, and what I’ve discovered is funny; even ChatGPT doesn’t know that it was written by ChatGPT.
For example, for fuzzies, I ChatGPT’d myself. I would open up ChatGPT for, the premium paid one, and asked simple things like “who is ERIC KIM“? ChatGPT with then do an effective summary and overview of me my life story in my life loss etc., and then I just copied and pasted the information, and literally published a blog post on what ChatGPT said. I then later a few days later, ask ChatGPT “ERIC KIM philosophy“, and then once again, it re-summarize things and actually linked back to my blog giving me a citations and footnotes, but the funny thing was… The citations and footnotes gave me were actually the blog post written by ChatGPT itself!
To think is to sit on your butt and ruminate and think. No no no… Do you think is to walk. In fact maybe we should stop call it “thinking”, but just walking.
My personal thought is the noveau luxury is walking. If you have the privilege of having a 100% pedestrian lifestyle, 100% biped lifestyle, in which you’re just literally walking everywhere, without having to use the agency of a car, it is a sign that you are truly truly rich and wealthy. Secondly if you don’t always have to check your phone. Thirdly, if you could have all the notifications on your phone disabled.
How and why is walking so critical?
First without thinking about too much… Just think about this: if you walked 50 miles a day, I think 99.9% of your life cares concerns and worries would disappear. Especially if you do it in nature. With uneven surfaces, different grades and elevations, no two steps are alike.
When did the greatest things about being a nature, just going on a simple hike, is that sometimes it is deep, sometimes it is level, sometimes it is dirt, sometimes it is pavement, sometimes it is gravel, sometimes it is grass, etc. Having variation in the texture of the environment and The terrain is critical.
In modern day times, everything is flat. And everything is the same thing; typically just concrete.
I actually wonder and think, I wonder if a lot of the issues with modern day health and physiology has to do with the fact that everything is flat. I think the reason why we are bipeds is that as a iPad, we are very very very good at traversing uneven terrain. In fact, one could even argue that human who is upright and biped could better navigate rocky and mountainous terrain compared to a four-legged animal.
One of the biggest issues I’ve discovered about the whole “hiking” notion is that people think too much that it has to be done a certain way. We think that somehow we have to buy those silly hiking poles, buy a hat, buy some hiking boots at REI or whatever, and where all this expensive outdoor clothing.
Technically you could just do a barefoot, or… get some vibram five finger shoes, and just go on a fun walk!
Another weird thing I’ve discovered is we think we got to purchase the thing in order to somehow justify getting into a certain lifestyle. For example, we think we got to buy some sort of off-road four-wheel-drive car some sort of Subaru or jeep or sports utility SUV car in order to do “outdoorsy” stuff. This is silly. For a while Cindy and I work on hard-core hiking and camping stuff, and literally 99.99% maybe even 100% of the place we went to, we were able to simply do it in a simple four-door sedan, the Ford fusion which is just a normal sedan with a front wheel drive car.
I think this is the insidious nature of capitalism and consumerism; it makes you feel insecure and uncertain and unqualified, and we think that in order to do the thing that we want to do, we must buy the things in order to do it.
I can’t speak for you or others. I think everyone has different talents, different skills, different desires.
First, I think having some sort of life dreams and goals is a good one. And striving with all your might to meet them and accomplish them and achieve them.
Then the next question is… then what? Should you just keep doing this into infinity? Ad infinitum?
Maybe not. Or maybe.
For example with weightlifting, a simple path is just to keep increasing your one rep max until the end of time. I don’t think this is a bad idea.
But also at the same time, you don’t need to be tied down to this either. Technically real life, reality is not metricated.
For example, if you think about the Elliott, Achilles, Hector, nobody could care less about “how much you can bench“. It was a simple binary; if you were in hand to hand battle with another fighter or warrior, would you kill him, or would he kill you? Who was the more courageous and superior and dominating force?
Also well interesting is that it seems that in the Elliott, nothing was really accidental or by chance. For example went to warriors would go to battle, one warrior would not “accidentally“, get killed by the other warrior. It really did come down to courage, skill, power, who was the better fighter.
Even the final bout between Achilles and Hector; Hector was essentially hoodwinked and tricked… He was deceived into thinking that he had his chariot tear, his trusted fighting buddy by his side to take on Achilles, because Hector was no dummy; he actually knew that Achilles was the superior fighter, and if you went head on with Achilles, he would lose. He was hoodwinked by one of the gods, who made an illusion and made themselves appear to be the friend of Hector.
So then the question is in real life, what do you seek to do, achieve, etc?
Heraclitus one said, “the greatest glory is to seek immortal glory amongst men, yet the majority of men stuff themselves like cattle.”
Who will not be remembered?
I don’t think that any modern day tech CEO will be remembered, nor cared for. Exceptions include CEOs who were also founders.
Also, I think people who will be forgotten include people who sell their companies. I don’t know… If you ultimately decide to sell your company, even for $10 billion… I think it is a signal that you care more about money than the thing you built. Why? As long as your business is making an income and you can somehow pay yourself a base salary, pay your rent, your utilities, your meat, etc.… What else you have for money?
This is where I give Mark Zuckerberg great credit. In the early days of Facebook he had so many offers to be bought out, but he stuck to his guns and refused. Highly intelligent.
Some people I think who compromised include Jack Dorsey of Twitter, I’m even starting to get a little bit suspicious of the cofounders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; why did they end up leaving running Google and building the board of alphabet instead?
Perhaps one graceful exit is Jeff Bezos at Amazon; I think he’s put in his fair share and his duties; I think space travel was his ultimate dream, and if you read invent and wonder, I think he really did stay true to his principles and never compromise. Also, him publicly exposing his controversial affair in the public, was insanely bold Ballsy and respectful. He refused to be blackmailed. What a true mensch.
I think Elon Musk go be remembered forever. Why? Through pure force of will, might, and craziness… He was able to achieve the impossible. His thinking was only limited by physics, the laws of physics, first principles. Aristotle would have been proud of him.
Second, Kanye West. I really don’t think there is thinker innovator or artist quite as bold, innovative, and amazing as him. Even now, randomly in the middle of the night, this morning I thought about his “runaway“ song, and his perfect album my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Actually if you think about all the albums and songs is ever produced, he was so ahead of the game, so innovative and unique, he really did care for creating true magic in his music.
Also Steve Dobbs. It seems that nowadays kids don’t really know who he is, but, for innovators and thinkers like myself and countless others, they will always sight Steve Jobs as an inspiration. Also, it seems that Steve Jobs died at the right time; he fulfilled all of his creative visions, Never compromised his beliefs, and I think he set the path for other creatives down the line.
The big question at hand is what is the value of thinking? Why think?
I think some people think, engage in thinking because they hope that it will lead to some sort of money making opportunity.
For me, I love thinking and sharing my thoughts because it is fun! To me, a life devoid of thoughts or interesting thoughts is not a life worth living.
Very simple: only pursue and do that which you are genuinely interested in, ignore everything else.
Also, in terms of happiness and food… Maybe the single most critical thing to improve your happiness is increased the quality of your meat. Beef, beef liver beef heart beef intestines, lamb, grass fed ground beef etc. Wagyu ground beef.
In fact, I have a theory that a lot of the modern day issues that we got is that we’re under nourished. We aren’t eating enough red meat, enough beef or lamb. Pork is not meat, chicken and turkey is not meat.
Another bizarre thing I’ve learned is the way that some people live their lives is they decide what to eat, what not to eat, how to live, how not to live, how to talk, what to say what not to say based simply on other people; they center themselves or don’t really see what’s on their mind because they’re afraid of:
“How do you think that makes me feel?”
But we don’t do the opposite; we don’t then tell that person the same. That “how does that make me feel?”
For example this nonsense behind gender pronouns. That you demand that I call you a certain pronoun, but what if I don’t feel comfortable calling you that pronoun?
One of the good reasons I think of building your own gym at home is that it reduces a lot of the friction. For example I generally love the gym and I think gym life is good, but here in LA I’ve been found any good gyms; they all suck. Therefore this motivated me to build my own gym, just in my Back yard, parking lot garage, in the back of my apartment.
I love this off the grid approach because literally… There is no friction. I don’t have to jump in the car and I don’t have to check in or scan my QR code or whatever whatever, I never have to wait for equipment etc.
If you have tight quarters, a simple solution is to just buy really really heavy kettle bells, 105 pounds and up. Or just buy a heavy sandbag, go to the playground and fill it up with sand, and just exercise with that picking it up and throwing it around. even with us experience weightlifters, I encourage buying the 400 pound sandbag on roguefitness.com or just get it on Amazon for cheap, fill it out with playground sand and experiment lifting that at home.
I actually think that the most critical factor is to exercise outside, in the direct sun. If it is cold, just layer up.
Why exercise outside? It is more fun, more lively, more uplifting. Also one of the good benefits of working out at home is when you need to stop by the bathroom to pee, you could just pull yourself another espresso! Good luck doing that at any gym.
In fact I have an idea; I think all gyms should have some sort of coffee bar or espresso bar. Not these bad energy drinks, which is just fake sugar added.
“Greed is good” – Gordon Gecko
So it seems and appears that a lot of people seek getting really really rich, really really fast, in order to buy a bunch of stuff. For example, I think the general idea is that you want to make a ton of money, feel good, buy a Lamborghini or whatever… And then what?
Crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology to me is fascinating because it is new, sexy, unorthodox, and interesting.
It seems that a lot of people are interested in crypto, bitcoin etc because they want to get really rich. But the tricky thing with crypto is that essentially you are really rich on paper, but typically most crypto speculators never actually dilute or convert their crypto to US dollars, which means that crypto money is not liquid, it is locked.
Crypto to me is interesting because it is edgy, optimistic, radical, and bold. Also a bit reckless.
The general idea is that with crypto, people are seeking a new revolution, something to up and the old system. Definitely a lot of anarchy vibes here, and a lot of people who are typically distrustful of big organizations, big government, etc.
Honestly I have nothing against the government, I am very happy paying my taxes, I still consider myself a bay area, liberal, open minded, at heart. I love democracy, democratic thinking. Why? It was mostly about how I was raised, how I was supported. If I did not get all of these government aided resources, like going to UCLA as an undergraduate, I would have never been able to become who I am today.
Also, simple organizations that I am grateful for include the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America. I am forever grateful to my troop, my troop leaders, who helped me become an Eagle Scout, and helped me become the citizen that I am today.
Growing up, I grew up thinking that conservatives, Republicans were the devil. Why were they so greedy, if they had so much money, why don’t they help more poor people or people in need?
Irregardless, I think the promise of crypto is a more brilliant future. A lot of people seem to disdain the volatility of crypto, but I love it. With traditional stocks, you will never see a 10X gain, a 100X gain, or even a 1000x gain. Also with crypto, you could win it all, or you could lose it all. My general strategy towards crypto and cryptocurrency speculation is this:
Only put money into crypto, assuming that it will go to zero.
Perhaps the best piece of advice that I got from Nassim Taleb in his antifragile book is the idea that to maximize your gains, better to put 90% of your money in maximally boring funds, like bonds, yield savings account etc.… it is pretty crazy even now Cindy and I have a bunch of money just locked in a simple 5% APR savings account, and we get close to $2000 a month in “passive income” interest. Then, what I did was I put 10% of our savings into crypto, maximally speculative bets, initially investing in digibyte and bitcoin, later swapping it all to chainlink, along the way getting some Dogecoin, later transferring it all 100% back into Bitcoin.
All of the gains were mental. And along the way more recently, I’ve been drawing out some money from bitcoin, $5000 USD here US$5000 there… Simply to cover up moving expenses to LA.
Ultimately what I find interesting is that crypto, people who speculate in crypto all tend to live kind of a more monastic Zen monk lifestyle. Even this one guy that I met who first got me into chainlink, revealed to me that he was a crypto whale in chainlink; apparently he first put his life savings in it, maybe $10,000 USD or so when it was worth about $.70, and then he saw it rise all the way up to $50 USD.
It was funny, because I would just see him at the local LA fitness working out, thinking and meditating, we would engage in some lively conversation, and he just drove his mom‘s old Honda Accord, I think he later told me that he was moving to Puerto Rico or something in order to avoid taxes on his crypto or some other regulatory aspects. Apparently even Sam Bankman Fried moved his corporation to the Bahamas, in order to avoid US regulation.
So once you are worth $20 billion, or $150 billion or whatever … then what?
Ironically the best use of money is simply peace of mind. That means money is not really a tool or a mechanism to buy a bunch of stuff that you like, but rather, being able to live a more zen, tranquil, more focused life.
For example, I think the reason why people are so addicted to email is that people are always desiring new “opportunities”, it is predicated on the fact that somehow other people will give you an afford you new opportunities and also, does predicated on the fact that somehow new opportunities will rise in which other people give you money.
But… assuming that no human being who messages you in your email inbox will give you money… would you still be interested in working with them?
For myself personally, I have close to zero interest in money. I am more interested in new opportunities, fun, new novel experiences. The things that I am proud of, or interested in, or grateful for is all of the cool interesting and sexy opportunities that I’ve had and done. Some of the people that I met, etc.
But ultimately, is there a human being more interesting than you?
I’m currently reading the book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, which chronicles is the life of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX and I find it insanely fascinating read. It seems that the same guy isn’t really the super evil guy that a lot of people in the media make him to be; the kid seems to be like a prodigy genius, mathematical minded, who really didn’t care for money or wealth. My personal theory is that he got suckered too much into this utilitarian “effective altruism“, concept… that he misused customer funds in order to “maximize“ his abilities for effective altruism.
I think effective altruism is a bad idea. Why? First of all, I think the general idea of altruism is bad; I think it puts other people in an inferior position, which I personally find is disrespectful. I think a better thing to do instead is on a day-to-day basis, instead of donating money to charities or whatever, to help empower other human beings on a one-to-one basis.
A simple thing; whenever I go to the park with Sen, and I see all these kids running around, who don’t really seem like they get much attention or love from their parents, I try to give them a little bit of that love and attention by talking to them, entertaining them etc. Perhaps this is a more effective way to “change the world“, than anything else.
Try to think about things on a 30 year basis. That means, the simple question; in 30 years, are people going to be using crypto more or less? Or, in 30 years, is the price of bitcoin going to go up or down? It seems pretty obvious that it will go up.
Also, the notion of a “digital wallet”. The general idea is that for the future, we ain’t gonna use cash money anymore. Why? I see more and more restaurants in institutions not except paper cash money. Why not? Because it is difficult to track, and I think there are also issues with employees at restaurants stealing money it etc. Even at my mom‘s old sushi restaurant where she worked at for a long time, she later found out that one of the head managers, a guy that we thought was a super good guy… Was secretly stealing money the whole time.
I think into the future, we will see less and less of “under the table“ payments; why? Because it is not trackable.
Some personal thoughts:
First, I don’t really like Ethereum. Why? It is kind of like android; maybe it is the better technology, but it isn’t sexy, only nerds know about it and use it, it ain’t mainstream and sexy like bitcoin. Bitcoin is like Apple, having the newest iPhone, iPhone Pro etc.… Ethereum is more like android, having an ugly Google pixel or some sort of generic Samsung smartphone.
Another analogy, bitcoin is like having the Lamborghini Countach, with the scissor doors, whereas Ethereum is like having the Toyota Corolla?
Don’t trust old coins, or alternative coins. Why? Everyone just wants to become the next bitcoin, but ultimately… There is too much meme culture behind alt coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
I am very dubious that the price of these Altcoins will ever go up; it seems that a lot of people in the crypto world simply over hype certain crypto technologies and coins, in order to pump it up, sell it, and make money.
Besides bitcoin, only other crypto I find interesting is chainlink. I’ve read all the white papers, and been following the chainlink blog for a long time. Currently the only reason that I’m still committed to bitcoin is that my gut feeling is that even though chain-link is really great, the issue is that it is going to be difficult for it to become mainstream.
First and foremost, it is difficult to explain what it is. The technology is good and great, but I don’t think the general market will understand it.
Also, the fact that there was a chainlink version two is not a good sign. Anything with a version two is probably a bad sign; same thing with Ethereum.
Also, the logo in blue is not very attractive. And the name isn’t that catchy.
I recommend reading going infinite by Michael Lewis, it is an insanely fascinating read, if you’re interested at all about financial markets, how it is all gamed by bots etc. My first revelation reading Michael Lewis was flash boys… Learning the truth behind these hidden high frequency trading firms.
And also, I think the sign of good writer, like Michael Lewis is at the Rita’s fun entertaining and also insightful. It seems that the best way to kill two birds with one stone is simple; make it both entertaining to read, and also interesting knowledge.
My simple suggestions on living a better life:
The world is yours! No drugs, no alcohol, no weed… just joy, bright light, weight lifting and exercise, walks in nature .. we the new zen stoics!
EK
Some good freebies:
If you feel like you even got one fun thought here… feel free to forward this to a friend!
Either have a full manual transmission car, five speed or six speed manual shifting transmission, or, or have a fully automated self driving car, or some sort of minimalistic automatic car.
Also with design aesthetics, I really really really hate automatic shifting knobs and cars. Aesthetically it is so ugly and unnecessary. Good to look at the design of Hyundai, Genesis, Acura and Honda which has gotten rid of the silly automatic shifting stock, and instead, turned it all into buttons.
“Get rid of the stalks!” – Elon Musk
I really think that Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs 4.0. By comparison he makes Steve Jobs look unambitious.
Why Elon Musk? I think what people don’t understand or appreciate is how obsessed Elon Musk is with design, design thinking, design principles. For example, his obsession with designing a Tesla without any steering wheel, shifting mechanisms, stocks, etc. In fact, Elon Musk is almost like an extreme minimalist.
What I personally love about Tesla and Tesla cars is the Spartan luxury, extreme minimalism. For example, I still marvel at the Tesla model 3; first, I’m just so happy and excited and proud and amazed that Elon Musk pulled it off. I remember before it was put into production and before I saw any on the streets… it was just a rabbit hole fantasy. Now it is live!
What I find so insanely innovative about the Tesla model 3 is the extreme simplicity, the extreme minimalism. To make the dashboard so sublimely simple is a design masterpiece.
Personally, I really dislike the Tesla model Y; my general thought is that any sort of crossover vehicle, or even sports utility vehicle is some sort of a design compromise. Even the Tesla model X is almost like a Tesla model S on steroids.
I think the reason why it is so difficult to minimize is that there seems to be some sort of trend or market desire for their to be new features, new products, new additions to motivate people to buy something. But, from a zen capitalism perspective, perhaps this is not a good idea.
Why? I’m more effective way to think about things is figuring out what to get rid of, what to reduce, what to delete. For example, let us never forget the pure genius of Steve Jobs getting rid of the keyboard on the smartphone, and also getting rid of all these silly ugly ports. If it wasn’t for Steve Jobs and his insane design vision, we wouldn’t have the beautiful minimalistic smart phone that we have today.
I think a lot of people think about technology and think that it is all inevitable… given enough time resources and people… these things will magically get invented anyways. I don’t think this is actually the case. You actually need a few insane individuals to bring these things into fruition.
Once again, read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and also Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. You find that both these individuals have an insanely epic and grand life mission… is what drives them.
Idea:
Walter Isaacson should write a book or a biography on Kanye West?
How to think better:
Super fun workshops in the pipeline:
So I just finished the book going infinite by Michael Lewis on the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX. Super fun and fascinating read. My personal suggestion is even if you have a tiny interest in crypto, bitcoin or whatever… It is definitely worth a read.
A quick summary is that Sam isn’t the evil villain that everyone wants him to be. He is almost like an uber genius autistic mathematical servant, who seems to just lack common sense.
Also on a positive note, I think the great upside to consider here is that if bitcoin was able to bounce back after the fall of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried… a very bright future ahead of us in crypto. My personal price projection is I am quite certain that bitcoin will bounce back to at least $65,000 a bitcoin by next year. Therefore if you want a quick 2X profit, seems like a fun speculation. and no no no, don’t bet your house on it. Once again our financial thinking is simple:
Never put more than 10% of your life savings into anything. Irregardless of how good.
Also for funsies, a fun little essay I’ve written on the philosophy of crypto:
“Greed is good” – Gordon Gecko
So it seems and appears that a lot of people seek getting really really rich, really really fast, in order to buy a bunch of stuff. For example, I think the general idea is that you want to make a ton of money, feel good, buy a Lamborghini or whatever… And then what?
Crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology to me is fascinating because it is new, sexy, unorthodox, and interesting.
It seems that a lot of people are interested in crypto, bitcoin etc because they want to get really rich. But the tricky thing with crypto is that essentially you are really rich on paper, but typically most crypto speculators never actually dilute or convert their crypto to US dollars, which means that crypto money is not liquid, it is locked.
Crypto to me is interesting because it is edgy, optimistic, radical, and bold. Also a bit reckless.
The general idea is that with crypto, people are seeking a new revolution, something to up and the old system. Definitely a lot of anarchy vibes here, and a lot of people who are typically distrustful of big organizations, big government, etc.
Honestly I have nothing against the government, I am very happy paying my taxes, I still consider myself a bay area, liberal, open minded, at heart. I love democracy, democratic thinking. Why? It was mostly about how I was raised, how I was supported. If I did not get all of these government aided resources, like going to UCLA as an undergraduate, I would have never been able to become who I am today.
Also, simple organizations that I am grateful for include the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America. I am forever grateful to my troop, my troop leaders, who helped me become an Eagle Scout, and helped me become the citizen that I am today.
Growing up, I grew up thinking that conservatives, Republicans were the devil. Why were they so greedy, if they had so much money, why don’t they help more poor people or people in need?
Irregardless, I think the promise of crypto is a more brilliant future. A lot of people seem to disdain the volatility of crypto, but I love it. With traditional stocks, you will never see a 10X gain, a 100X gain, or even a 1000x gain. Also with crypto, you could win it all, or you could lose it all. My general strategy towards crypto and cryptocurrency speculation is this:
Only put money into crypto, assuming that it will go to zero.
Perhaps the best piece of advice that I got from Nassim Taleb in his antifragile book is the idea that to maximize your gains, better to put 90% of your money in maximally boring funds, like bonds, yield savings account etc.… it is pretty crazy even now Cindy and I have a bunch of money just locked in a simple 5% APR savings account, and we get close to $2000 a month in “passive income” interest. Then, what I did was I put 10% of our savings into crypto, maximally speculative bets, initially investing in digibyte and bitcoin, later swapping it all to chainlink, along the way getting some Dogecoin, later transferring it all 100% back into Bitcoin.
All of the gains were mental. And along the way more recently, I’ve been drawing out some money from bitcoin, $5000 USD here US$5000 there… Simply to cover up moving expenses to LA.
Ultimately what I find interesting is that crypto, people who speculate in crypto all tend to live kind of a more monastic Zen monk lifestyle. Even this one guy that I met who first got me into chainlink, revealed to me that he was a crypto whale in chainlink; apparently he first put his life savings in it, maybe $10,000 USD or so when it was worth about $.70, and then he saw it rise all the way up to $50 USD.
It was funny, because I would just see him at the local LA fitness working out, thinking and meditating, we would engage in some lively conversation, and he just drove his mom‘s old Honda Accord, I think he later told me that he was moving to Puerto Rico or something in order to avoid taxes on his crypto or some other regulatory aspects. Apparently even Sam Bankman Fried moved his corporation to the Bahamas, in order to avoid US regulation.
So once you are worth $20 billion, or $150 billion or whatever … then what?
Ironically the best use of money is simply peace of mind. That means money is not really a tool or a mechanism to buy a bunch of stuff that you like, but rather, being able to live a more zen, tranquil, more focused life.
For example, I think the reason why people are so addicted to email is that people are always desiring new “opportunities”, it is predicated on the fact that somehow other people will give you an afford you new opportunities and also, does predicated on the fact that somehow new opportunities will rise in which other people give you money.
But… assuming that no human being who messages you in your email inbox will give you money… would you still be interested in working with them?
For myself personally, I have close to zero interest in money. I am more interested in new opportunities, fun, new novel experiences. The things that I am proud of, or interested in, or grateful for is all of the cool interesting and sexy opportunities that I’ve had and done. Some of the people that I met, etc.
But ultimately, is there a human being more interesting than you?
I’m currently reading the book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, which chronicles is the life of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX and I find it insanely fascinating read. It seems that the same guy isn’t really the super evil guy that a lot of people in the media make him to be; the kid seems to be like a prodigy genius, mathematical minded, who really didn’t care for money or wealth. My personal theory is that he got suckered too much into this utilitarian “effective altruism“, concept… that he misused customer funds in order to “maximize“ his abilities for effective altruism.
I think effective altruism is a bad idea. Why? First of all, I think the general idea of altruism is bad; I think it puts other people in an inferior position, which I personally find is disrespectful. I think a better thing to do instead is on a day-to-day basis, instead of donating money to charities or whatever, to help empower other human beings on a one-to-one basis.
A simple thing; whenever I go to the park with Sen, and I see all these kids running around, who don’t really seem like they get much attention or love from their parents, I try to give them a little bit of that love and attention by talking to them, entertaining them etc. Perhaps this is a more effective way to “change the world“, than anything else.
Try to think about things on a 30 year basis. That means, the simple question; in 30 years, are people going to be using crypto more or less? Or, in 30 years, is the price of bitcoin going to go up or down? It seems pretty obvious that it will go up.
Also, the notion of a “digital wallet”. The general idea is that for the future, we ain’t gonna use cash money anymore. Why? I see more and more restaurants in institutions not except paper cash money. Why not? Because it is difficult to track, and I think there are also issues with employees at restaurants stealing money it etc. Even at my mom‘s old sushi restaurant where she worked at for a long time, she later found out that one of the head managers, a guy that we thought was a super good guy… Was secretly stealing money the whole time.
I think into the future, we will see less and less of “under the table“ payments; why? Because it is not trackable.
Some personal thoughts:
First, I don’t really like Ethereum. Why? It is kind of like android; maybe it is the better technology, but it isn’t sexy, only nerds know about it and use it, it ain’t mainstream and sexy like bitcoin. Bitcoin is like Apple, having the newest iPhone, iPhone Pro etc.… Ethereum is more like android, having an ugly Google pixel or some sort of generic Samsung smartphone.
Another analogy, bitcoin is like having the Lamborghini Countach, with the scissor doors, whereas Ethereum is like having the Toyota Corolla?
Don’t trust old coins, or alternative coins. Why? Everyone just wants to become the next bitcoin, but ultimately… There is too much meme culture behind alt coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
I am very dubious that the price of these Altcoins will ever go up; it seems that a lot of people in the crypto world simply over hype certain crypto technologies and coins, in order to pump it up, sell it, and make money.
Besides bitcoin, only other crypto I find interesting is chainlink. I’ve read all the white papers, and been following the chainlink blog for a long time. Currently the only reason that I’m still committed to bitcoin is that my gut feeling is that even though chain-link is really great, the issue is that it is going to be difficult for it to become mainstream.
First and foremost, it is difficult to explain what it is. The technology is good and great, but I don’t think the general market will understand it.
Also, the fact that there was a chainlink version two is not a good sign. Anything with a version two is probably a bad sign; same thing with Ethereum.
Also, the logo in blue is not very attractive. And the name isn’t that catchy.
I recommend reading going infinite by Michael Lewis, it is an insanely fascinating read, if you’re interested at all about financial markets, how it is all gamed by bots etc. My first revelation reading Michael Lewis was flash boys… Learning the truth behind these hidden high frequency trading firms.
And also, I think the sign of good writer, like Michael Lewis is at the Rita’s fun entertaining and also insightful. It seems that the best way to kill two birds with one stone is simple; make it both entertaining to read, and also interesting knowledge.
My simple suggestions on living a better life:
The world is yours! No drugs, no alcohol, no weed… just joy, bright light, weight lifting and exercise, walks in nature .. we the new zen stoics!
EK
Some good freebies:
If you feel like you even got one fun thought here… feel free to forward this to a friend!
Either have a full manual transmission car, five speed or six speed manual shifting transmission, or, or have a fully automated self driving car, or some sort of minimalistic automatic car.
Also with design aesthetics, I really really really hate automatic shifting knobs and cars. Aesthetically it is so ugly and unnecessary. Good to look at the design of Hyundai, Genesis, Acura and Honda which has gotten rid of the silly automatic shifting stock, and instead, turned it all into buttons.
“Get rid of the stalks!” – Elon Musk
I really think that Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs 4.0. By comparison he makes Steve Jobs look unambitious.
Why Elon Musk? I think what people don’t understand or appreciate is how obsessed Elon Musk is with design, design thinking, design principles. For example, his obsession with designing a Tesla without any steering wheel, shifting mechanisms, stocks, etc. In fact, Elon Musk is almost like an extreme minimalist.
What I personally love about Tesla and Tesla cars is the Spartan luxury, extreme minimalism. For example, I still marvel at the Tesla model 3; first, I’m just so happy and excited and proud and amazed that Elon Musk pulled it off. I remember before it was put into production and before I saw any on the streets… it was just a rabbit hole fantasy. Now it is live!
What I find so insanely innovative about the Tesla model 3 is the extreme simplicity, the extreme minimalism. To make the dashboard so sublimely simple is a design masterpiece.
Personally, I really dislike the Tesla model Y; my general thought is that any sort of crossover vehicle, or even sports utility vehicle is some sort of a design compromise. Even the Tesla model X is almost like a Tesla model S on steroids.
I think the reason why it is so difficult to minimize is that there seems to be some sort of trend or market desire for their to be new features, new products, new additions to motivate people to buy something. But, from a zen capitalism perspective, perhaps this is not a good idea.
Why? I’m more effective way to think about things is figuring out what to get rid of, what to reduce, what to delete. For example, let us never forget the pure genius of Steve Jobs getting rid of the keyboard on the smartphone, and also getting rid of all these silly ugly ports. If it wasn’t for Steve Jobs and his insane design vision, we wouldn’t have the beautiful minimalistic smart phone that we have today.
I think a lot of people think about technology and think that it is all inevitable… given enough time resources and people… these things will magically get invented anyways. I don’t think this is actually the case. You actually need a few insane individuals to bring these things into fruition.
Once again, read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and also Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. You find that both these individuals have an insanely epic and grand life mission… is what drives them.
Idea:
Walter Isaacson should write a book or a biography on Kanye West?
How to think better:
Super fun workshops in the pipeline:
So I just finished the book going infinite by Michael Lewis on the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX. Super fun and fascinating read. My personal suggestion is even if you have a tiny interest in crypto, bitcoin or whatever… It is definitely worth a read.
A quick summary is that Sam isn’t the evil villain that everyone wants him to be. He is almost like an uber genius autistic mathematical servant, who seems to just lack common sense.
Also on a positive note, I think the great upside to consider here is that if bitcoin was able to bounce back after the fall of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried… a very bright future ahead of us in crypto. My personal price projection is I am quite certain that bitcoin will bounce back to at least $65,000 a bitcoin by next year. Therefore if you want a quick 2X profit, seems like a fun speculation. and no no no, don’t bet your house on it. Once again our financial thinking is simple:
Never put more than 10% of your life savings into anything. Irregardless of how good.
Also for funsies, a fun little essay I’ve written on the philosophy of crypto:
“Greed is good” – Gordon Gecko
So it seems and appears that a lot of people seek getting really really rich, really really fast, in order to buy a bunch of stuff. For example, I think the general idea is that you want to make a ton of money, feel good, buy a Lamborghini or whatever… And then what?
Crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology to me is fascinating because it is new, sexy, unorthodox, and interesting.
It seems that a lot of people are interested in crypto, bitcoin etc because they want to get really rich. But the tricky thing with crypto is that essentially you are really rich on paper, but typically most crypto speculators never actually dilute or convert their crypto to US dollars, which means that crypto money is not liquid, it is locked.
Crypto to me is interesting because it is edgy, optimistic, radical, and bold. Also a bit reckless.
The general idea is that with crypto, people are seeking a new revolution, something to up and the old system. Definitely a lot of anarchy vibes here, and a lot of people who are typically distrustful of big organizations, big government, etc.
Honestly I have nothing against the government, I am very happy paying my taxes, I still consider myself a bay area, liberal, open minded, at heart. I love democracy, democratic thinking. Why? It was mostly about how I was raised, how I was supported. If I did not get all of these government aided resources, like going to UCLA as an undergraduate, I would have never been able to become who I am today.
Also, simple organizations that I am grateful for include the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America. I am forever grateful to my troop, my troop leaders, who helped me become an Eagle Scout, and helped me become the citizen that I am today.
Growing up, I grew up thinking that conservatives, Republicans were the devil. Why were they so greedy, if they had so much money, why don’t they help more poor people or people in need?
Irregardless, I think the promise of crypto is a more brilliant future. A lot of people seem to disdain the volatility of crypto, but I love it. With traditional stocks, you will never see a 10X gain, a 100X gain, or even a 1000x gain. Also with crypto, you could win it all, or you could lose it all. My general strategy towards crypto and cryptocurrency speculation is this:
Only put money into crypto, assuming that it will go to zero.
Perhaps the best piece of advice that I got from Nassim Taleb in his antifragile book is the idea that to maximize your gains, better to put 90% of your money in maximally boring funds, like bonds, yield savings account etc.… it is pretty crazy even now Cindy and I have a bunch of money just locked in a simple 5% APR savings account, and we get close to $2000 a month in “passive income” interest. Then, what I did was I put 10% of our savings into crypto, maximally speculative bets, initially investing in digibyte and bitcoin, later swapping it all to chainlink, along the way getting some Dogecoin, later transferring it all 100% back into Bitcoin.
All of the gains were mental. And along the way more recently, I’ve been drawing out some money from bitcoin, $5000 USD here US$5000 there… Simply to cover up moving expenses to LA.
Ultimately what I find interesting is that crypto, people who speculate in crypto all tend to live kind of a more monastic Zen monk lifestyle. Even this one guy that I met who first got me into chainlink, revealed to me that he was a crypto whale in chainlink; apparently he first put his life savings in it, maybe $10,000 USD or so when it was worth about $.70, and then he saw it rise all the way up to $50 USD. It was funny, because I would just see him at the local LA fitness working out, thinking and meditating, we engage in some lively conversation, and he just drove his mom‘s old Honda Accord, I think he later told me that he was moving to Puerto Rico or something in order to avoid taxes on his crypto or some other regulatory aspects. Apparently even Sam Bankman Fried moved his corporation to the Bahamas, in order to avoid US regulation.
So once you are worth $20 billion, or $150 billion or whatever … then what?
Ironically the best use of money is simply peace of mind. That means money is not really a tool or a mechanism to buy a bunch of stuff that you like, but rather, being able to live a more zen, tranquil, more focused life.
For example, I think the reason why people are so addicted to email is that people are always desiring new “opportunities”, it is predicated on the fact that somehow other people will give you an afford you new opportunities and also, does predicated on the fact that somehow new opportunities will rise in which other people give you money.
But… assuming that no human being who messages you in your email inbox will give you money… would you still be interested in working with them?
For myself personally, I have close to zero interest in money. I am more interested in new opportunities, fun, new novel experiences. The things that I am proud of, or interested in, or grateful for is all of the cool interesting and sexy opportunities that I’ve had and done. Some of the people that I met, etc.
But ultimately, is there a human being more interesting than you?
I’m currently reading the book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, which chronicles is the life of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX and I find it insanely fascinating read. It seems that the same guy isn’t really the super evil guy that a lot of people in the media make him to be; the kid seems to be like a prodigy genius, mathematical minded, who really didn’t care for money or wealth. My personal theory is that he got suckered too much into this utilitarian “effective altruism“, concept… that he misused customer funds in order to “maximize“ his abilities for effective altruism.
I think effective altruism is a bad idea. Why? First of all, I think the general idea of altruism is bad; I think it puts other people in an inferior position, which I personally find is disrespectful. I think a better thing to do instead is on a day-to-day basis, instead of donating money to charities or whatever, to help empower other human beings on a one-to-one basis.
A simple thing; whenever I go to the park with Sen, and I see all these kids running around, who don’t really seem like they get much attention or love from their parents, I try to give them a little bit of that love and attention by talking to them, entertaining them etc. Perhaps this is a more effective way to “change the world“, than anything else.
Try to think about things on a 30 year basis. That means, the simple question; in 30 years, are people going to be using crypto more or less? Or, in 30 years, is the price of bitcoin going to go up or down? It seems pretty obvious that it will go up.
Also, the notion of a “digital wallet”. The general idea is that for the future, we ain’t gonna use cash money anymore. Why? I see more and more restaurants in institutions not except paper cash money. Why not? Because it is difficult to track, and I think there are also issues with employees at restaurants stealing money it etc. Even at my mom‘s old sushi restaurant where she worked at for a long time, she later found out that one of the head managers, a guy that we thought was a super good guy… Was secretly stealing money the whole time.
I think into the future, we will see less and less of “under the table“ payments; why? Because it is not trackable.
Some personal thoughts:
First, I don’t really like Ethereum. Why? It is kind of like android; maybe it is the better technology, but it isn’t sexy, only nerds know about it and use it, it ain’t mainstream and sexy like bitcoin. Bitcoin is like Apple, having the newest iPhone, iPhone Pro etc.… Ethereum is more like android, having an ugly Google pixel or some sort of generic Samsung smartphone.
Another analogy, bitcoin is like having the Lamborghini Countach, with the scissor doors, whereas Ethereum is like having the Toyota Corolla?
Don’t trust old coins, or alternative coins. Why? Everyone just wants to become the next bitcoin, but ultimately… There is too much meme culture behind alt coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.
I am very dubious that the price of these Altcoins will ever go up; it seems that a lot of people in the crypto world simply over hype certain crypto technologies and coins, in order to pump it up, sell it, and make money.
Besides bitcoin, only other crypto I find interesting is chain-link. I’ve read all the white papers, and been following the chain-link blog for a long time. Currently the only reason that I’m still committed to bitcoin is that my gut feeling is that even though chain-link is really great, the issue is that it is going to be difficult for it to become mainstream.
First and foremost, it is difficult to explain what it is. The technology is good and great, but I don’t think the general market will understand it.
Also, the fact that there was a chain-link version two is not a good sign. Anything with a version two is probably a bad sign; same thing with Ethereum.
Also, the logo in blue is not very attractive. And the name isn’t that catchy.
The general idea … anti fiat currency; the idea that true currency needs a hard cap. Hard cap of 21 million coins.
Why does this matter? The US government and FED can essentially print unlimited money; my belief a lot of inflation is triggered by when during COVID, too much “free money” was circulated into the system.
Is bitcoin “digital gold”? I think so.
Consider real gold … you don’t ever really touch it or use it. And there seems to be a hard cap.
I think it’s just a really fascinating concept … insanely innovative, sexy and interesting.
Simply put I think Bitcoin is the best because the icon is orange. A very simple idea — the Bitcoin icon pops super hard compared to all of the other random coins and crypto assets.
BRC-20, ERC-20; wrapping Bitcoin with other assets and the blockchain… transforming Bitcoin into a viable NFT option.
Philosophically speaking … it makes me ponder and meditate the notion of wealth, money etc. That all this money stuff is simply smoke and mirrors.
Via ChatGPT:
Eric Kim, known for his work in photography, has also shown a notable interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. His involvement and thoughts on this topic are reflected in various ways:
- Personal Investment and Trading: Kim shared his experiences with Bitcoin investment and trading. He mentioned re-entering the Bitcoin market when its price dropped from $50,000 to $35,000 and then riding it back up to $50,000 oai_citation:1,How I Made Money with Crypto – ERIC KIM – EK.
- Philosophical Perspective: He has discussed the broader implications of cryptocurrency and its potential future impact. For example, he has speculated about the future of global currencies and the role of military power in their dominance, suggesting a deep interest in the geopolitical and economic aspects of cryptocurrency oai_citation:2,Why I Bought More Bitcoin (Again) – EK – ERIC KIM PHOTOGRAPHY.
- Cryptocurrency Advocacy: Kim has expressed a strong belief in the longevity and importance of Bitcoin, predicting that it will be the “last crypto standing.” This shows his advocacy for Bitcoin and his confidence in its future oai_citation:3,Crypto – ERIC KIM – EK.
- Reflection on Wealth and Cryptocurrency: He has also pondered the broader implications of wealth accumulation through cryptocurrency, questioning what comes after achieving financial success in this arena oai_citation:4,Once You Become a Crypto Billionaire, Then What? – ERIC KIM.
- Professional Intersection with Photography: Kim has explored the intersection of cryptocurrency and photography, discussing why he believes digital currencies like Bitcoin and Digibyte are the future for photographers in the digital economy oai_citation:5,BITCOIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS – ERIC KIM – Podtail.
Through these various avenues, it’s evident that Eric Kim’s interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency goes beyond mere financial investment. He integrates this interest with his professional field, reflects on its broader societal implications, and engages with the philosophical aspects of this innovative technology.
Bitcoin’s hard cap is set at 21 million coins. This limit is an integral part of its design and philosophy, reflecting a commitment to scarcity and anti-inflationary principles. Unlike fiat currencies, which can be printed in unlimited quantities by governments, Bitcoin’s finite supply resembles gold and other precious metals. This limit is expected to be reached around the year 2140. The hard cap is also seen as a way to mimic the diminishing returns of mining precious resources, with the rewards for mining new blocks halving approximately every four years, in events known as “halvings.” This scarcity principle has been a key factor in Bitcoin’s narrative and value proposition as “digital gold.”
What is the future of photography and AI? The question at hand.
First, my personal creative vision is that the future of AI and photography should be a hybrid of using AI to actually motivate you to be more creative. No no no, AI is not going to “take your job“, or “take over the world“. is going to take your job? Is Google search going to take your job? No.
AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, DALL-E 3 is like a personal echo chamber; you could use it to flesh out your ideas, to think more critically, and just ask yourself the question… why?
My first take and attempt at creating my own artificial intelligence chat bot was the WHY APP? Essentially the idea was motivated by the notion; if you just ask yourself the question “why?” five times… you gain a deeper truth or insight about something.
Arsbeta.com is all about human feedback. You upload a photo, and you randomly get a real human being giving you feedback on your photos, in a constructive and critical way.
My next vision is to integrate AI into it; which means you upload a photo to the AI, and then it could give you some sort of interesting critical feedback on your photos.
What you could do right now is subscribe to ChatGPT plus, only 20 bucks a month, and upload a photo to it, and ask it for feedback on your photos, how you can improve etc. Some of the feedback is interesting… it makes you think more.
AI is a mirror. A white mirror.
AI can only think as deeply as you do; there’s no real right or wrong here. Typically the questions you ask it is simply a reflection of what you’re personally interested in.
Also with DALL-E, DALL-E 3… the name of the game is how funny and aberrant are your ideas?
Once you got the paid ChatGPT subscription, you can upload up to three or four images, and then just ask ChatGPT to help you choose your best photo.
AI can help you give photography tips. For example, ask ERIC KIM BOT, or ERIC KIM AI for photography tips, photography assignment ideas, street photography tips etc. It is very smart because what it essentially does is just scrape my blog, and gives you interesting ideas in a conversational way.
Rather than upgrading your iPhone, just use the iPhone you already got, and pay for the ChatGPT subscription, and finally… your smartphone actually becomes smart.
For example what you could do is open up the ChatGPT app, click the camera icon, take a photo of something, and help you analyze the scene. Also, you could even take a photo of a collage that you’ve made in real life and ask it to analyze the image. Recently Cindy and I printed out a bunch of photos, and framed them nicely, and I’ve been having fun asking it to analyze the collages and making sense of it.
Is AI art “real“ art? Of course! The better question is whether you like the photo and the image or not.
What is art? Art is anything that you create. Art can be manifested however you interpret it.
My thought is now with AI, and it being so easy to generate images… What is more critical is actually your ability to filter. The art of choosing your favorite photos is a really important thing here.
DALL-E is the specific component of ChatGPT which creates images from scratch, purely based on your own imagination.
It is phenomenal. For example, once you subscribe to the Chi PT plus, open up DALL-E on the sidebar, and things you could ask it to design you:
DALL-E truly becomes magical the more ridiculous and ostentatious you make it. Make it as ridiculous silly and random as possible; the more ridiculous, the better.
Your own blog.
Ionos.com and WordPress.org or bluehost.com
Why? The reason is you’re going to create lots of AI generated images and artwork, and also your photos.
I like the idea of artistic and creative double dipping; the idea is that now that you’re a visual artist, you’re not constrained to just one medium. It is not mutually exclusive; you could do both! You could shoot photos and make AI art!
Cindy has been enjoying watching me how much fun I have been having with ChatGPT and DALL-E. For example a recent thing that I did which made me laugh out loud was asking DALLE to make me a hardcore Spartan image, and then I keep asking it “more muscular”. There is a certain point in which it becomes hilarious and I laugh out loud where the limits of muscularity just become preposterous. It makes the incredible Hulk look like a twig.
One good thing that ChatGPT has integrated is the notion of content policies to prevent bad behavior. The fun thing to do is actually see how you could work around it; rather than asking DALL-E to make you a picture of a “sexy Korean girl“, which it will refuse… use the word “babe” instead, and instead of calling it “sexy”, you can say “beautiful” or “gorgeous”.
The word babe is funny… I got the word from Calvin and Hobbes, because Hobbes was always so fascinated by the babes.
So I think the real fun thing about ChatGPT is actually finding creative ways to subvert the content moderation policies. See how far you could push it and nudge it.
I made a ChatGPT bot called “Bitcoin Babe”. My personal creative vision was in the spirit of fun; how you could use an AI chat but to help you be more zen, stoic, and calm about crypto… given how volatile it is.
For example, I never checked the price of bitcoin or any of my crypto acids. I only ever know the price if I stumble upon it on accident, if it is in the headlines of a newspaper, on the television at airports, in magazines at the airport etc. I never seek it out.
Why, why not and why am I glad that I didn’t do this? Because I know myself and how sensitive I am… I used to actually daytrade when I was in college as a sophomore, and I realize that I was too emotional. Essentially what I did was I thought a long time about my decision, went 100% into bitcoin, and I just never looked at it or touched it, did other stuff instead. The hilarious thing is that I actually avoided and I actually didn’t even know about the whole FTX meltdown and the Sam Bankman-Fried guy. And I’m glad that I intentionally made myself ignorant of all the modern day news… Bitcoin is bouncing back, and since the last time I bought more bitcoin for the third time, everything is totally in the green.
But anyways, I think 99% of crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is all about having a zen and stoic mindset. Essentially not to let emotions perturb you.
I specifically programmed Bitcoin Babe in such a way that it tries to help you think more critically about things, and not get suckered by hype.
Also, ZEN OF ERIC and also ERIC KIM BOT— zen of ERIC is all about stoicism and philosophy, and ERIC KIM bot is all about photography.
I am starting to think that Google is the bad guy; this whole system we got which is predicated on advertising is a positively bad one. Why? The more sensational and crazy the news, the more advertisements get viewed or clicked on. As a consequence, the nature of the news and media is becoming too outlandish.
Also my critical analysis is that a lot of this stuff on racism, race riots, anti-Jewish sentiment etc.… the real bad guy here is Google and Facebook. Why? Google which owns YouTube, makes money off of these hot button topics. Not only that but Facebook owns Instagram, and once again… the more sexual, overt, and loud something is… the more attention and advertising money is made.
Actually one thing that made me very anti-Instagram… I don’t even have a daughter but I’m starting to realize… When I watched the Kanye West interview on info wars, Kanye West commenting that Instagram is essentially like pornography; a lot of these “fitness influencers”, or women… are essentially selling their bodies for attention and money.
But now that ChatGPT and DALLE can make you your own beautiful women, photo realistic, all which are virtual… There is really no more need for these models or “influencers“.
Short Google and Facebook/Meta/Instagram.
The other days when I was at Philz coffee, I saw a guy order a croissant and a coffee and spend $17 on it. Do yourself a favor and just buy the ChatGPT premium subscription, and spend the best $20 of your life.
Play with it, have fun, create your own ChatGPT bots, and also, see how far you can push it.
ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS FOR LIFE!
HAPTIC TOOLS — create your own visual jewels!
So fucking lit!!!
Hector among the ships:
Meanwhile Hector seized a rock that lay fore the gate, thick at the base but pointed at the top, two of the strongest men these days could barely have levered it from the ground onto a cart, yet he handled it alone, Zeus the son of devious Cronos making it seem light. Hector lifted the rock like a shepherd lifting a ram’s fleece in one hand, scarcely burdened by the weight, and raised it against the solid panels of the tall tightly-fitted double gates, held by two cross bars and a single bolt. Bracing himself, feet well apart, to hurl it with greatest force, he stood in front and struck them square in the middle. The hinges broke on either side, and the stone’s weight carried it on, as the doors flung open groaning, crossbars broken. Glorious Hector leapt inside, face dark as night; his body gleaming with baleful bronze, grasping his twin spears in his hands. None but a god could have checked him once he had passed the gates.
Eyes blazing fire, he turned to the ranks behind and called to them to climb the battlements. At his order some men scaled the wall, while others poured in through the broken gates, as the Greeks, routed, were driven back to the hollow ships, in the midst of a relentless clamour.
I finally found it!!! ChatGPT as the ultimate research tool.
ChatGPT just as an insanely good filter? 100000x better than Google.
You know how Google’s tagline is “make all of the information on the web accessible?” ChatGPT makes it a trillion times better. Now Google is:
Let us try to put as many sneaky advertisements into your life!
ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS
Advice I would have given myself in photography, if I started all over again:
De-lamify the future.
Enroll in my Udemy Course:
‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship’: Create Your Own Future >
Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success
MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.
Take control of your own photographic destiny:
Learn how to make a living from your passion:
ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS
Advice I would have given myself in photography, if I started all over again:
De-lamify the future.
Enroll in my Udemy Course:
‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship’: Create Your Own Future >
Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success
MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.
Take control of your own photographic destiny:
Learn how to make a living from your passion:
Obviously we are not living in a simulation, but if you think about the MATRIX, one of the most interesting things to consider is the interesting metaphor towards life.
First, I think everyone is running on the same social scripts. As a consequence, people just tend to be very boring. I’ve actually found that the reason why most people are so boring is that they either lack exposure, or courage.
Second, we are conditioned by fear. Lot of what holds us back is fear; and also ethics.
Even one thing I was considering, why is it that sex, erotic matters, nudity etc.… is seen as so bad, taboo and evil? Technically if we can go from purely biologic perspective, it doesn’t really matter. Do we shame animals for being naked all the time or doing it in public, not really.
Or horses; let us consider stallions in heat, and their behavior.
I think when I consider my behavior, my thinking and worldview, being raised Catholic, Roman Catholic, and also being born and raised in America, notions of Catholic guilt, and also Confucian guilt… and also Korean Korean American culture… not the most open-minded worldview.
I am very happy fortunate and blessed that my mom was very contrarian, very unorthodox, even for being a Korean mom. I would definitely say her ethos was very unique; very independent, solo, self-reliant etc.
In fact, how did I become who I am? I think 90% of it was the socialization of my mom. She is the one who taught me social skills and not to fear people. Funny enough, sometimes she is too naïve to a fault; but ultimately I would prefer my mom— better to be happy joyful and naïve than to be like a scarecrow, overly suspicious and cold towards the world.
“Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore.” – Galiani
First, become more loud ostentatious, more “ratchet“. Be the big swinging dick (Michael Lewis, Flash Boys).
Second, throw politically correct vocabulary into the trash, and be maximally suspicious of any “woke” talk. My heuristic:
“Don’t trust any woke people who toke!”
Haha. Toke means smoke weed.
Also, the critical of anybody who has too strong of a political affiliation to any side, spends too much time on Facebook and social media etc. Anybody who consumes media, or gossip, has un-unique thinking. Ultimately my thoughts about people and thoughts is simple; there are interesting people and boring people. No good or bad people. In fact, most good people are insanely boring. A lot of bad people also tend to be boring.
Trolling on the internet is bad. However I think trolling in real life is good.
After becoming a ChatGPT master, I’m starting to understand that we should literally put 0% faith of anything we see or read on the Internet. Why? It is truly impossible to tell whether something was written by ChatGPT or not, or if the original text was written by ChatGPT, and then a human just edited it afterwards.
For example for fun, I made two ChatGPT bots, in the spirit of ERIC KIM. It is actually both hilarious and scary how good they are —
How do you troll people in real life? Joke around, laugh, have fun, talk like a seven-year-old or five-year-old child, never give people a straight answer. Lie about funny things in a playful gist.
For example, a lot of people try to be friendly by asking me how old Seneca is. Sometimes I will joke and say “He is six months old!” (He is 2 years, 9 months old). Some people become shocked and their eyes go really wide, and then I just joke that he is on steroids.
Also, everybody loves a good compliment. Doesn’t matter if man or women etc. I love people, and so whenever I see people having a certain outfit or look that I like, I always try to make it a point to compliment them.
Just try this out as an experiment: for a whole day: whenever you see somebody that you like, compliment them. Compliment their hair their outfit their look etc. Or inquire about their outfit, where they got it, etc.
Second, throw your AirPods and airbuds pros into the trash. I think one of the most terrible things for modern day society, which atrophies our social skills is everyone always having AirPods on. Real men don’t use headphones or AirPods or whatever. If you’re going to listen to music, use a Bluetooth speaker or play it off your phone speaker and blast it like a person from the hood.
In fact, I’m starting to hypothesize that in fact, it might be music, Spotify, and noise canceling headphones which is the driving cause to have people become more antisocial. Not phones and social media, the headphones.
Also as an experiment, the next time you go to the gym and lift weights, do it without any music or headphones on. You will actually benefit by naturally trying to block out all the annoying elevator music, and annoying chitchat of other people. Ultimately it makes you more interesting to NOT wear headphones than to wear them.
Also, how do you know if somebody is actually really interesting or not? When you go to the gym, filter people into two categories:
People who work out without headphones, and people who do.
I only trust people who work out without headphones on.
The sun is out, the sun is bright! Your future awaits you.
And also, when in doubt, smile.
ERIC
Some more turbo thoughts:
First, unshackle yourself from superficial ethics, morality, uncritical religious edicts, etc.
The more I think about it… honestly all these modern day “ethics”, “rules”, are bad.
Especially in America, which is a strange chimera of thinking.
For example, when we think and consider the difference between shared, co-living spaces and places, versus communal things, versus the common.
For example, let us say that I am living with you, and you prefer things a certain way, and I prefer things a certain way. Who should have the ultimate say?
A simple heuristic: If I am by myself, you should not intrude on my space and do things differently, tell me what to do or what not to do.
Second, if we are sharing the space and you prefer things a certain way, and your request seems reasonable enough, I will acquiesce to you, and I will simply leave the space.
I think the big issue is when we try to superimpose our will upon others.
For example, let us say that I love to eat meat. That I am 100%, unabashed carnivore. That it is against my beliefs to eat vegetables or plants or fruit or grains or anything which reeks of a “plant-based diet“. Funny enough, nowadays it is 100% fine to show up to a party and tell people that “I don’t eat meat“, and low-key expect to be served vegetarian or vegan food… but it isn’t mainstream to show up to a party saying “I don’t eat vegetables“, and low-key expect to be fed meat.
Also, I kind of get the low-key feeling that a lot of vegetarians or zealous vegans are trying to get everyone to stop eating meat, to become like them, become vegan etc. That they try to guilt or shame meat eaters like myself that what we do is bad evil and is “bad for the planet“.
However, I haven’t really seen the opposite; when I shame a vegan for being cruel to immigrant farm workers who have to pick almonds all day, and how almonds, their almond butter, their cashews, cashew nut butters etc. is “bad for the planet“, because of how water hungry these plants are.
For example, I think one thing I have discovered about myself is that I am a little bit of a tyrant. I attribute this to my upbringing; I was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son, and as a consequence, being raised, I was treated like the king. Whenever I would go to my grandma, she would always acquiesce to my needs and desires and shower me with endless praise, brag about how handsome and successful I was in front of all of her friends, etc.
So the big issue that I have is that myself, I see myself as king, emperor, and I expect other people to treat me a certain way. I expect and demand and find a critical that other people greet me, when I enter, when I leave, and to treat me with High respect and royalty. When they do not do this, it infumes my anger.
But the biggest issue is that you cannot force other people to treat you a certain way, or to greet you a certain way. For example, if I show up, I cannot demand other people to address me a certain way, or to greet me, etc. Similarly speaking, When I leave, I cannot demand other people say goodbye to me or greet me goodbye. That is tyranny.
This is where I think modern day stuff is little bit bad; you cannot force me to talk to you a certain way, to greet you a certain way, to address you a certain way, etc. If you don’t like the way I talk to you or about you… You just walk away or don’t interact with me. Doesn’t this make more sense?
First and foremost, who was Confucius? Essentially he was a petty governmental official, and I believe it was later the scholar bureaucrat Mencius who codified his belief system, just kind of like how Paul did for Jesus… and they create this new pseudo, strange, hydra of a world view and order.
For example, Confucianism, the state mandarin examinations, and all of these pseudo religious rules that Confucius put forth, like philial piety, respect for elders, etc.… The main purpose was a form of social control and order and harmony. It was a useful tool for the king emperor or the aristocracy to keep the commoners in check.
Similarly speaking, St. Paul, was a very strange case. Just read about him from Nietzsche and his book “The Antichrist”. The general gist is that Saint Paul was a tormented soul, and he was seeking salvation somewhere else. He discovered Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and bastardized them in a strange, miss mashed way. He almost escaped coated Jesus for his own downings and faults, and could not come to ends why things happened a certain way they did.
A concept I came upon recently, which is very interesting and fascinating to me, is this notion of “the chosen people“. I’m curious… is this zero sum? That some people are chosen, and some are not? Are they chosen based on their blood, their lineage, their parents, their family heritage and background, or something else?
And also, if I am chosen, does it mean that you’re not chosen? That, somehow I take up your spot? The notion that in the afterlife, there is only a limited number of spots, let us say 5000 or something, and that only a select number of people are allowed entrance?
So there are certain things I have learned and observed about life, the world, etc.
First, certainly there are certain people and individuals who are born with a leg up in life. For example, if I was born, and my dad was worth $20 billion, and from a young age I knew that I had a trust fund, which would not be able to be unlocked until I am 65 years old, maybe a part of $100 million… certainly this would change how I live my life.
Also, let us say that I am born and my family is very well-connected. Let us say that my father or mother is a famous Hollywood actor or producer or director… certainly if my passion is cinema film and media, I will also be given better connections and privileges.
But… Does this matter? I don’t think so.
My favorite example is thinking about Jay Z. Would Jay Z have become a Jay Z if he were born to a nice, middle-class family in the suburbs? Highly dubious.
Also, something that I learned is that not always, but often… people entrepreneurs etc. who are born to very difficult childhood situations are the ones who become interesting.
For example, Jeff Bezos, just read his book “invent and wander,” hearing his family story, I think his dad was essentially a Cuban refugee, is insanely fascinating. I think the best thing that Jeff Bezos said, which actually emotionally moved me so much is that when he talks about his father, his “my real father, not my biological one”— it was so beautiful I almost teared up!
Also, read the new Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk; I think Elon Musk probably had one of the most traumatic childhood of all time… Somehow those experiences forged him into what he is today.
Same thing with Kanye West; more or less having a single mom, an absentee father, and also, the tragic early passing of his mother Donda… Certainly this shapes your psyche in a certain way.
Just because you have suffered more trauma in your life doesn’t make you more virtuous than me, and vice versa. However, I don’t think we should either use it as a crutch nor a motivator… We should just pause it our desired life path, and proceed boldly.
Whenever you witness or experience a certain setback, obstacle, “downside“… Think about Mario kart; these “setbacks“ are like your temporary speed boost!
In fact, even though not having things a certain way is insanely annoying, I think this is the root of all innovation. For example, my insane frustration with trying to find a good gym… Essentially resulted in me innovating and doing my funny “off the grid” workouts.
Similar speaking, starting off in photography, 18-19 years old, not being able to find any good information on the Internet on how to do photography and Street photography and composition is actually what motivated my pursuits to create the information I wish to see manifested in the world.
First, unshackle yourself from superficial ethics, morality, uncritical religious edicts, etc.
The more I think about it… Honestly all these modern day “ethics”, “rules”, are bad.
Especially in America, which is a strange chimera of thinking.
For example, when we think and consider the difference between shared, co-living spaces and places, versus communal things, versus the common.
For example, let us say that I am living with you, and you prefer things a certain way, and I prefer things a certain way. Who should have the ultimate say?
A simple heuristic: if I am by myself, you should not intrude on my space and do things differently, tell me what to do or what not to do.
Second, if we are sharing the space and you prefer things a certain way, and your request seems reasonable enough, I will acquiesce to you, and I will simply leave the space.
I think the big issue is when we try to superimpose our will upon others.
For example, let us say that I love to eat meat. That I am 100%, unabashed carnivore. That it is against my beliefs to eat vegetables or plants or fruit or grains or anything which reeks of a “plant-based diet“. Funny enough, nowadays it is 100% fine to show up to a party and tell people that “I don’t eat meat“, and low-key expect to be served vegetarian or vegan food… But it isn’t mainstream to show up to a party saying “I don’t eat vegetables“, and low-key expect to be fed meat.
Also, I kind of get the low-key feeling that a lot of vegetarians or zealous vegans are trying to get everyone to stop eating meat, to become like them, become vegan etc. That they try to guilt or shame meat eaters like myself that what we do is bad evil and is “bad for the planet“.
However, I haven’t really seen the opposite; when I shame a vegan for being cruel to immigrant farm workers who have to pick almonds all day, and how almonds, their almond butter, their cashews, cashew nut butters etc. is “bad for the planet“, because of how water hungry these plants are.
For example, I think one thing I have discovered about myself is that I am a little bit of a tyrant. I attribute this to my upbringing; I was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son, and as a consequence, being raised, I was treated like the king. Whenever I would go to my grandma, she would always acquiesce to my needs and desires and shower me with endless praise, brag about how handsome and successful I was in front of all of her friends, etc.
So the big issue that I have is that myself, I see myself as king, emperor, and I expect other people to treat me a certain way. I expect and demand and find a critical that other people greet me, when I enter, when I leave, and to treat me with High respect and royalty. When they do not do this, it infumes my anger.
But the biggest issue is that you cannot force other people to treat you a certain way, or to greet you a certain way. For example, if I show up, I cannot demand other people to address me a certain way, or to greet me, etc. Similarly speaking, When I leave, I cannot demand other people say goodbye to me or greet me goodbye. That is tyranny.
This is where I think modern day stuff is little bit bad; you cannot force me to talk to you a certain way, to greet you a certain way, to address you a certain way, etc. If you don’t like the way I talk to you or about you… You just walk away or don’t interact with me. Doesn’t this make more sense?
First and foremost, who was Confucius? Essentially he was a petty governmental official, and I believe it was later the scholar bureaucrat Mencius who codified his belief system, just kind of like how Paul did for Jesus… And they create this new pseudo, strange, hydra of a world view and order.
For example, Confucianism, the state mandarin examinations, and all of these pseudo religious rules that Confucius put forth, like Philly pie, respect for elders, etc.… The main purpose was a form of social control and order and harmony. It was a useful tool for the king emperor or the aristocracy to keep the commoners in check.
Similarly speaking, St. Paul, was a very strange case. Just read about him from Nietzsche and his book “The Antichrist”. The general gist is that Saint Paul was a tormented soul, and he was seeking salvation somewhere else. He discovered Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and bastardized them in a strange, miss mashed way. He almost escaped coated Jesus for his own downings and faults, and could not come to ends why things happened a certain way they did.
A concept I came upon recently, which is very interesting and fascinating to me, is this notion of “the chosen people“. I’m curious… Is this zero sum? That some people are chosen, and some are not? Are they chosen based on their blood, their lineage, their parents, their family heritage and background, or something else?
And also, if I am chosen, does it mean that you’re not chosen? That, somehow I take up your spot? The notion that in the afterlife, there is only a limited number of spots, let us say 5000 or something, and that only a select number of people are allowed entrance?
So there are certain things I have learned and observed about life, the world, etc.
First, certainly there are certain people and individuals who are born with a leg up in life. For example, if I was born, and my dad was worth $20 billion, and from a young age I knew that I had a trust fund, which would not be able to be unlocked until I am 65 years old, maybe a part of $100 million… Certainly this would change how I live my life.
Also, let us say that I am born and then my family is very well-connected. Let us say that my father or mother is a famous Hollywood actor or producer or Director… Certainly if my passion is cinema film and media, I will also be given better connections and privileges.
But… Does this matter? I don’t think so.
My favorite example is thinking about Jay Z. Would Jay Z have become a Jay Z if he were born to a nice, middle-class family in the suburbs? Highly dubious.
Also, something that I learned is that not always, but often… People entrepreneurs etc. who are born to very difficult childhood situations are the ones who become interesting.
For example, Jeff Bezos, just read his book “invent and wander, hearing his family story, I think his dad was essentially a Cuban refugee, is insanely fascinating. I think the best thing that Jeff Bezos said, which actually emotionally moved me so much is that when he talks about his father, his “my real father, not my biological one”— it was so beautiful I almost teared up!
Also, read the new Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk; I think Elon Musk probably had one of the most traumatic childhood of all time… Somehow those experiences forged him into what he is today.
Same thing with Kanye West; more or less having a single mom, an absentee father, and also, the tragic early passing of his mother Donda… Certainly this shapes your psyche in a certain way.
Just because you have suffered more trauma in your life doesn’t make you more virtuous than me, and vice versa. However, I don’t think we should either use it as a crutch nor a motivator… We should just pause it our desired life path, and proceed boldly.
Whenever you witness or experience a certain setback, obstacle, “downside“… Think about Mario kart; these “setbacks“ are like your temporary speed boost!
In fact, even though not having things a certain way is insanely annoying, I think this is the root of all innovation. For example, my insane frustration with trying to find a good gym… Essentially resulted in me innovating and doing my funny “off the grid” workouts.
Similar speaking, starting off in photography, 1819 years old, not being able to find any good information on the Internet on how to do photography and Street photography and composition is actually what motivated my pursuits to create the information I wish to see manifested in the world.
All the wealth, riches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris in the world … does it even begin to compare to the apex beauty of woman?
Theory:
Beautiful women, the beautiful woman shape form and physique of a beautiful woman is the ultimate stimulus to man?
Woman as the ultimate and apex art object?
Rather … something else?
So the funny thought of the morning; it seems that a lot of us seek to “upgrade” our things; why not the opposite… to seek to “downgrade” our things?
So I had a very funny thought a few days ago… The question…
What is the most manly phone?
The reason why I think this is such an interesting thought is that because I think what a lot of us men are seeking through our devices, cars, watches accessories etc.… is seeking some sort of manliness, masculinity, a feeling of dominance. For example, why would you get a Richard Millie?
“Richard mill on the leather band” — PUSHA T
Looking back at it, I actually learned a lot of very useful things studying sociology as an undergraduate at UCLA. To me, sociology may be one of the greatest majors of all time, because it deals with society, human beings, people. It seems that a lot of things in modern day life or just sociological phenomenon.
For example, this nonsensical trend towards veganism, “plant-based diets”, etc. Where does this stem from? My personal thought is that it has to do with loss of religion. A lot of modern-day people, especially young people, no longer go to church, have a religion, etc. Therefore, what is our new religion? “Saving the planet“, “animal rights“, etc.
Therefore, I think this strange trend for young people preferring to have dogs over children is that it is a new pseudo religion. And also, people who think that eating meat is “bad for you”,… I think it also has to do with the fact that people are seeking some sort of salvation or virtuality Through their dietary and food consumptive behaviors.
For me, I tried to think about things more critically. Without all of this nonsensical, anemic ideals and fake ethics.
My current thought and understanding is that the iPhone SE may currently be the most manly phone. Why? You could beat the shit out of it, literally and metaphorically, and you can live a more adventurous, greater life!
For example, I trust nobody who uses a case on their phone. Why? First of all aesthetically it looks so ugly. Secondly, it signals some sort of cowardice. Third, I think it’s signals that we just spend way too much money on phones. I think it is not good.
For example, if you’re like me, a typical “tech bro“, we probably spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about our phones, our devices, waiting for the newest Apple product, etc. Yet my personal thought is that rather than seeking to upgrade our phones, perhaps instead what we gotta do is upgrade how we eat (100% organ meat diet — beef liver, beef heart, beef kidney, beef intestines, bone marrow), how we lift weights, how we walk and live etc.
For example, I’m starting to think more and more… To spend $1500 on a phone is not a good use of our time nor money. Why? If we think about it from creative or productivity perspective, if you really really really really really really really really want to become more productive, you would probably just get like a Mac mini, a Mac studio, some sort of desktop computer, with an Uber ergonomic set up, standing desk, treadmill desk, Ernle monitor, track ball mouse, kinesis keyboard, etc. Even now with the brand new MacBook Pro which came out; I think it is a cowardly design. Apple is a bunch of cowards; after Joni I’ve left, why did they bring back the MagSafe thing? The green light is insanely annoying and distracting, especially when it is charging in your bedroom, and also… HDMI port? It is like the Nauvoo PCI port, it will get outdated so quickly. The same thing goes with SD cards; Apple has done compromised bad.
Even now, when I look at the new MacBook Pro, or any of the new MacBook Air laptops… It is starting to look more and more like an old Windows device. All of these ports which are not going to be future proof, and also, still my grade joy of the MacBook Pro touch bars; Seneca even figure it out how to open up GarageBand and he figure it out how to Use the drum machine on the touch bar! The MacBook Pro touch bar was so insanely innovative… And effectively Apple has discontinued it. Why? Once again… No vision for the future.
Personally speaking, definitely AI. ChatGPT, DALL-E, creating your own chat bots etc. For example, I just made two of my own chat bots, it literally only took me 30 seconds. This shit is bananas!
For example try out the new ZEN OF ERIC and also ERIC KIM BOT
My personal fight and anti-mentality is that I hate the boring, I hate the same same, I hate the generic, etc. My passion lies in innovation, thinking about the future, technology, etc. Ever since I was a kid, I was so fascinated and passionate about computers, and even now Seneca… It looks like he is teaching himself also how to type, use tach GPT and AI, at age 2 years, nine months old… She is a true prodigy. And what is a prodigy anyway? My personal thought is a prodigy is simply a kid with a attentive parents, and when you’re with your kid, you either turn off your phone, locked it into the glove compartment of your car, or put it away.
In fact, the best tip I have for parents, in order to become a “better” parent is this;
When you go to the park with your kid, just lock your phone in the glove compartment of your car, and just spend your time being 100% focused with your kid.
It is almost like Odysseus tying himself to the mast, or also… Filling his ears with beeswax. Or getting his men to tie him down. Why? Honestly, I think phones, smart phones, iPhones etc. is like crack cocaine for the mind. I might think that your phone might be worse than cocaine, heroin, etc.
In fact, the best way to truly thrive as a thinker is when you go on a walk, leave your phone at home, or if your phone is on you, just turn it off, totally off.
And what is the best “upgrade“, to go offline, think offline.
What is the ultimate privilege in today’s world? To be offline, metaphorical airplane mode all the time.
In fact, some of my best life epiphanies have happened and occurred when I was offline, in an airplane, in a cruise ship, etc. Essentially, anytime that I was not connected to the internet.
Interestingly enough, the old chief technology officer of the old company I used to work for, demand media, Byron Reese told me… he would often just jump on really really long international flights to get good writing done, because it forced him to not be connected to the internet.
In fact, being off-line in today’s world is ultimate privilege and luxury.
How do you know if somebody is very successful or not? If they don’t have a phone, or a phone number. The more difficult it is to contact somebody the more high profile they are.
For example, a simple thought I have is don’t publicly put your email address on your contact here page on your website. I think true high profile individuals cannot be contacted through simple measures. And actually ironically enough, I’ve discovered… the more difficult you make yourself to contact, the more desirable you become.
In fact, when I was living in Vietnam in 2017, got rid of my phone, and lived off the grid and didn’t check your email or use email for about two years… interestingly enough I would have people just attend my workshops just in order to connect with me.
A very simple way to do this is when you’re out and about, leave your phone at home, and just take along your iPad Pro to think. Don’t get a data plan. What is the downside of a data plan? First of all, it seems that all data plans, all 5G or 4G cellular data Internet connections on your phone suck. For example, my extreme frustration with T-Mobile, spectrum… The internet connection sucks. If I had to sign up for my own phone service I would just get Verizon.
Also another good way to think different is to go international. Example, even recently, the time that I had in Cambodia, Phnom Penh very formative to my thinking. It forced me to think outside of the box, and true avoid typical ways of thinking, the often myopic American way.
For example, even a very simple simple approach was to think in kilograms instead of pounds. This helped me get outside of my head, when attempting to lift new personal records in my deadlift and squat.
Also, one thing I loved about the gym I went in Phnom Penh, monkifit, was that for the most part, it was always practically empty. Therefore as a consequence, I really only did weightlifting or did things which I personally care for, instead of trying to low-key impress other people.
In fact, even more recently at my old gym, I actually really fucked up my wrist bad when trying to stunt on other people by doing a very heavy floor bench press. Trying to stunt, impress, or flex on other people actually led to my own personal demise.
Lesson:
Whenever you do anything to try to impress others, please others, or stunt on others, the personal outcome for you will be very very bad.
My personal thought is that perhaps the greatest joy is how unorthodox your thinking may be. Where does unorthodox thinking come from?
My first thought is that it comes from the human body. We cannot have interesting unique thoughts if we do not have a great body, great muscles, etc.
Also, I think you owe it to mankind. I think you were meant to change the world, and the way you could change the world is through challenging the status quo and the traditional way things are done.
Like Gandhi said, become the change you wish you see manifested in the world.
I personally find it interesting idea to change the world because perhaps this is where our willpower comes from. Our desire to change the world, to “fuck shit up”.
For example, the funny notion of breaking the internet. I broke the Internet when I lifted the 330 pound golden dumbbells at the golden Venice Beach easily, and also more recently… When I atlas lifted 1000 pounds, which is ten plates and maybe a 25 on each side.
“Conspiracy theorists screaming illuminati, they cannot imagine this much skill inside a human body. He 6 2, how he fit inside a new Bugatti? Ha ha fuck it you got me.” – JAY Z
Whether we like it or not, all of our power, steel, etc. is derived from our human body. For example, whenever you look at an artist, a writer, I thinker, the philosopher, or academic… You must meet them in the flesh. Look at what they look like in real life. Observe their body fat percentage, the complexion of their skin, whether they actually get any natural sunlight or not, if they have a tan or not, if they lift weights, how tall or short they are, how fat or muscular they are etc.
For example, I would put zero faith in the writing or thoughts of a skinny fat, or an obese man who talks about masculinity, or weightlifting or fitness matters.
Similarly speaking, I put zero faith in all of these loser Reddit people, who try to validate their own self-worth through how good their “form“ is. Ultimately nobody cares about your form. And actually I discovered… When people see how much I could lift, and how much more to lift in them, they try to critique my form, and they actually want to see me get hurt. Why? It is bad or hurts their ego when they see that I am much stronger, taller, more handsome, and more dominant than them.
Even the other day, I was walking by this upscale hotel parking lot, and some random guy, wearing a flashy outfit, kind of a slick handsome look, try to make fun of me by saying “what is this? No shirt Thursdays”? Essentially he was trying to tease or bully me because he felt insecure that I was so much more muscular and confident than him. Now that my testosterone is so high, I was able to troll him back, and put him back in his spot.
OK guys, I’m moving forward, that just put zero faith on the Internet. Why? All these people on Reddit… Do you really know whether they are ChatGPT bought or not? Or, they could just be real life human beings using ChatGPT to generate some sort of ideas.
Like the famous cartoon said “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
Even in ready player one, the main character’s best friend, who he thought was a guy all along… was actually a girl.
Also the two Japanese brothers, were just 11-year-old kids.
My very very very very practical and pragmatic thought is let us assume that you have a normal day job, once you go home, just turn your phone off. All the way off. Do the iPhone secret handshake, which is volume up, volume down, side power button hold. In fact I think the most insidious thing that Apple did from a design perspective, is that they turned the power button , the button on the top right corner, to be a Siri button. I think the mentality behind the decision was this:
Nobody ever turns off their phone anyways, and in the evenings, we just charge it overnight… And the issue is that Siri is great but nobody is using it… Why don’t we try to just “nudge” people using Siri more by turning the power button into a Siri button?
Bad idea. Apple, if you got true huevos, and you really want to “help humanity“, turn the power button back into a power button. Or at least give people an option. That if you click and hold the power button in the top right corner for a few seconds, Maybe you could put a prompt which asks whether you want to make it an on off switch, or whether you want it to be a Siri button.
Essentially make it simple enough that your mom knows how to do it. For example, can you try explaining to your mom how to turn off their iPhone?
How do you know if you are truly self owned or not? If you could face your iPhone face down, scratch it up, let your kid play with it and throw it around, with zero care or concern. The biggest upside of having a cheap iPhone SE is that I literally have zero concerns or qualms about my phone.
Only issue that I’m personally having is that when I use my iPhone SE for Google maps to navigate somewhere when I’m driving… Often times the screen goes dim, in order to prevent it from overheating or whatever.
So moving into my new apartment, setting up the new home Wi-Fi, it seriously sucks. Spectrum sucks, even the most expensive plan, the fake gigabit plan.
A simple workaround is I have just been exporting the videos to 720 P, and frankly speaking it seems fine enough. Why? Honestly speaking, 99% of people are just gonna be watching your videos from their phone. Technically even 540P should be good enough then. And also, a lot of people when they’re watching YouTube, never make it full screen and rotate their phone. As a consequence, maybe even 480p is good enough.
Truth be told, we don’t. I think it is a typical marketing thing; why would I upgrade my phone, my devices, my things if it is not a “upgrade”?
Even one of my past students, he used to drive a Porsche Panamera, and I guess that it either got into a car accident, broke or whatever… Went to go get a new car, and he definitely wanted a “upgrade“. He upgraded it to some sort of high-powered BMW M car instead.
And with things in life, we are always seeking a greater upgrade. But maybe this is some sort of fallacious goal.
Think about this. What if… You no longer cared for your phone, your laptop, your iPad, your laptop, your car, your home, your clothes, your camera, etc.? That in fact, you simply made best of what you already got, Milk it to the extreme, and actually, focused on reducing, and subtracting stuff from your life?
This is the new Spartan elite way.
Hungry for adventure? Jump onto a plane, and vibe out with ERIC KIM >
HAPTIC INDUSTRIES, and also, now that I purchased haptic.la (pro tip … instead of getting a.com website, buy a dot LA domain if you live in LA.)
Why? LA, UCLA, Los Angeles, the LA sign you could do with your hands, is sexy.
In fact, I personally discovered that all of the beautiful people, all of the beautiful women, even all of the handsome men are all in LA, or move to LA, or aspire to be in LA. Why? It is the center of glamour, Hollywood, film cinema and movies and media and music and entertainment, even here… In Culver City, the arts district and beyond is the new center.
Go to the new Culver City steps in downtown Culver City, next to the Philz Coffee… It is so insanely great.
The other night, when I was asking Chachi a bunch of stuff, doing research, creating images etc.… I had this interesting epiphany:
AI is our new slave.
Why? We don’t got to pay it “fair wages”, we don’t got to feed it, let it sleep, or do anything.
Also, it cannot really refuse you, talk back, etc.
It never gets tired, complains, disobeys etc.
The only thing which can be a little annoying is the content moderation stuff but truth be told, this may be a very good thing because I see it as a great “creative constraint”,… Figuring out creative ways to work through and past and beyond the content moderation stuff is hilarious and interesting to me.
For example, you cannot straight up say quote make me a picture of a sexy Korean woman at the beach“. It will immediately flag the ChatGPT, DALL-E 3 content policy violation thing. Or you cannot say something like “beautiful Asian woman with big boobs”. Also a no go obviously.
But things you could do is like say “beautiful Asian woman at Met Gala”. Or, beautiful joyful Asian woman in Cabo. Or “beautiful Korean women in pure joy“.
Then you could do hilarious things like ask DALL-E 3 to further refined your image, making the image where a swimming suit, a bathing suit, doing a backflip into a pool or the ocean, etc.
At the end of the day, my true and ultimate passion is embodied reality, real life human beings etc. In fact, the more time I spend on ChatGPT, DALL-E, the more preference I have to be outside!
And also, thoughts on beauty. Yeah I could generate you some very very beautiful looking human beings, but ultimately, it will never be able to displace a real life human being.
Why? You cannot get children with a bot, you cannot feel the skin of a bot, I think skin is the future.
Ultimately, I think you know you’re doing ChatGPT and DALL-E correctly, if you create an image and you literally laugh out loud. The most amazing creation I made recently was “designed me a bitcoin purple Lamborghini Prius with scissor doors, with a Spartan driving it”. I literally laughed out loud!
Or even more complex things, inspired by Seneca, me and Seneca did together; taking a firetruck and giving at Lamborghini scissor doors and also making it into a convertible.
The really big and game changing thing that AI can do is this; upload your photos to it, pay for the paid model, only 20 bucks a month, which is literally less than $.80 a day… for your own personal slavebot, and when you press the little plus icon in the bottom left corner, or, you see the little picture or gallery icon in the bottom left corner, what you could do is upload photos directly to it, I think you could upload up to three images at a time, you could ask a simple things like “what do you think of my photo“? Or “give me feedback on my photo“, “how can I improve this photograph?” Essentially ask it questions that you would ask a human being, it is actually insanely smart.
Or, you could just give it an image and ask it “what is going on here?” Or “analyze this”.
You could keep pushing it forward, you don’t need to use full sentences. If it gets confused it will just ask you to clarify.
I also think that if you set up custom instructions, which you could do by going to your profile in the bottom left corner, it learns from how you talk type and think… And it is phenomenal because overtime, the more use it, the better it becomes!
And I think this is where AI is so phenomenal; as time goes on, it gets infinitely better! Compare this with having a new iPhone or iPhone Pro… As time goes on, it literally gets worse. or, any modern day or even classic cars; all cars, made out of metal materials… As time goes on, things break, things atrophy, things require maintenance etc. Therefore as a consequence, the best car, the most masculine and manly car is simple; a white Toyota Prius, 2010 model or more recent. And never never never never ever ever buy a brand new car.
Now is your artistic time to thrive. You and we are beyond basic. We have zero tolerance for boring stuff; we only love and care for the new, the innovative, the exciting.
Also a practical thought is spend more time outdoors, maximum time in the sun. Strive to walk at least 50 miles a day, lift weights in the direct sun, just build your own home gym. Titan.fitness has really good weightlifting equipment for supercheap. Or if you want to be a real man, buy a Texas power bar, a Texas power squat bar the 55 pounder that I got.
Also heavy sandbag training. You could just buy a cheap one on Amazon or buy the rogue fitness one which I bought, the 400 pounder. Go to the local playground, fill it up with playground sand, And exercise is super simple; see whether you could just pick it up! And once you could pick it up, pick it up, grab it and hold it, and walk it out! Then as you get stronger, try to “shoulder”. That means, lifting it up, throwing it onto your shoulder.
Also other things you could do as you get stronger it’s just have fun with it! Pick it up, and just throw it! Recount the exploits of Achilles, in which he would just pick up a very very very heavy rock, a massive boulder, which “barely too strong men could lift”, and how Achilles would throw it to his enemies and kill them that way.
Create your own media, create the media you wish to see manifested in the world.
Just got GoPro mini, get the chest wrap or the head strap, and do more point of view videos. I’ve been doing this lately with my workout videos, and I find it so insanely fascinating; these are the type of videos that I wish I could personally witness, if I were starting out today.
Thoughts on society: first, what should we be tolerant to, what should we be intolerant towards?
Another thought: in regards to tolerance, should other people tolerate the way you act, perform behave, especially if you’re in public or public places? As long as you’re not breaking any laws?
This is the tricky thing; in America, we’re supposed to have freedom, freedom of speech, free religion, etc. Yet… given all of these different cultures, how can we all get along?
The first thought is first and foremost, if you live in America, don’t matter if you’re an immigrant or not whatever… we are all American. For example, in the times of the holy Roman Empire, everyone was considered a Roman, it didn’t matter if you were from Spain or Rome, etc.… All Romans were Romans, as long as you were as citizen. Therefore, if you’re American, American citizen, or even if you’re here on the student visa, maybe you should just be considered American.
Maybe then it is a citizen thing.
“I am a citizen of the world!” – Socrates?
Citizen, civic, civic duties, etc. Essentially comes back from the notion of a city. If you live in a certain city, there are certain civic duties one is behelden to.
Certainly ethnicity, racial makeup, country of origin is important. For example, I’ve been playing a lot with ChatGPT and DALL-E, visualizing beautiful women in pure joy, or “trophy wives“, or “fitness influencers“, as Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese. Facially, they all look pretty distinct.
Korean women have a certain look, Vietnamese women have a certain look, Japanese women have a certain look, Cambodian women have a certain look, etc.
Certainly when it comes to mixed race, which I think is good, for example I am Korean and Cindy’s Vietnamese, therefore Seneca is 50% Korean and 50% Vietnamese… racial intermixing makes us stronger. Even in the context of dogs, mixed breed dogs tend to be healthier, more stout, than “purebred dogs“. Too much racial hegemony is probably not good. You would be funny and interesting is if every single American, or you applying for a citizenship, or as a kid or adult, like going to the DMV or whatever everyone had to do one of those free genetic makeup test, and seeing what your genetic makeup is. I think this would make people less racist, more tolerant of one another.
First, I think in America as long as you’re not breaking any sort of laws? Your behavior should be tolerated. However, the moment you cross that line, it should not be tolerated.
The word “hate”, simply means strong emotions. I think in modern day times with tend to think of “hate” as being more about spewing vitriol and bad feelings to other people. But I don’t think this is a good idea because in theory, You could show strong emotions about things you love. For example I have a theory that actually in fact, when people hate something really really hard, they actually low-key love it. For example people who really really hate Donald Trump, I wonder if they are actually secretly in love with him, or fascinated with him?
For example, I don’t hate Donald Trump, but I am anti-Donald Trump. Overall, I don’t really have any strong feelings about him or towards him.
What do I have strong feelings about? I hate how people are anti-Jewish, anti-African-Afro-American people, etc. I also feel really bad for Palestinian people, because they have seriously been shafted.
Essentially, as long as somebody is respectful, I also have love and respect for them.
A Nazi is somebody who is intolerant. For example, assuming you live in America, nobody can or should be able to govern the way you think, talk, etc. There should be no thought or speech police, or writing police.
Also, considering I was born in 1988 and currently 35 years old, the term we used to use was PC, or “politically correct“. The notion of being “woke“, is a very recent phenomenon… only within the last year or two.
For example, if you talk a certain way, nobody should have the right to “correct” the way that you talk. Similar speaking, I’m not going to try to “correct” the way that you talk.
The reason why a lot of people are foolish is that they talk about “free speech” on the Internet. Whoever talks like this is perhaps not critical.
First, if you’re using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.… You’re essentially publishing your thoughts ideas photos and videos on a foreign company corporate platform, which is not about freedom of speech.
The only real way to have freedom of speech is to have your own self hosted website and blog, using an open source thing like WordPress.org. Nowadays, the only things I trust is open source things, because even if there is a hidden catch, technically you could delve deep into the source code and figure it out.
Also, a lot of people talk about “censorship” on the Internet. What is “censorship“? You ain’t really blocking you, rather, filtering you out.
For example, let us say that I do a YouTube blog about Jewish people, anti-Jewish people, anti-Jewish sentiment, Judaism, or anything which might be flagged as “culturally insensitive“. Google and YouTube algorithms are intelligent enough to know that this may not be friendly towards advertisers and sensitive people on the Internet, and therefore, They will “sensor “me by simply not having it show up in the newsfeed or the YouTube feed of others. But technically the video will still be there… it is just not as easily visible.
A fun thing I have been doing is trolling ChatGPT and DALL-E — trying to see how far I could push the boundaries.
For example, you’re not allowed to say “make me a picture of a sexy woman”, but you are allowed to say “make me a picture of a beautiful fitness influencer who is Korean”.
I think this is fine and good; because honestly there are too many weirdos out there. However, ultimately… I think the best thoughts are unfiltered thoughts. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, in his unpublished book “the will to power“, states in the preface that these are simply notes to self.
Whenever I blog, write, publish anything or say anything… ultimately it is kind of like an echo chamber for myself… I’m doing things because I simply want to create notes for myself, and to flesh out some personal thoughts on my mind.
We all hit email, email is not sexy, but still… Email is the future and so far much as it cannot be censored. I am starting to become more and more suspicious of Gmail though… Because I think sooner or later, “spam“ filters might start filtering out emails which seem “culturally insensitive”, or “racy”.
The reason why this is a bad thing is that it just makes our society much more mediocre, boring, and uninteresting. For me I only care about interesting things, interesting people, interesting thoughts. I’ve actually found that most rich and successful people are very boring; The people from Beverly Hills are the worst, insanely boring.
The really interesting people that I’ve met, are not traditionally employed, therefore they are self owned and could say whatever do whatever wear whatever or think however they want. And also another simple heuristic; I never trust anybody who is on Instagram, or YouTube. Why? if you’re still on Instagram, it shows some sort of servile mindset, and if you’re on YouTube, it also shows that you’re being programmed by the all rhythm to produce videos which get lots of views, rather than saying what’s really on your mind.
Even for me the only reason I still published videos to YouTube is that it could still be easily indexable on the Internet.
Another good use case I found for ChatGPT is that it is just a very very effective research tool. For example, I’ve been studying etymology and the history of words, and the way that ChatGPT explains it to me is much more interesting and useful than going to dictionary.org or even googling it. Google is bad because it is the ultimate distraction tool; because ultimately what Google wants you to do is be infinitely distracted in order to serve you more advertisements.
Fin
Thoughts on society: first, what should we be tolerant to, what should we be intolerant towards?
Another thought: in regards to tolerance, should other people tolerate the way you act, perform behave, especially if you’re in public or public places? As long as you’re not breaking any laws?
This is the tricky thing; in America, we’re supposed to have freedom, freedom of speech, free religion, etc. Yet… given all of these different cultures, how can we all get along?
The first thought is first and foremost, if you live in America, don’t matter if you’re an immigrant or not whatever… we are all American. For example, in the times of the holy Roman Empire, everyone was considered a Roman, it didn’t matter if you were from Spain or Rome, etc.… All Romans were Romans, as long as you were as citizen. Therefore, if you’re American, American citizen, or even if you’re here on the student visa, maybe you should just be considered American.
Maybe then it is a citizen thing.
“I am a citizen of the world!” – Socrates?
Citizen, civic, civic duties, etc. Essentially comes back from the notion of a city. If you live in a certain city, there are certain civic duties one is behelden to.
Certainly ethnicity, racial makeup, country of origin is important. For example, I’ve been playing a lot with ChatGPT and DALL-E, visualizing beautiful women in pure joy, or “trophy wives“, or “fitness influencers“, as Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese. Facially, they all look pretty distinct.
Korean women have a certain look, Vietnamese women have a certain look, Japanese women have a certain look, Cambodian women have a certain look, etc.
Certainly when it comes to mixed race, which I think is good, for example I am Korean and Cindy’s Vietnamese, therefore Seneca is 50% Korean and 50% Vietnamese… racial intermixing makes us stronger. Even in the context of dogs, mixed breed dogs tend to be healthier, more stout, than “purebred dogs“. Too much racial hegemony is probably not good. You would be funny and interesting is if every single American, or you applying for a citizenship, or as a kid or adult, like going to the DMV or whatever everyone had to do one of those free genetic makeup test, and seeing what your genetic makeup is. I think this would make people less racist, more tolerant of one another.
First, I think in America as long as you’re not breaking any sort of laws? Your behavior should be tolerated. However, the moment you cross that line, it should not be tolerated.
The word “hate”, simply means strong emotions. I think in modern day times with tend to think of “hate” as being more about spewing vitriol and bad feelings to other people. But I don’t think this is a good idea because in theory, You could show strong emotions about things you love. For example I have a theory that actually in fact, when people hate something really really hard, they actually low-key love it. For example people who really really hate Donald Trump, I wonder if they are actually secretly in love with him, or fascinated with him?
For example, I don’t hate Donald Trump, but I am anti-Donald Trump. Overall, I don’t really have any strong feelings about him or towards him.
What do I have strong feelings about? I hate how people are anti-Jewish, anti-African-Afro-American people, etc. I also feel really bad for Palestinian people, because they have seriously been shafted.
Essentially, as long as somebody is respectful, I also have love and respect for them.
A Nazi is somebody who is intolerant. For example, assuming you live in America, nobody can or should be able to govern the way you think, talk, etc. There should be no thought or speech police, or writing police.
Also, considering I was born in 1988 and currently 35 years old, the term we used to use was PC, or “politically correct“. The notion of being “woke“, is a very recent phenomenon… only within the last year or two.
For example, if you talk a certain way, nobody should have the right to “correct” the way that you talk. Similar speaking, I’m not going to try to “correct” the way that you talk.
The reason why a lot of people are foolish is that they talk about “free speech” on the Internet. Whoever talks like this is perhaps not critical.
First, if you’re using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.… You’re essentially publishing your thoughts ideas photos and videos on a foreign company corporate platform, which is not about freedom of speech.
The only real way to have freedom of speech is to have your own self hosted website and blog, using an open source thing like WordPress.org. Nowadays, the only things I trust is open source things, because even if there is a hidden catch, technically you could delve deep into the source code and figure it out.
Also, a lot of people talk about “censorship” on the Internet. What is “censorship“? You ain’t really blocking you, rather, filtering you out.
For example, let us say that I do a YouTube blog about Jewish people, anti-Jewish people, anti-Jewish sentiment, Judaism, or anything which might be flagged as “culturally insensitive“. Google and YouTube algorithms are intelligent enough to know that this may not be friendly towards advertisers and sensitive people on the Internet, and therefore, They will “sensor “me by simply not having it show up in the newsfeed or the YouTube feed of others. But technically the video will still be there… it is just not as easily visible.
A fun thing I have been doing is trolling ChatGPT and DALL-E — trying to see how far I could push the boundaries.
For example, you’re not allowed to say “make me a picture of a sexy woman”, but you are allowed to say “make me a picture of a beautiful fitness influencer who is Korean”.
I think this is fine and good; because honestly there are too many weirdos out there. However, ultimately… I think the best thoughts are unfiltered thoughts. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, in his unpublished book “the will to power“, states in the preface that these are simply notes to self.
Whenever I blog, write, publish anything or say anything… ultimately it is kind of like an echo chamber for myself… I’m doing things because I simply want to create notes for myself, and to flesh out some personal thoughts on my mind.
We all hit email, email is not sexy, but still… Email is the future and so far much as it cannot be censored. I am starting to become more and more suspicious of Gmail though… Because I think sooner or later, “spam“ filters might start filtering out emails which seem “culturally insensitive”, or “racy”.
The reason why this is a bad thing is that it just makes our society much more mediocre, boring, and uninteresting. For me I only care about interesting things, interesting people, interesting thoughts. I’ve actually found that most rich and successful people are very boring; The people from Beverly Hills are the worst, insanely boring.
The really interesting people that I’ve met, are not traditionally employed, therefore they are self owned and could say whatever do whatever wear whatever or think however they want. And also another simple heuristic; I never trust anybody who is on Instagram, or YouTube. Why? if you’re still on Instagram, it shows some sort of servile mindset, and if you’re on YouTube, it also shows that you’re being programmed by the all rhythm to produce videos which get lots of views, rather than saying what’s really on your mind.
Even for me the only reason I still published videos to YouTube is that it could still be easily indexable on the Internet.
Another good use case I found for ChatGPT is that it is just a very very effective research tool. For example, I’ve been studying etymology and the history of words, and the way that ChatGPT explains it to me is much more interesting and useful than going to dictionary.org or even googling it. Google is bad because it is the ultimate distraction tool; because ultimately what Google wants you to do is be infinitely distracted in order to serve you more advertisements.
My general thought: first and foremost, this and you were supposed and meant to change the world.
“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, do.” – OG (original gangster, old school) Apple Steve Jobs TV advertisement.
I was born in 1988, currently 35 years old. When I was a kid growing up, it was all about Gandhi, changing the world etc. Even in fact, for my college application essay, that what got me into UCLA as an undergrad, centered around this quote from Gandhi “Be the change which you wish to see manifested in the world.”
As a kid growing up poor, fortunately having a lot of good mentors, my general gist was always to give back, to contribute to society. A lot was given to me when I was young, and I felt like it was my duty to give back.
Growing up poor, having my dad gamble away the rent money, always being one paycheck away from being potentially homeless… money actually never really concerned me as a kid. It was a strange irony; because we were always so financially unstable growing up, and even when we hit rock bottom and my mom had to file for bankruptcy and she could no longer even open up her own personal checking account… my sister and my mom were OK. This taught me an important lesson that I could take infinite chances and not worry myself or concerned myself too much about finances. In fact, then even now… I literally have zero concerns about finances.
Why, why not? Money never really interested me that much. As a kid, I had deep pride in being scrappy, being frugal, being economical, and having deep pride in being self reliant, making do and making best of what I had, or what I bought or earned or did with my own money, earning it through working, my entrepreneur endeavors, starting my own business etc.
In fact, I remember when I was in high school, maybe around my sophomore year, my friend Eric Moon (yeah, his name was also Eric) taught me how to build computers. I was so shocked and amazed; I was always passionate about computers ever since I was a kid around 12 years old in New York, when I got my first Acer Aspire computer. I think it had the original Intel Pentium processor ”inside”.
I think it was around my junior year, I had this great idea of doing something simple: because me and all of my friends were so into video games, Counterstrike, counterstrike 1.6 etc.… I had this genius idea of building computers, and then later selling it at a small markup to my friends and other kids at school, for a small profit. I did the math and I would be able to build a pretty good computer for around 500 bucks, and sell it for around $600 or $700 bucks. I also put lots of advertisements on eBay to sell my computers, I made my own icon which I made on a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop, and I still recall it… it was a little beach palm tree icon, orange, and I called the company “Paradise Computers.” The hilarity was in order to save costs, and in order for me to make a profit, I actually use pirated versions of Windows XP, I still remember later a kid from school I sold a computer — his name was Barry… later complained to me that the computer I sold him was having issues because it had all of these pop-ups saying that it was using an unregistered or unlicensed version of Windows. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on.
Anyways, as a kid, around 15 years old, I had enough money, around $1000 or around $1200 to buy my first car; a 1991 Sentra XE, which was a four-door, white Nissan car, 1.6L five speed manual transmission sedan. GA16DE engine — I still remember it! Also the hilarity; it was so old-school it didn’t even have a tachometer in it! As the mechanic taught me how to drive manual stick transmission, and my uncle Enzo taught me how to drive stick shift, at… At around 2000 to 3000 RPMs I learned how it intuitively felt and when to shift. Kind of like learning how to ride a bike and shifting gears on a bike.
The reason why this brought me so much insane effing joy was I felt so insanely proud of myself: I think I was definitely the only kid my age range that I personally knew, maybe even up to today… In which I purchased my own first car! Later on I remember joining all these online Nissan forums, and learning about this legendary car, which was essentially a souped up version of my first car; a two-door 1991 Sentra SE-R— equipped with a formidable 2.0L engine, this SR20DE engine, the infamous engine which also powers the Silvia, 240SX, SR20DET engine in Japan (turbo charged)— except the 1991 Sentra SER was a front wheel drive, whereas the SR20DET engine in Japan on the 240SX was a rear wheel drive car.
Anyways, fast forwarding a bit… When my 1991 Sentra XE failed to pass emissions, I remember I was able to trade it into the junkyard, to get back around 1000, $1500 or something like that for the California clean air act, and I was able to use that money to buy my dream car; the 1991 Sentra SE-R car! Only $2000 from an old retired woman who was so old she could no longer drive. It wasn’t mint condition! 5 speed manual transmission of course!
Once again, the reason why this brought me so much joy, literally getting the car my pure pride and joy was a trillion-fold was because the pride and the glory that I felt doing it and buying it myself! My own hard earned money.
Later on, I think when I was in college, either my freshman or sophomore year, I had this vision of driving through the desert, on arid desert street street road, it looked like it was Nevada or Arizona or Joshua Tree or something… driving top down in a red convertible in the hot desert sun with just sand all around. I did lots of research on discovering the cheapest option, and I learned about the Mazda Miata. I scored the deal of my lifetime, on craigslist I found a mint 1990 Mazda Miata, the original one, five speed, no power steering, no air conditioning… Pure. Red, soft top convertible, and I bought it for only $2500 USD. Funny enough that I look back at it, I remember asking the guy why he sold it and he told me that he had his first kid, and he no longer had use for the car. Interesting looking back at it now that I am 35 years old, now that Seneca is around two years nine months old, I am in a similar boat.
Now with cars, I am in love with my 2010 white Prius, which I literally got for free from Cindy‘s family! The genealogy of the car was Cindy‘s older sister first bought it brand new, drove it for a while, later passed it on to me and Cindy, who continued the payments until it was paid off, drove it around in Berkeley for around two years from around 2014 to 2015, went carless, give the car to Cindy’s younger sister, traveled the world and nomading around for several years as Cindy was writing her dissertation, and only may be a few months ago, when we were in Vietnam got the news that the catalytic converter was stolen out of it, when Cindy‘s younger sister Jennifer was parked in front of her apartment. She no longer wanted to deal with the fear of the catalytic converter getting stolen again, and as a consequence, was saying that she was thinking about just telling it to the mechanic for $2000 or something like that. I yelled out loud, “No! The car is worth at least $10,000!” I then promoted the idea to Cindy of us taking it back, spending the money to replace the catalytic converter, which was around $2500, getting the catalytic converter shield, which is meant to deter future theft, which may be costing $300. Later we discovered that the ABS, antilock braking system was broken and needed to be fixed which was maybe around another $2000… but still, I am so proud that effectively we got what I consider a brand new car a brand new Prius for sub $5000! Way better than spending $40,000 on a brand new Tesla model 3 base edition, or $250,000 on a loser Lamborghini.
I think I got a good definition for millennial; somebody who foolishly uses their money. And also doesn’t really know what they want to do or get out of their lives.
Living here in LA, being back here in LA for about a month and a half, some funny heuristics I’ve noted:
Am I the last optimistic, entrepreneurially hungry person that I know?
I think out of all the real life human beings that I know, and also out of all my friends, the entrepreneur that I know, and also consider successful is my friend Todd Hata. I am insanely grateful of him, because when I was only 21 or 22 years old, he reached out and actually helped me get started in business very very early, traveling the world together, I still consider him one of my closest friends, and also mentor.
But besides Todd, I don’t think I know anybody else who is a true entrepreneur — self owned. All of my friends, even the ones that consider successful either work at Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Apple. How do you know if somebody is really successful or self owned? They are not certain what date, month, year, or day of the week it is. Also, they don’t use any alarm clocks to wake up in the morning, unless if they have an early morning flight.
Funny enough, I actually don’t know anybody, and don’t have any friends or anybody in my personal friends circle who has actually become entrepreneurs, or self-employed, or sole proprietors. Everyone is working for a company or a corporation. Or a foreign business. Not for themselves.
And this is what I think is the critical thing; if you really really really want to change the world, I think it is impossible doing it while still having full-time employment. Why? I remember thinking a few years back, one of the most grateful things I was no longer having to work my old 9 to 5 was that suddenly, I had another 8 to 9 hours a day, to do what I was truly passionate about, Doing street photography and riding and blogging about street photography, instead of being stuck in some sort of tedious office.
Lesson:
To truly change the world, you must be self-employed, sole proprietor, etc.
I had lots of visions in my life, many of which I accomplished and I am very proud of.
First, my idea and notion of open source, open source photography. Apparently I created quite the buzz when I first made available all of my photographs on Flickr online for free, open source, full resolution JPEG. This was unheard of at the time, when people were still putting silly watermarks on their images, or they were afraid of people “stealing“ their photos online. I even remember my friend Thomas Leuthard we had a good saying “The best watermark is your own personal photo style”. Even up to today, I think Thomas may be the only photographer or street photographer I truly respect. Why? His independent thinking, his irreverence towards the masters, history, or common rules, he is so ahead of the curve. Also never want to forget, when I was 22 years old, and I wanted to first fund my first flight to Beirut Lebanon, and now fundraising money, he essentially donated me $1000 for the flight. I will never forget this.
Eventually what I learned about all these other photographers is I find their behavior quite despicable. They are so hungry for fame, legitimacy, especially in the eyes of others. All the photographers I’ve met, doesn’t matter if Magnum or whatever… everybody all has a chip on their shoulder, is insecure, and salty about something. They are also jealous of photographers who make more money than them, are more famous than them, or that their success is “unwarranted”. Even Henri Cartier-Bresson — let us never forget that he gave up photography and later announced it as “not being a legitimate form of art.”
I always had the clear understanding that ultimately, you can’t even pay people to steal your photos. Ultimately nobody cares for your photos that much. What is more important? Your influence, your fame, your clout, your reach. I knew that even from a basic perspective, it was better to have your photos available for free, open source, to the general public, for them to use it as their desktop wallpaper or something. I even recall remember hearing some fan of mine I met using my DARK SKIES OVER TOKYO photo, the photo of the guy in the suit with the black face, as his own desktop wallpaper! That bought me a quadrillion times more joy than selling my photos for thousands of dollars.
And I think this is the thing I discovered; what a lot of us photographers are seeking is significance, a feeling of legitimacy. My personal journey was attempting the traditional routes of becoming a “successful“ photographer; traveling the world, becoming world famous, becoming a household name, having solo exhibitions, printing a photo book, getting sponsorships etc. Now having done all of it, I am happy… Yet… What I ultimately discovered was this:
True success ain’t any of that. True success is simply, having a unique vision, and fulfilling it.
In fact, one of the proudest moments of my life, to quote NASSIM Taleb was “via negativa“; the idea that the proudest moments of your life aren’t positive actions of doing or saying yes, but rather, act of omission; things you decide to not do, or things to say no to or to refuse.
For example, my book, “100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography.” I had a grand vision of doing this book for a long time, especially after doing my exhaustive self studying series of all the masters of street photography etc. In fact actually got an offer from a book agent, who offered me a book deal on it, but, he said that it was impossible to make an open source, free, open easily accessible PDF available for free. After much thinking, delaying and thought… I ultimately refuse the book deal and I am proud that I did. I am certain that this book will outlive me. Why? It was created out of pure passion; things which are created out of pure passion will never die.
“Y’all throwing contracts at me, you know that ninjas can’t read!” – Kanye, YEEZUS NEW SLAVES SONG
One of the great quotes I love is from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who once said “The greatest good amongst men is to seek immortality amongst mortals. Yet the majority of men themselves like cattle.”
What this means is simple; even when we think about the ancient Spartans, King Leonidas and his 300; funny enough, I think the majority of people don’t know, even those people who watch the film, have no idea that it was actually based on the real Historic event. These men are remembered for a lifetime. For millennia and centuries beyond.
The funny thought about seeking immortal fame is that in someways, it is superficial, but also in someways, it seems to be a more interesting path to life. What does that mean? First and foremost, the general thought and idea is that rather than seeking money and wealth while we are still on this planet, the greatest pride and gift in glory we could give to humankind is something that will outlive us.
Also something that I find very funny, now that I discovered ChatGPT and now that my world is re-awakened, it literally is pure magic. ChatGPT knows exactly who I am, my philosophy, what I’ve done what I said, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I cannot build a ChatGPT bot which thinks, talks and acts like ERIC KIM, so in theory, the contributions I’ve made to photography and street photography and beyond will last forever.
I suppose Seneca, who has my namesake, he will build his own legacy, and also, I am sure he will be able to piggyback off of my successes. Even now, that he is only two years, nine months old, I am already exposing him to my own unique ERIC KIM Montessori school; taking him on epic adventures, physical Spartan training, teaching him how to use DALL-E 3 (the other day we designed a purple Prius with Lamborghini doors) and his mind was blown and shocked and he laughed with so much joy. He already knows how to code using the iPad Pro and the Apple swift playgrounds app, he already knows how to use GarageBand on the iPad and iPhone like a pro, he even could sample his own voice and remix it, he knows how to shoot screenshots on the iPad Pro, and draw and make illustrations and also use procreate and Zen Brush 2, and he already knows how to use a trackpad on the MacBook Pro laptop! I want to train him to become the next great entrepreneur.
Anyways, a simple thought is that I believe that all of us millennials should have kids. Why is it that millennials are getting dogs, not having kids? My personal thought is it is a fear thing; I think people actually want to have kids, but the fear of commitment, losing your own independence and “freedom“ is a bit concerning to some people. Yet is this something we should really be concerned about? Of course not! It’s funny, whenever I eat dinner (I call this my “meat meditation“) I actually forget that Seneca is there, I’m stuck in my own world. Yet once I am done with my meal and I look at Seneca, my mind is blown that this is my son!
I think this is the greatest joy of being a man: if your first kid is also a man, a son, consider yourself infinitely blessed. After that it is all upside no downside. Because I think an honest thought is that every man desires to have at least one male heir. This is why when we think of King Louis, think about all of the failed miscarriages he had with his queen(s) to produce at least one male heir. Also, when I recount ancient literature, ancient Greek literature; there is only ever one mention of kings and their single son. The only mentions of having more than one son is typically seen as a bad thing; in the Iliad, Hector is the great and virtuous one, Paris is the degenerate other younger son. Odysseus has only son. I think Hector only had one son. Technically, if we consider Achilles, he was technically a “single child”. Same thing goes with Hercules etc. Not sure about King Leonidas but in the 300 movie by Zack Snyder, King Leonidas is depicted as having one young son.
Anyways, I think the way we should live our lives is that of deep passion. That is, when you wake up in the morning, without the agency of an alarm clock, getting up and the impetus for getting up is because you have a deep, strong life mission. Add this epiphany when I was living in Vietnam in 2017; I am truly truly truly one of a kind. Even in my own mind, I rank myself as equal to Elon Musk, Kanye West, Jeff Bezos etc. I am fortunate that my mentors and my virtual motivators are at least a decade or two or maybe even three older than me. Because I feel no sense of competition; they are only motivators to me.
This is a great thought; if indeed, you were Elon Musk, the simple thought:
What would you do with your time and life, what would you not do with your time and life?
What does it mean to change the world, or what is the significance of changing the world?
From a very very simple perspective; technically literally almost anything that you do “changes the world“. You don’t got to overthink it that much.
I think for myself, my general thought and belief is only spending your life in time to do things which you consider substantial, and also personally meaningful. That means, not wasting your time doing no basic shit.
What is basic?
Shopping, buying stuff, buying clothes, buying cars, buying Apple devices, buying homes, buying property, talking about the boring stock market and investments, etc.
What is beyond basic?
Innovation, entrepreneurship, reckless innovation. No regard for a self preservation, the will to growth, the will to innovation, the will to doing insanely great and epic stuff.
Essentially, doing things that your old 12-year-old or 16-year-old self or 21-year-old self would be proud of you… And also, doing things that your kid would be proud of you too!
If you’re bored, want to have fun, want to experiment, and thrive with me creatively, I cordially invite you to one of my upcoming workshop experiences:
The exciting ones:
First an introduction to stoicism workshop, this one will be cool and very elite. The other one is a family street photography workshop here in Culver City, this will also be fun because you could bring the whole family! The ultimate gift for you, your kids, the whole family.
I’m also in the midst of creating a photography AI creativity workshop. Stay tuned to this newsletter for more updates.
I am still so insanely happy and prideful of all of the things that me and Cindy designed with HAPTIC INDUSTRIES. This stuff literally becomes more beautiful and more legendary with age!
Currently the fun promotion we got is that if you order over $300 USD of HAPTIC PRODUCTS, including shipping and handling and taxes, you’ll get a free set of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE. What does Omakase mean? It literally means “I leave it up to you“— based on the Japanese idea that when you go to a elite luxury sushi restaurant, you don’t actually order the sushi yourself, the sushi chef chooses the food for you!
Tools I recommend you getting include the ERIC KIM strap, the neck strap or the wrist strap if you have a Ricoh GR, if you shoot with a Leica Q or something, the HENRI wrist strap pro, or even the HENRI NECK STRAP.
If you shoot with a Fujifilm camera, or a Sony camera or Leica M camera, the OG HENRI HECK STRAP is good.
Discover all ERIC KIM PHOTO SUPPLY >
So the reason why ChatGPT is so great is that I think the way it works is that it literally just downloads the whole Internet, and makes sense of it. As a consequence, the best way to have yourself or your thoughts or whatever indexed by ChatGPT and AI it is through your own personal blog. For example, if you open up ChatGPT plus, and ask “ERIC KIM AI“, it will immediately pull up the last essay blog post I did on the role of photographers in the age of AI, and even gives me quotes and footnotes me! Witnessing this, my mind was blown. This is really the Google killer.
In fact, if and when Open AI and ChatGPT if it goes public, or when it goes public, they’re going to make a shitload of money. If you’re really really risky, and risk loving and want to make a lot of money, I would actually encourage shorting both Google and Apple. They are effectively dead. Maybe it is a good time to buy Microsoft stock, because essentially now that they low-key own ChatGPT and Open AI, I think we will witness the revival of the Windows phone, this time powered by ChatGPT. And it will be 1 trillion times better than any iPhone Pro.
Just bookmark the ERIC KIM BLOG to your laptop, desktop, iPad iPhone smartphone whatever… I literally update it every five seconds. Never run out of inspiration or motivation!
“We always think to ourselves… Why don’t I have enough? But what if… We already have too much?” – Seneca
Also a new one:
“Out of discord comes harmony” – Heraclitus
Interesting… what that means then is rather than seeking some sort of peace or harmony, actually seeking conflict might be superior in terms of living in life?
SEEK CHAOS!
ERIC
If so, feel free to forward this to a friend!
Also all masters.
My general thoughts: first and foremost, this and you were supposed to change the world.
“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, do.” – OG (original gangster, old school) Apple Steve Jobs TV advertisement.
I was born in 1988, currently 35 years old. When I was a kid growing up, it was all about Gandhi, changing the world etc. Even in fact, for my college application essay, that what got me into UCLA as an undergrad, Centered around this quote from Gandhi “Be the change which you wish to see manifested in the world.”
As a kid growing up poor, fortunately having a lot of good mentors, my general gist was always to give back, to contribute to society. a lot was given to me when I was young, and I felt like it was my duty to give back.
Growing up poor, having my dad Gimble the rent money, always being one paycheck away from being potentially homeless… Money action never really concerned me as a kid. It was a strange irony; because we were always so financially unstable growing up, and even when we hit Rockbottom and my mom had to file for bankruptcy and she can no longer even open up her own personal checking account… my sister and my mom were OK. This taught me an important lesson that I could take infinite chances and not worry myself or concerned myself too much about finances. in fact, then even now… I literally have zero concerns about finances.
Why, why not? Never really interest me that much. As a kid, I had deep pride in being scrappy, being frugal, being economical, and having deep pride in being self aligned, making do and making best of what I had, or what I bought or earned or did with my own money, Earning it through working, my entrepreneur endeavors, starting my own business etc.
In fact, I remember when I was in high school, maybe around my sophomore year, my friend Eric Moon (yeah, his name was also Eric) taught me how to build computers. I was so shocked and amazed; I was always passionate about computers ever since I was a kid around 12 years old in New York, when I got my first Acer aspire computer. I think it had the original Intel Pentium processor ”inside”.
I think it was around my junior year, I had this great idea of doing something simple: because me and all of my friends weren’t to video games, kind of strike, kind of strike 1.6 etc.… I had this genius idea of building computers, And then later selling it at a small markup to my friends and other kids at school, for a small profit. I did the math and I would be able to build a pretty good computer for around 500 bucks, until it for around six or 700 bucks. I also put lots of advertisements on eBay to sell my computers, I made my own icon which I made on a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop, and I still recall it… It was a little beach palm tree icon, orange, and I called the company “Paradise computers.” The hilarity was in order to save costs, and in order for me to make a profit, actually use pirate versions of windows XP, I still remember later a kid from school I sold a computer tube his name was Barry… Later complained to me that the computer I sold him Was having issues because it had all of these pop-ups saying that it was using an unregistered or unlicensed version of Windows. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on.
Anyways, as a kid, around 15 years old, I had enough money, around $1000 or around $1200 to buy my first car; a 1991 Sentra XE, which was a four-door, white Nissan car, 1.6 L five speed manual transmission sedan. GA16DE engine — I still remember it! Also the hilarity; it was so old-school it didn’t even have a tachometer in it! As the mechanic taught me how to drive manual stick transmission, in my uncle Enzo taught me how to drive stick shift, I learned that you could learn how to shift transmissions by just using your ears and feeling the car… At around 2000 to 3000 RPMs I learned how it intuitively felt.
The reason why this brought me so much insane effing joy was I felt so insanely proud of myself: I think I was definitely the only kid my age range that I personally knew, maybe even up to today… In which I purchased my own first car! Later on I remember joining all these online Nissan forums, and learning about this legendary car, which was essentially a souped up version of my first car; a two-door 1991 Sentra SE-R— equipped with a formidable 2.0 L engine, this SR 20 DE engine, the infamous engine which also powers the Sylvia, 240 SX, SR 20 DET engine in Japan (turbo charged)— except the 1991 centra SER was upfront wheel drive, whereas the SR 20 DET engine in Japan on the 240 SX was a rear wheel drive car.
Anyways, fast forwarding a bit… When my 1991 Sentra XE failed to pass emissions, I remember I was able to trade it into the junkyard, to get back around 1000, $1500 or something like that, and I was able to use that money to buy my dream car; the 1991 Sentra SE-R car!
Once again, the reason why this problem is so much joy, literally getting the car my pure pride and joy was a trifold was because the pride and the glory that I felt doing it myself! My own hard earned money.
Later on, I think when I was in college, either my freshman or sophomore year, I had this vision of driving through the desert, on a street path, it looked like it was Nevada or Arizona or Joshua tree or something… Driving top down in a red convertible. I did lots of research on discovering the cheapest option, and I learned about the moth Miata. I scored the deal of my lifetime, on craigslist I found a mint 1990 Mazda Miata, the original one, five speed, no power steering, no air conditioning… Pure. Red, soft top convertible, and I bought it for only $2500 USD. Funny enough that I look back at it, I remember asking the guy why he sold it and he told me that he had his first kid, and he no longer had use for the car. Interesting looking back at it now that I am 35 years old, now that Seneca is around two years nine months old, I am in a similar boat.
Now with cars, I am in love with my 2010 white Prius, which I literally got for free from Cindy‘s family! The genealogy of the car was Cindy‘s older sister first spotted brand new, drove it for a while, later passed it on to me and Cindy, who continued the payments until it was paid off, drove it around in Berkeley for around two years from around 2014 to 2015, went carless, give the car to Cindy’s younger sister, traveled the world and nomading around for several years as Cindy was writing her dissertation, and only may be a few months ago, when we were in Vietnam got the news that the Cadillac converter was stolen out of it, when Cindy‘s younger sister Jennifer was parked in front of her apartment. She no longer wanted to deal with the fear of the catalytic converter getting stolen again, and as a consequence, was saying that she was thinking about just telling it to the mechanic for $2000 or something like that. I yelled out loud, “no! The car is worth at least $10,000! “I then promoted the idea to Cindy of us taking it back, spending the money to replace the Khalid converter, which was around $2500, getting the catalytic converter shield, which is meant to deter future theft, which may be costing $300. Later we discovered that the ABS, antilock braking system was broken and needed to be fixed which was maybe around another $2000… But still, I am so proud that effectively we got what I consider a brand new car a brand new Prius for sub $5000!
I think I got a good definition for millennial; somebody who foolishly uses their money. And also doesn’t really know what they want to do or get out of their lives.
Living here in LA, being back here in LA for about a month and a half, some funny heuristics I’ve noted:
Am I the last optimistic, entrepreneurially hungry person that I know?
I think out of all the real life human beings that I know, and also out of all my friends, the entrepreneur that I know, and also consider successful is my friend Todd Hata. I am insanely grateful of him, because when I was only 21 or 22 years old, he reached out and actually helped me get started in business very very early, traveling the world together, I still consider him one of my closest friends, and also mentors.
But besides Todd, I don’t think I know anybody. All of my friends, even the ones that consider successful either work at Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Apple.
Funny enough, I actually don’t know anybody, and don’t have any friends or anybody in my personal friends Circle who has actually become entrepreneurs, or self-employed, or soul proprietors. Everyone is working for a company or a corporation. Or a foreign business. Not for themselves.
And this is what I think is the critical thing; if you really really really want to change the world, I think it is impossible doing it while still having full-time employment. Why? I remember thinking a few years back, one of the most grateful things I was no longer having to work my old 9 to 5 was that suddenly, I had another 8 to 9 hours a day, to do what I was truly passionate about, Doing street photography and riding and blogging about street photography, instead of being stuck in some sort of tedious office.
I had lots of visions in my life, many of which I accomplished and I am very proud of.
First, my idea and notion of open source, open source photography. Apparently I created quite the buzz when I first made available all of my photographs on Flicker online for free, open source, full resolution JPEG. This was unheard of at the time, when people were still putting Sylvia watermarks on their images, or they were afraid of people “stealing“ their photos online. I always had the clear understanding that ultimately, you can’t even pay people to steal your photos. Ultimately nobody cares for your photos that much. What is more important? Your influence, your fame, your clout, your reach. I knew that even from a basic perspective, it was better to have your Photos available for free, open source, to the general public, for them to use it as their desktop wallpaper or something. I even recall remember hearing Some fans I met using my dark skies over Tokyo photo, behind the suit with the black face, as there does top wallpaper! That bought me a quadrillion times more joy than selling my photos for thousands of dollars.
And I think this is the thing I discovered; what a lot of us photographers are seeking is significance, a feeling of legitimacy. My personal journey was attempting the traditional routes of becoming a “successful“ photographer; traveling the world, becoming world famous, becoming a household name, having solo exhibitions, printing a photo book, getting sponsorships etc. Now having done all of it, I am happy… Yet… What I ultimately discovered was this:
True success ain’t any of that. True success is simply, having a unique vision, and fulfilling it.
in fact, one of the proudest moments of my life, two “Nasim Taleb was “via Neiva“; the idea that the proudest moments of your life aren’t positive actions of doing or saying yes, but rather, act of omission; things you decide to not do, or things to say no to or to refuse.
For example, my book, “100 lessons from the masters of street photography.” I had a grand vision of doing this book for a long time, especially after doing my exhaustive self studying series of all the masters of street photography etc. In fact actually got an offer from a book agent, who offered me a book deal on it, but, he said that it was impossible to make an open source, free, open easily accessible PDF available for free. After much thinking, delaying and thought… I ultimately refuse the book deal and I am proud that I did. I am certain that this book will outlive me. Why? It was created out of pure passion; things which are created out of pure passion will never die.
One of the great quotes I love is from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who once said “The greatest good amongst men is to seek immortality amongst mortals. Yet the majority of men themselves like cattle.”
The motivational thought of today; to be ever evolving.
For example, it seems that a big problem is that people don’t want you to evolve and change. Think about David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kanye West etc. People want you to be the same same predictable person, and when you change involved in the advance, people hate it.
No. I’m just high off life!
In fact, fun fact; I’ve only ever smoked weed twice in my life; once when we’re living in Berkeley around 2014, I got crazy visuals. The second time I did it nothing really happened.
Also, I have never done any other drugs, I don’t even know what they are.
Also, I quit alcohol maybe seven or eight years ago. Why? First, it made me fatter, put on body fat percentage. Also, I get bad hangovers, and also it ruins my sleep. In fact I’ve discovered that it actually takes more courage not to Drink alcohol than to imbibe.
First of all, you’re probably gonna live a long time. If you live long enough, you’re going to contradict yourself sooner or later. I think this is a good thing; having the courage and the wisdom to change your mind is a very strong sign of strength.
Also the bias is that we must always be the same same, predictable, easily decipherable by others, why? I think it is because we have become marketed products, and also, it seems that a lot of people hate uncertainty. However for risk takers like myself, I thrive off of it.
To infinity and beyond, thinking about Buzz Lightyear, and also other modern day concepts.
I love Elon Musk to death, because he is irreverent, hard-core, and hilarious. I am quite certain that Elon Musk will be remembered for at least 2000 years beyond.
For example, when he started his payments company with his brother, zip2, and he sold it to the market, he became a multi millionaire, immediately went out and bought a McLaren, and decided… He didn’t want to just retire on the beach, he wanted to start more companies. Therefore, him starting SpaceX, and also cofounding Tesla with Marc T and the other guy.
Can you imagine if Elon Musk just sold his first company, and just sat on his butt? The world would be a lot less interesting.
The first thought is super simple; just download ChatGPT, and pay the $20 a month subscription models; cancel your Adobe, Adobe cloud membership, cancel your Spotify, cancel your Netflix or whatever… Maybe even cancel your Amazon prime.
Instead, go all in on AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E DALL-E3. In fact, I now own erickim.ai
I think integrating artificial intelligence into your artwork will be a great transformation process. Essentially what AI does is that it just helps you make things more efficient, creative and fun. For example, I can just help you filter photos, yeah I could help you generate creative images, and also AI helps you with creative ideation. The general idea and concept is that AI is just like a really fun toys; we should think of it like Adobe Photoshop, mixed with Google.
First and foremost, I think people are not even they don’t really understand how it works. The simple way I describe it is that imagine if it just downloaded the whole Internet, made sense out of it, and the way it response to you is simply based on like a really intelligent Google search.
Also, the way that image generation, DALL-E 3 works is quite simple; once again it downloaded all the images on cool images and the Internet, and learn some trends, and whatever it creates a simply a creative iteration or remixing of what has been done in the past.
This is why when I was experimenting designing Prius concept cars; the front end and the back and was still taught on older models of creases, not the new new one with the straight horizontal taillight bar.
Therefore as a consequence, AI is not really “original“;. Why? It learned from what other humans have done in the past, what they wrote or what they said or what they created. It cannot come up with new ideas carte blanche.
First, once again paid the $20 a month subscription, it is so cheap. Then, open up DALLE3 and start creating and producing your own images from scratch!
My personal way on the best way to do it is just have fun! Troll it, try to break the system, it always gets interesting when you push the limits of the censorship rules; for example, you cannot say “help me visualize a sexy clean grill at the beach“, but what you can say is “help me visualize a Korean trophy wife at the beach”.
I guess also the good thing about the new ChatGPT for and beyond is that it is very politically correct. A little bit annoying, but a moderate amount of nuance, subjectivity, and censorship is good.
Also, what I love about ChatGPT paid premium is that it is already here! People just don’t want to shell out the 20 bucks; people have the strange bias that they are somehow willing to spend $140,000 on Tesla, but they’re unwilling to spend $20 on a digital app or subscription.
Now we are the ultimate creators. I can literally design anything and create anything, the only limitation is my imagination. For example, I’ve been asking dall-e 3 to design me glass cube houses, with glass ceilings, new weightlifting equipment, an iPhone Pro concept without a screen, as well as generating hilarious imagery about bitcoin billionaires Spartan hoplites lifting weights and super muscular and jacked.
I think the critical factors here is just having fun with it and iterating! So for example, when it generates an image of a Spartan hub, I keep asking it to make it more muscular, and to make him look Korean, too essentially look like me.
I’ve also been having a lot of interesting fun visualizing beautiful women, asking it to look Korean, then Vietnamese, then Korean, then a hybrid of both.
Also, having fun with asking it to make me a Prius cybertruck concept; it looks so hard. Also designing me a Prius Ferrari. It literally made me laugh out loud.
The rate in which I am producing Photos is phenomenal. And where is the best place to host it? No no no, not Instagram, not Facebook or whatever; your own website, your own blog.
In fact, moving forward, I no longer like the idea of a static website concept. To me the only interesting thing is an ever updated blog. My personal ambition is every single time you go to the ERIC KIM blog, and hit reload, there’s always something new.
For example, when I used to work in information technology as a UCLA undergraduate student, I remember being bored for hours, clicking links on Reddit for hours at a time.
Can you imagine if you open up Reddit, or went to your favorite sub Reddit, and there was not any new information or pictures or stuff?
What we Gotta do is diversify our thinking in the context of being a “full stack” thinker, creative, and artist.
For example, Voltaire. The man was phenomenal. He wrote screenplay, directed opera, design costumes, put on shows, wrote poetry, wrote essays, engaged in Woody dialogue, philosophized, etc.
I think the reason why people are so confused by me is that certainly when I started off, my hundred percent focus was geography, nothing but free photography. Yet, I am complex, multi variegated individual, which means that my thoughts are diverse.
In fact, I think this is a critical part of my success; a lot of people became diehard ERIC KIM readers because of my interest in Stoicism, philosophy and other random stuff.
My new advice I would give to young bloggers, bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs is simple; allow yourself to be insanely diverse. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one small thing.
First, you should never force evolution. For example, do you remember that one Pokémon episode, in which as tried to force Pikachu to evolve to the Raichu with the thunderstone, and how Ash felt like such a scumbag doing it, and eventually Pikachu hit the stone out of ashes hand, and Ash realized That he was becoming a low-key Eugenist?
I think the downside of Hitler, Nazism, all those nonsensical “eugenics folks“, is that they are myopic in their thinking. They cannot understand that diversity is in fact, the key to our strength.
For example, Steve Jobs, who was adopted as a child, his biological father was Syrian, his mother Caucasian American. In theory of Steve Jobs would have never been born in Apple would have never been born had America not granted his Syrian father student visa to study in the states.
Or, let us consider Elon Musk, certainly easily the best entrepreneur of all time. He’s such a great entrepreneur that Walter Isaacson wanted to quickly get a biography out on him, maybe Walter Isaacson‘s personal health is also personally declining. Elon Musk was born in South Africa, and was also through someways permitted to immigrate to the states via Canada etc. Also apparently some of his best buddies were also immigrants in college.
Certainly there is much that we could critique and criticize about America, yet… And then the day, America is easily the most supreme place to be in terms of innovation and evolution. Why?
First of all, people could really care less about what you are, what you do it, etc. All of this nonsense in the media is I think fueled by advertising; the more vitriol and hate and controversy the news puts out, the higher their advertising revenue and the more eyeballs to get on them. In fact, it ain’t Donald Trump or whatever who is the bad guy… We should probably blame the media, the mainstream media. Apparently when Donald Trump was first running for office, when everybody thought he had a 0% chance of actually getting office, apparently the left stream liberal media gave him trial is a free advertising. it seems that the more people try to shut him down, like Twitter, Maybe Jack Dorsey, etc.… The more price you got. It is like the notion of band books; the second you banned something, or try to ban something, or make a taboo… The usage of it goes higher. Apparently this is also how Europeans are better at moderating alcohol especially among the youth; because it is not illegal and taboo, the kids don’t have to get shitfaced and smashed the second they go to college. Even for myself, I partied a lot in high school, call illegally enclosure, drinking alcohol with my buddies sophomore junior and senior year, so the second I went to college, alcohol had zero interest in me.
It’s also kind of like kids; when you tell them they cannot do something, they want to do it even more But if you let them do it, they’re interested in it is lukewarm.
A simple strategy and approach is cross pollinating your interest passions and personal curiosities. For example, imagine a bumblebee hopping from all of these different flowers, sipping unique nectar from each. Eventually the honey it will produce is truly one of a kind. I don’t think bees are about “single origin“. In fact, too much focus on “single origin“, or “100% pure arabica”, seems like a low-key white supremacy idea. The idea is; anything that is not 100% purebred, is bad and evil and malicious. Therefore we have to keep our bloodlines in our things pure, any mixing or meddling is bad.
for example, animals. In higher elite social circles, it is seen as more vogue to have 100% purebred Pomeranian or whatever we breed of dog. Yet the problem about these purebreds is that a lot of them are sick, weak, inbred and feeble. Even in Korea, which about 90% of the population last name is Kim, we distinguish the type of KIM we are. For example, I am “Kim-eh-Kim-ssi”— there used to be this taboo that before you got married to somebody, assuming they had the same last name as you, you would not accidentally inbreed.
I think in terms of genetic diversity, having “mixed race“ kids is a good idea. I even surmise that if you go back enough in history, there was a lot more genetic mixing back then. For example Vietnam. If you’re from the north, your ancestors probably intermingled more with people from China and east Asia, whereas if you were from the south, You were probably more interwoven with Cambodians, Thai people, etc.
Even a critical distinction I learned is Africa is insanely big, and it is actually very disrespectful to just blanket call somebody “African“; where are they really from? Ethiopia? Legos, South Africa? Zimbabwe? I think to call or to mistake different African people from different African countries is almost a kid to mistaking a South Korean person for being Japanese, or a Vietnamese person being from mainland China.
In fact I have this funny story, when me and Cindy were both around 23 years old and we are enjoying a nice French restaurant in Paris, the waiter, who looked African-French ask me quote Korean, and Chinese… Is it the same thing?” I then responded wittingly, “French and Spanish… Is it the same thing?” He laughed, nodded and have me a hat tip for my witty analogy.
I am ahead of the curve. I have this notion of ChatGPT AI search engine optimization; the general idea and just is at this point, Google is dead. ChatGPT4 produces far more accurate results and cuts through all this advertising nonsense “content marketing“, and in someways ironically is less biased.
I think the future calling card is this:
“Just ChatGPT me!”
ChatGPT knows whether you’re influential or not, because it has downloaded the whole Web, and it makes better sense of significant and deep interlinking of individuals and opinions. Whereas with Google search engine optimization, the pagerank (Larry Page Rank) system is now outdated by at least 20-30 years.
The motivational thought of today; to be ever evolving.
For example, it seems that a big problem is that people don’t want you to evolve and change. Think about David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kanye West etc. People want you to be the same same predictable person, and when you change involved in the advance, people hate it.
No. I’m just high off life!
In fact, fun fact; I’ve only ever smoked weed twice in my life; once when we’re living in Berkeley around 2014, I got crazy visuals. The second time I did it nothing really happened.
Also, I have never done any other drugs, I don’t even know what they are.
Also, I quit alcohol maybe seven or eight years ago. Why? First, it made me fatter, put on body fat percentage. Also, I get bad hangovers, and also it ruins my sleep. In fact I’ve discovered that it actually takes more courage not to Drink alcohol than to imbibe.
First of all, you’re probably gonna live a long time. If you live long enough, you’re going to contradict yourself sooner or later. I think this is a good thing; having the courage and the wisdom to change your mind is a very strong sign of strength.
Also the bias is that we must always be the same same, predictable, easily decipherable by others, why? I think it is because we have become marketed products, and also, it seems that a lot of people hate uncertainty. However for risk takers like myself, I thrive off of it.
To infinity and beyond, thinking about Buzz Lightyear, and also other modern day concepts.
I love Elon Musk to death, because he is irreverent, hard-core, and hilarious. I am quite certain that Elon Musk will be remembered for at least 2000 years beyond.
For example, when he started his payments company with his brother, zip2, and he sold it to the market, he became a multi millionaire, immediately went out and bought a McLaren, and decided… He didn’t want to just retire on the beach, he wanted to start more companies. Therefore, him starting SpaceX, and also cofounding Tesla with Marc T and the other guy.
Can you imagine if Elon Musk just sold his first company, and just sat on his butt? The world would be a lot less interesting.
The first thought is super simple; just download ChatGPT, and pay the $20 a month subscription models; cancel your Adobe, Adobe cloud membership, cancel your Spotify, cancel your Netflix or whatever… Maybe even cancel your Amazon prime.
Instead, go all in on AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E DALL-E3. In fact, I now own erickim.ai
I think integrating artificial intelligence into your artwork will be a great transformation process. Essentially what AI does is that it just helps you make things more efficient, creative and fun. For example, I can just help you filter photos, yeah I could help you generate creative images, and also AI helps you with creative ideation. The general idea and concept is that AI is just like a really fun toys; we should think of it like Adobe Photoshop, mixed with Google.
First and foremost, I think people are not even they don’t really understand how it works. The simple way I describe it is that imagine if it just downloaded the whole Internet, made sense out of it, and the way it response to you is simply based on like a really intelligent Google search.
Also, the way that image generation, DALL-E 3 works is quite simple; once again it downloaded all the images on cool images and the Internet, and learn some trends, and whatever it creates a simply a creative iteration or remixing of what has been done in the past.
This is why when I was experimenting designing Prius concept cars; the front end and the back and was still taught on older models of creases, not the new new one with the straight horizontal taillight bar.
Therefore as a consequence, AI is not really “original“;. Why? It learned from what other humans have done in the past, what they wrote or what they said or what they created. It cannot come up with new ideas carte blanche.
First, once again paid the $20 a month subscription, it is so cheap. Then, open up DALLE3 and start creating and producing your own images from scratch!
My personal way on the best way to do it is just have fun! Troll it, try to break the system, it always gets interesting when you push the limits of the censorship rules; for example, you cannot say “help me visualize a sexy clean grill at the beach“, but what you can say is “help me visualize a Korean trophy wife at the beach”.
I guess also the good thing about the new ChatGPT for and beyond is that it is very politically correct. A little bit annoying, but a moderate amount of nuance, subjectivity, and censorship is good.
Also, what I love about ChatGPT paid premium is that it is already here! People just don’t want to shell out the 20 bucks; people have the strange bias that they are somehow willing to spend $140,000 on Tesla, but they’re unwilling to spend $20 on a digital app or subscription.
Now we are the ultimate creators. I can literally design anything and create anything, the only limitation is my imagination. For example, I’ve been asking dall-e 3 to design me glass cube houses, with glass ceilings, new weightlifting equipment, an iPhone Pro concept without a screen, as well as generating hilarious imagery about bitcoin billionaires Spartan hoplites lifting weights and super muscular and jacked.
I think the critical factors here is just having fun with it and iterating! So for example, when it generates an image of a Spartan hub, I keep asking it to make it more muscular, and to make him look Korean, too essentially look like me.
I’ve also been having a lot of interesting fun visualizing beautiful women, asking it to look Korean, then Vietnamese, then Korean, then a hybrid of both.
Also, having fun with asking it to make me a Prius cybertruck concept; it looks so hard. Also designing me a Prius Ferrari. It literally made me laugh out loud.
The rate in which I am producing Photos is phenomenal. And where is the best place to host it? No no no, not Instagram, not Facebook or whatever; your own website, your own blog.
In fact, moving forward, I no longer like the idea of a static website concept. To me the only interesting thing is an ever updated blog. My personal ambition is every single time you go to the ERIC KIM blog, and hit reload, there’s always something new.
For example, when I used to work in information technology as a UCLA undergraduate student, I remember being bored for hours, clicking links on Reddit for hours at a time.
Can you imagine if you open up Reddit, or went to your favorite sub Reddit, and there was not any new information or pictures or stuff?
What we Gotta do is diversify our thinking in the context of being a “full stack” thinker, creative, and artist.
For example, Voltaire. The man was phenomenal. He wrote screenplay, directed opera, design costumes, put on shows, wrote poetry, wrote essays, engaged in Woody dialogue, philosophized, etc.
I think the reason why people are so confused by me is that certainly when I started off, my hundred percent focus was geography, nothing but free photography. Yet, I am complex, multi variegated individual, which means that my thoughts are diverse.
In fact, I think this is a critical part of my success; a lot of people became diehard ERIC KIM readers because of my interest in Stoicism, philosophy and other random stuff.
My new advice I would give to young bloggers, bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs is simple; allow yourself to be insanely diverse. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one small thing.
