Dear friend,

A thought: life is about fun, chaos, and unpredictability.

1. Imagine if you lived the same exact day, on loop, for 1000 years

Primo, consider that humans love novelty. We hate doing the same shit everyday.

Imagine a life where your life was mapped out exactly the same from 6am to 1am everyday.

You wake up, always have the same breakfast and coffee. You take the same commute to work (hyper loop), and answer the same emails at the office. You eat the same sandwich at the local deli (of course you bring it back to the office, and eat it at your desk, while watching YouTube on your laptop or phone).

You answer more emails, attend some more meetings. Look at some excel spreadsheets, and churn some numbers. Some VLOOKUP here and there. Attend more meetings, feign interest. Back to the desk, and work on a PowerPoint presentation for the boss.

Commute back home, listen to the same podcast. Drink a beer from the fridge (same beer) and watch the same Netflix show. Then light a joint. Play some video games. Then pass out at 1am.

Repeat this day on loop, ad infinitum (for infinity).

Would you want to kill yourself, or would you be overjoyed?

2. Love CHAOS!

To me, that sounds fucking miserable. I would hate to have everyday be the same.

To me, variety is the spice of life. I love the new. I love new experiences, books, photos, and art. If I had to look at the same art, read the same books, and make the same photos everyday for 1,000 years I would want to commit suicide.

3. How to Harness CHAOS

Therefore, embrace chaos. Chaos is good, if you can control this black cerebus, and tame it with your spiked collar.

To tame chaos: love it.

Don’t try to have shit always go according to plan. Don’t fill your Google Calendar, optimizing every 30 minutes of your day. That’s fucking self-imposed slavery.

Rather, be a flaneur. A wanderer on the streets, allowing yourself to IMPROVISE every step of the way.

Follow Bayesian Statistics, to modify your strategy whenever you get new information.

Essentially, don’t become “option blind.” This is why “having a plan” is horrible.

Coca Cola started as a pharmaceutical company. Had they “stuck to the plan”, they couldn’t have conquered the world with their diabetes-causing brown fizzy soda.

Tiffany and Co started as a stationary company. Good that they didn’t stick to their plan, and became high end jewelry instead.

Thank God Apple didn’t just stock to computers. “Apple computers” dropped the “computers” from their name a few decades ago. Now, their major profits come from their iPhone. Who would have thought 20 years ago, that a computer company would start making portable music players and phones?

Moral of the story: Don’t make a plan. Harness chaos, by always improvising.

4. Never stop improvising

In photography and art, always improvise.

Harness chaos. Don’t always shoot the same route.

Switch up your style.

Always keep evolving, and driving forward with new images and innovation.

Never settle.

Never stay the same.

Don’t be consistent. Contradict yourself.

Keep on destroying and killing your past self and style.

Everyday, keep giving birth to a new you.

BE STRONG,
ERIC

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