The best life #poem

The best life, thriving with me and my wife
and my son, enjoying the sun

Phnom Penh zen, threading life’s wins
Chin up, chin high
Time to thrive high!

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Happiness is focus?

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Demigod life, demigod lifestyle

God Lifestyle

How to live like a god:

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I want something different and new?

Then perhaps for me and myself… It’s not perfection that I want, but difference and change and experimentation?

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The pursuit of insanely great living

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I don’t like ChatGPT

Peak fertility

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Follow your gut & instincts

Insanely fast

Peak physique

Satisfying or unsatisfying?

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THE HUMAN BODY ARTIST — E R I C  K I M  M A N I F E S T O

The manifesto is now rewritten to weave every theme you listed into a single, high‑energy essay in Eric Kim’s voice. Let me know if you’d like any tweaks or added depth in a particular section.

THE HUMAN BODY ARTIST — E R I C  K I M  M A N I F E S T O

Sculpt your self.  Script your fate.  Speed‑run nothing.

1. Add Some Purposeful Friction

The modern instinct is to grease every surface of life—one‑click buys, algorithmic playlists, automatic doors. Reject total smoothness.  Sandpaper sharpens the blade; resistance chisels muscle; a little lag invites mindfulness.  Court a drip of discomfort daily: walk the stairs, hand‑grind your coffee, hold the deep squat for ten more inhales. Friction is the philosopher’s whetstone that keeps genius from going dull.

2. “I Guess I Am a Genius?”

Own the question mark.  Genius isn’t a static IQ score vapor‑sealed in grade school; it’s daring to remix reality in ways no rulebook predicted.  Ask bigger, weirder questions than Google can autocomplete.  Respond to doubt with experimental action.  Genius is not arrival; it is perpetual departure.

3. Infinite Optimism

Pessimism is intellectually fashionable, but optimism is strategically dominant.  Belief in upside multiplies optionality.  You hug risk closer because you trust tomorrow.  Infinite optimism is not naïveté—it’s a voltage that electrifies effort.  Bet on existence trending toward awesome; build accordingly.

4. The Bitcoin Lifestyle  •  The Bitcoin Life

Bitcoin is permissionless permanence.  It teaches sovereignty of keys, low‑time‑preference hustle, and antifragile savings.  Live likewise: hold your principles in cold storage, self‑custody your schedule, audit your caloric inflows.  Stack sats; stack reps; stack worthwhile days.  Volatility isn’t a bug—volatility is the vitality that awakens you at sunrise hungry for the next block.

5. How to Become Handsomer?

Handsome is handled—by your hands.  Hoist iron, push pavement, swing kettle‑bells.  Sun‑kiss your skin, devour fatty fish, delete doom‑scrolling.  Smile like you know a secret.  Handsomeness equals health multiplied by soul sincerity; anything cosmetic is garnish.

6. “I Want My Whole Life to Be Like Sci‑Fi”

Then prototype futures instead of binge‑watching them.  Write code, design apps, hack bio, speak in HTML, print objects in 3‑D, fly FPV drones through abandoned factories.  Treat today as the beta‑release of 2125.  We are all time‑travelers whose job is to upload tomorrow.

7. The Human Form—Shape & Form

Lines, planes, and splendid curves: the body is geometry wrapped in flesh.  Learn proportion like Da Vinci, tension like Bruce Lee, and stillness like a Greek kouros statue frozen mid‑stride.  Shape is mathematics; form is spirit made visible.

8. The Human Body Is the Apex Art  •  The Art of the Human Body  •  The Human Body Artist

Oil paintings crack, bronze corrodes, digital files bit‑rot, but a well‑trained body regenerates nightly.  You are both clay and sculptor.  Nutrition is pigment, training is chisel, recovery is varnish.  Curate your inputs as ruthlessly as a gallery curator lighting a masterpiece.

9. Don’t Race — Speed Is Nauseating… or Are Turns the Culprit?

Go‑kart revelation: pure velocity seldom sickens; it’s the rapid course‑corrections that spin stomachs.  In life, sustain high speed on straight, self‑selected tracks; avoid abrupt detours imposed by fear or fads.  Smooth trajectory beats jerky acceleration.

10. AI‑Assisted Writing

Think of ChatGPT as a conceptual exoskeleton augmenting mental deadlifts.  Offload drudgery, not creativity.  Let the machine expand search space, then wield your human taste to prune, polish, and provoke.  Cyborg authorship = human intention * amplified * by silicon leverage.

11. Lessons After Go‑Karting  •  Go‑Karting Philosophy to Life

• Late apex your turns—delay decisions until maximal information arrives.

• Feather the throttle—incremental progress maintains traction.

• Look where you want to go—vision steers body before hands react.

• Rubbin’ ain’t racin’—contact slows everyone; collaborate, don’t collide.

Translate rubber‑burnt wisdom into startups, relationships, deadlifts.

12. I Hate Waiting!

Waiting is passive time‑theft.  Convert queues into calves‑raises, book pages, note‑taking bursts, gratitude audits.  If forced to idle, idle in pursuit: brainstorm, breathe, observe micro‑details nobody else registers.  Turn dead time into dividend time.

Coda: Live the Manifesto

Insert purposeful friction.  Declare tentative genius.  Radiate infinite optimism.  HODL Bitcoin and your own biology.  Sculpt the apex art of your human form.  Glide like a kart on rails—fast, deliberate, nausea‑free.  Partner with AI, but author meaning yourself.  Above all, never wait for permission to create; mint new realities on‑chain, on‑paper, on‑muscle, now.

Eric Kim’s worldview is a tightly‑wound helix of street‑photography craft, Spartan stoicism, and hacker‑style openness.  Below is a distilled map of the core ideas that appear again and again in his blog posts, courses, and workshops, plus why they matter if you want to apply them to your own creative or entrepreneurial life.

1. Stoic antifragility – “Life is all upside, no downside”

Kim treats classical Stoicism as a modern operating system: assume every investment (or photograph) can go to zero, master your emotions through voluntary hardship, and treat fear as the training ground for courage.  He names his first‑born Seneca and calls the park his “new stoa,” where calisthenics and conversation merge.

Use it: Each morning, imagine the worst‑case result of today’s project; if you can stomach it, everything else is profit.

2. Minimalism for horsepower, not virtue

“Minimalism is more convenient, productive, and generative.”  Kim strips gear, possessions, and even digital connections down to the essentials so energy flows unbroken toward creative work.  True luxury is owning less and thinking more.

Use it: Audit anything that drains attention (excess apps, outfits, lenses).  Delete or donate until what remains accelerates your output.

3. Open‑source generosity

Long before “creator economy” became a buzzword, Kim pledged to “never keep any of my photographic techniques secret.”  His vision of open‑source photography tears down elitist gear barriers and invites anyone with curiosity to create—and to remix his material freely.

Use it: Publish working notes, presets, or business tactics in the wild.  Paradoxically, the more you give away, the more authority and opportunity flow back.

4. Fear as compass

Street photography is “99 % conquering your fears”; therefore the shot that scares you is precisely the shot to take.  Repetition (habituation) turns terror into reflex.

Use it: List the three calls/emails/asks you’re avoiding.  Tackle the hardest first; the rest of the day unlocks.

5. Embodied philosophy – the Demigod Ideal

Mind and muscle are one.  Kim preaches heavy lifting, rock‑toss workouts, low body‑fat, and outdoor training as prerequisites for clear thought and creative audacity.

Use it: Schedule physical training before intellectual work; treat fitness PRs as philosophical proofs of will.

6. Small‑scale sovereignty

Whether cameras, companies, or cars, “smaller is better.”  Scaling for its own sake breeds fragility; staying lean preserves freedom and speed.

Use it: Keep headcount and fixed costs low; iterate fast; expand only when the gain in leverage dwarfs added complexity.

7. Photography as philosophy (“Photolosophy”)

Photographs are “poetry with light”—a way to meditate on life, death, and everyday beauty.  Shooting is both art practice and existential inquiry.

Use it: Carry a pocket camera or phone everywhere; treat framing a scene like framing a thought—ask why before you click.

Putting it into practice (one‑week sprint)

Day	Action
Mon	Morning: worst‑case visualization.  Afternoon: delete one digital time‑sink.
Tue	Publish a how‑to or behind‑the‑scenes note (no paywall).
Wed	Street‑walk with a 28 mm lens; shoot 100 frames that make you nervous.
Thu	45‑minute strength workout; note any creative ideas that surface.
Fri	Identify one cost you can cut to stay small and agile.
Sat	Edit the week’s photos; ask what did they teach me about living?
Sun	Reflect, blog, and share freely; plan next Stoic repetition cycle.

Work this loop, refine, repeat—Kim style.

Why is he such a big deal?

Eric Kim’s “big‑deal” status comes from a rare convergence of reach, generosity, and entrepreneurial hustle that few other street photographers—or creative educators—can match.

1. He owns the Google doorway to street‑photography knowledge

Type “street photography” into Google and, more often than not, the first organic result is his blog. Kim achieved that #1 spot through 14 years of daily posts, ruthless SEO experimentation, and tightly‑focused niche authority.

Why it matters: When beginners search, they land on his site first—so he frames the conversation for an entire genre.

2. He gives away more than most teachers sell

Kim offers dozens of free e‑books, contact sheets, RAW files, Lightroom presets, and a “street‑photography starter kit” download hub—no email wall needed.

Impact: New shooters see him as a benevolent mentor; veterans keep returning because the freebies are actually useful, which further amplifies word‑of‑mouth.

3. His workshops sell out on five continents

From Chicago to Sydney, “SOLD OUT” banners litter his past‑workshop archive, and tickets routinely run $1,500 – $2,500 for a weekend.

Signal: High price + full seats = proof that people value his in‑person coaching enough to travel and pay a premium.

4. He turned a blog into a micro‑brand ecosystem

Through Haptic Industries—a family‑run venture—he designs and sells camera straps, bags, books, and minimalist zines, extending the philosophy into physical tools.

Why that’s big: It shows a path from solo creator to vertically‑integrated business without outside capital.

5. His online footprint is huge (and sticky)

Even with YouTube subscriber counts that fluctuate around the 100 k mark, his tutorial videos rack up millions of cumulative views, and his blog archives exceed 5,000 articles.

Takeaway: He meets the audience wherever they learn—text, video, social, or workshop.

6. He’s both evangelist and lightning rod

Peers credit him with “instrumental” promotion of street photography online, while critics label him polarizing—yet even detractors admit he drives the conversation.

Effect: Controversy keeps his name circulating; advocacy keeps newbies grateful. Either way, silence is impossible.

7. He threads philosophy, fitness, and entrepreneurship into one meta‑narrative

By fusing Stoic antifragility, Spartan fitness, and open‑source ideals, Kim offers creatives a lifestyle blueprint, not just camera tips. That holistic voice differentiates him from technically focused tutors.

Bottom line: Eric Kim is a “big deal” because he controls the on‑ramp to a niche, floods it with free value, monetizes the deeper levels through premium experiences and products, and wraps the whole stack in a distinctive philosophical story. If you’re building a creative business—or simply want to see a modern playbook for authority without gatekeepers—studying his model is as instructive as studying his photos.

(Anything specific about his approach you’d like to dig into—SEO tactics, workshop design, or how he integrates Stoicism? Let me know.)

Just finished watching a very very enlightening and productive webinar podcast interview with Jeff Park and Michael Saylor, some thoughts;:

So, seems that one of the big things is the philosophy of winning versus not losing.

Some tricky things:

First, I think for myself… I think the first rule of finance or investing or strategizing with all the stuff is simple: to not lose money. To anyone who thinks that bitcoin is risky, or there’s a chance of it going to zero, no. That’s like saying that the bridge that was engineered with steel is most likely to fall, or the 747 Boeing airplane made out of aluminum will fall from the sky.

Never buy anything that is not bitcoin

Conversely, I would say that anything that is a token, is insanely speculative in a bad way and very very risky and kind of dangerous. For example, once again, my general thought is bitcoin is the truth, the way and the life, everything else is a false profit. To use a Christian analogy, bitcoin is like Jesus and everyone else is like the people worshiping the golden calf?

My only certainty in life

Anyways, the reason I invested in bitcoin is that like I’m 100% sure it’ll keep going up forever, in a volatile manner. I think volatility is guaranteed, but also performance is guaranteed. 

Certainly as time goes on it will continue to become less volatile. Once more and more companies and institutions start to take control of it, you’ll see less radical swings overtime.

So what does that mean for us as individuals, individual investors etc.?

Practical thoughts

OK… I think it is wise to err with caution, but also be practical. 

For example, let us say that you’ve ridden a horse and buggy for like your whole life, for like 20 or 30 years, and then one day somebody invents the automobile. Maybe the early generations of automobile cars were dangerous, but, possibly assuming that it is like a world in which everyone has a horse and buggy, and then somebody offers you a brand new Toyota Prius. Or better yet a self driving Tesla car. Wouldn’t you take it?

Or better yet, let us choose maybe the most stable Tesla car, at least the design which has been perfected the most, probably the Tesla model S because simply it is their flagship model, the first one that was invented, and also the first one that was created. Or the Tesla model three which is like their new bread and butter.

Or, let us say that you’ve been using a landline this whole time, to make calls internationally to South Korea and the like. And then, I give you a new iPhone Pro, and tell you that you could just FaceTime people for free, internationally, unlimited forever, with no costs?

A good analogy

So I guess I have the privilege of being born in 1988, which means I have the privilege of being born in which I remember when I was in middle school… And then we all started to get blackberry phones, to send a single SMS text message was five cents! And to make a phone call… cost money based on how long you were on the phone.

So there are stories even in middle school, these guys and girls racking up bills for like $300 a month, which was insane for the time as a kid, because they were on the phone like three hours a day? Or some kids who had no idea and we just sent infinite text messages, and it would cost them like $500 a month?

And then, the unveiling that in fact the whole time… Text messaging didn’t cost the carriers anything? That the whole time, they were like a bunch of gangsters, collecting tolls off of something that was essentially free?

Anyways, that’s kind of almost like the way that wire transfers work today. Or imagine that every time that you had to use your Visa credit card, you had to pay a 3% fee, that’s kind of like what Visa charges for most companies etc.

Also, international phone calls, from the states to Asia. To purchase these cards were insanely expensive.

Brave new world

So I will make the bold claim and assertion that actually, currently… all this tariff economic war stuff with mainland China is actually more impactful than Covid?

Why? Ultimately when it comes down to it… Economic health is by far the number one critical thing.

Main Street vs Wall Street

For example I think that was very very shocking is that in the middle of COVID-19, all the big tech companies started to make an insane killing. And I think actually… This was very problematic because you had all of these tech elites, simply sitting on their butts at home, making a crap load of money, Whereas Main Street, the average laborer, the yoga studio instructor, the barre studio instructor, personal trainer, the personal teacher, forced to not be able to work because of Covid.

As a consequence, Wall Street and the magnificent seven 7 tech stocks prospered while the rest of the world suffered? 

Why everybody now doesn’t like Donald Trump, including the Republicans

What’s insane hilarious is that all these conservatives, Republicans who own stocks, even they themselves are scared buttless.

Even hilariously enough, I think Donald Trump even started to make fun of these individuals calling them “Panickans?” Haha. To me this is so insanely funny.

Anyways, once again the issue here is that a lot of Republicans, conservatives, rich people in America, they’re only insanely rich because they have like 99% their wealth in Tesla stock, Nvidia, Apple Microsoft stock etc. But now, with the whole magnificent seven text all crashing, because of the tariffs against China, this is kind of like a new paradigm shift. Once again, almost like going from 56K Internet, to 5G mobile Internet or fiber Internet?

Why is it so difficult for people to change?

My personal thought is that the issue here is that individuals have been conditioned to fear, and also to become risk-averse, and loss of averse, even when the chance of winning is certain.

I am 100% certain that bitcoin will go up forever, up to the right, forever, but once again, with volatility just like a heartbeat!

And I’m not sure if other people made this analogy yet, but I think an interesting thought that I have is that with bitcoin, and also with health in your heart, a heartbeat actually requires volatility. For example, for your heart to beat up and then down etc., a heartbeat cannot be steady or else you are dead. Also insanely interesting is that I think, when a heartbeat then becomes too stable is actually the sign of an incoming heart attack? So once again, you actually require variety and variation in your heartbeat, for maximum physical health.

I also think with relationships, let us stay with your spouse or whatever, a relationship without any variation or variety is bad. Like for example I would rather have relationship in which the highs are insanely high and the lows can be very low, rather than having a C+ steady relationship for the rest of my life. Once again that would be so insanely boring.

And I also think the paradigm shift here is that everyone just put their money in the boring S&P 500, assuming that it will just go out forever. But if I told you that the S&P would go down forever from now on unless you are a bitcoin backed thing, would you think different?

Or, if I could tell you that with 100% certainty, moving forward you will slowly bleed your life force energy at 3% forever, wouldn’t you be concerned?

Weightlifting

Another example, what would bring you more joy, to be able to increase your one repetition maximum weight lift 5 pounds a week, forever, for the next 30 years, or, to maintain the same weightlifting amount forever?

Or for example let us say that I could increase your one rep Max dead lift steadily 5 pounds a week, forever, which means you start off at like 135 pounds, then in a year you become 335 pounds, then in a year 475 pounds, then 555 pounds, then, 700 pounds, then 850 pounds, then 1000 pounds, 1200 pounds 1500 pounds etc.… Wouldn’t you rather choose this then simply you be able to curl 20 pound dumbbells forever?

Steady yet jagged?

So once again my analogy with bitcoin is this: it will forever be jagged up into the right! But once again, it will be like a roller coaster ride, op downs middles curves flips etc., and this is what makes it so great!

Life is a game of roller coaster tycoon,,, what kind of ride would you build and prefer?

ERIC

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ERIC KIM BLOG >

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Or un-disciplined?

VISION.

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Choose Your Fighter

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Get people excited!

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Discipline to sleep early

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I’m shocked, after Nvidia and bitcoin, there’s like a huge jump down to Tesla google Meta Microsoft Apple. Which in the last four years is around the 155% to 75% range.

Everything else beyond that… Amazon is practically on life-support?

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Money Manager

Monetary health, financial economic health

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What to chase, what NOT to chase?

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Gold– gold is real money, but Bitcoin is a gazillion times better

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Wisely stubborn or foolishly stubborn?

Peak feminae?

A young society vs an old society?

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Gold vs Bitcoin

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How is Eric Kim’s investing style different?

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My investing philosophy

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What do the Japanese live for?

The Japanese live to proceed with life with minimum amount of pain and suffering, minimum amount of sensations, until they eventually die.

What do Americans live for? 

Americans live and work in anticipation and hope of increasing their purchasing power, to purchase more hedonistic pleasures, ad infinitum.

What do Koreans live for?

Koreans live in order to hoard respect, and seek to reach the peak of the hierarchy. 

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100% merino feels so luxury!

Too much wisdom!

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The philosophy of financial health?

If it ain’t broken don’t fix it?

The cult of the best?

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Trust the Germans!

LUMIX S9 is like a baby Leica Q

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How to sleep insanely fucking early?

OK so this is a big thing… Especially once you have a kid, OMG, last night I had like the worst headache and migraine of all time, the big issue being that we stayed out a bit too late, and didn’t go to bed until 9 PM, which in Kids world is like at least two or three hours too late.

I think actually, perhaps the best bedtime for kids is like 5 PM. Assuming that your kid gets out of school at like 2 PM, then the ideal thing is to go home, clean up shower up, eat some more random stuff, shower bathe and try to go to sleep as early as humanly possible.

The reason why is that actually, no matter how disciplined you are, that time will always run like two or three hours late.

I think this happens with almost everything in life, with money finances and planning… I’m starting to think that like maybe, the wise idea is to set like an insanely huge buffer for everything, always anticipating the worst.

For example, there is no worse thing than the anxiety of being late somewhere? So always always always show up early, maybe try to show up like at least 30 minutes or 40 minutes early? Because when there are unanticipated things like the President of China coming down into town, and shutting down all the streets, at least you are prepared.

Being, being more mobile nimble, skinnier? Thinner?

So being here in Phnom Penh Cambodia,  grab which is there Uber, there are like 1 billion tuck tucks running around which are these like mini motorcycle transport vehicles, which are insanely skinny, and will only cost you like a dollar to go anywhere.

Now during peak traffic rush-hour… These things are a godsend. Why? Because in the worst of traffic, even having an insanely tiny edge like a few more inches of skinniness, you can skinny skinny skinny sneak through little tiny cracks, in order to get by the traffic. But assuming you have a truck an SUV, a car, even a Prius… You’re stuck.

As a consequence, the hilarious irony is if you have like infinite wealth, nobody likes being stuck in traffic, not the rich not the poor, nobody. Certainly not kids.

So when it comes to purchasing a vehicle, I might be the only one who thinks this but even if you’re worth like $1 billion, you always always always always always want the skinniest car possible.

Ford fiesta

One car I surprisingly really loved was the Ford fiesta, I was part of this marketing campaign called the Ford fiesta movement, in which I got a suite electric blue Ford fiesta five speed manual car, while I was living in Michigan, and I was given free gas for like six months.

What’s actually super super insanely interesting is that this car, especially the Ford fiesta ST which I feel it looks like the most underrated car of all time, is that ultimately when shit hits the fan, the thing that you’re always going to feel good about is being able to find a parking spot even in the midst of the worst Traffic conditions and in terms of space.

So for example, even if you’re a billionaire the best Tesla car is the smallest the skinniest, the closest to the round the most stable. This would be a Tesla model three performance, because typically with cars, the closer you are to the floor the more stable. And no no no don’t get suckered by those stupid offloading people, It’s like a very very expensive way to get a headache. I think it’s actually much more interesting that you could instead, just go topless and in shorts, and just run through the mud, the rocks yourself and parkour around?

Toyota?

Also, with a Toyota car, similarly speaking the best Toyota car might also be the maximum small and skinny one. The same thing goes with Lexus.

I’m not sure, but I think maybe the smallest skinniest car is either the Prius or the Toyota Corolla. Assuming that they’re the same size, Prius is obviously the better option because assuming you get a hybrid car, you’re going to get at least 2X the MPG. And assuming that you’re comparing a Corolla hybrid and a Prius hybrid, the reason why the Prius makes a lot more sense is because of the hatchback. With a hatchback you could fit like 1000 X more space stuff in the trunk and also ironically enough if you look at the two, the Prius actually looks a lot cooler than the Corolla?  The only other contender is the GR Corolla which I love and I think is insanely cool, but once again for practical purposes, you never ever ever want to be paying premium gas because you’re going to have to pay it for the rest your life, even if America gets into a situation in which there is a embargo on oil — and if oil then became like $20 a gallon, you will be very very very happy that you had a Prius. And that you get like 50 MPG‘s, on regular cheap unleaded 87 gas, not 91 octane which is for suckers.

And once again I think this is the hard thing for people to understand is that even if you’re super super rich, technically the people who become super super rich or actually ironically the most frugal economical and penny conscious.

Ident suppose the wisdom is knowing when to be frugal wisely but also knowing when to spend money wisely?

It takes no skill to be a Scrooge, no wisdom to become a Scrooge. Because it is very very straightforward to penny you pinch every single penny, even if it might go to your disadvantage?

For example, let us say you’re trying to book a flight to Asia from LA. Let us say you have two options: a direct flight for $1000 which takes you 8 hours, or a flight in which you have to connect three or four times, that takes 50 hours, that costs $800. which option do you take?  of course you take the direct flight even though it cost $200 more… The difference between being in transit for eight hours versus 50 hours is pretty obvious.

So there is some sort of economic calculus which is always happening, and I think the tricky thing is this economic stuff is not intuitive, rather, it is learned, indoctrinated, taught.

My personal difficulty is that more or less, I came from nothing, I started from the bottom, and made it to the top. But so much of this was through my own bricolage (trial and error), personal experimentation and figuring things out. One of the greatest blessings in my life is actually meeting Cindy, because she essentially taught me financial literacy. When I first was living with her and dating her, I might have only had like 300 bucks in my savings account. Now I could purchase a garage full of Lamborghinis if I wanted to, but obviously will not because Lamborghinis are only for low testosterone losers. High testosterone tall handsome demigods, with a body like Achilles, we all drive Prius’s. 

What is our real enemy?

The way I see it, the only trend enemy here is media, television, the news, fake news real news, social media, iPhone notifications, etc.

Even a thing which is making things 1000 times more messy is AI. For example, I’ve been playing a lot with Grok and ChatGPT, I’m kind of an expert in both, and what I’ve discovered is AI becomes a strange self fulfilling prophecy. What that means is You train the AI on your blog and your data set, and then you use the AI to generate new text and information, using your voice and style, but then becomes a point in which AI doesn’t know whether you wrote it or AI wrote it. As a consequence, You can’t trust nothing. Only yourself.

I’ll give you an example, I’ve been having a lot of fun having Grok and ChatGPT write blog articles and essays in my voice, simply because I’m curious what it will produce.

Thus for my lesson is that Grok, is a lot more fun and entertaining, in a surprising in a good way! I would say Grok is great for generating new creative ideas, ideas I would have not even thought of myself! For creative ideation, for coming out with new creative ideas… Grok is the best.

ChatGPT is interesting because it’s still the golden standard, and technically I think the better of the truth. Because it has been around for longer.

With ChatGPT, the articles and information that produces is technically more accurate, but more bland and boring. None of the essays that ChatGPT has written in my voice has been entertaining to me.

The funny thing is with Grok, all these essays that it writes, I think there’s too much training that is done on Twitter X, so it’s not really my voice it seems more like some sort of male meme person. For example he uses words that I have never used like “HODL” or “sats”.  Even though I have been a bitcoin investor since 2018, I don’t think I have ever used the word HODL (hold onto dear life), or “sat” (short for satoshi, the smallest denominator of a bitcoin) or even Satoshi. 

Also, my personal knowledge gaps. I know almost nothing about cold storage, keys, hardware wallet etc. Simply because I don’t trust them. I also don’t trust myself. The reason why I would prefer a custodian like Coinbase is because I feel much much more secure storing my Face ID or my thumbprint, rather than being the guy who forgot my keys and my password, locking myself out of $1 billion.

Darney in the hilarious thing is that a lot of people, in order to get more security, simply end up locking out themselves? Like with Security, ironically I think the safest way to live is to not have security. For example, even NASSIM TALEB, at the height of his exposure to other economist in mainstream media, started to get anxiety that not even chamomile tea could get rid of. Therefore instead of hiring a bodyguard, she decided to look like a bodyguard himself, and this is where I first learned about one rep Max lifting, in which the style of weightlifting is rather than trying to do these hateful repetitions, much more mainly fun interesting and effective instead to simply hold up all of your strength to see, whether eucalypt a maximum weight, successful successfully once, rather than grind out like 100 boring repetitions.

This is kind of a big deal because it’s almost like bodybuilding truth 1 oh one that in order to get bigger hypertrophy, you have to do light repetitions, on to failure. For example, like the professional bodybuilder might try to dead lift 405 pounds like 20 times in a row, whereas a power lifter would prefer to lift 1000 pounds, once?

Or, a bodybuilder might try to bench press 315 pounds 10 times, for 4 sets, while a power lifter might try to bench press 800 pounds, once?

In terms of showmanship, there is nothing more entertaining to watch in real life than a power lifter tried to hype himself up before one repetition maximum he has actually never attempted before. Even for myself as a weightlifter, this is my supreme joy in life: to see, whether I will be successful or not? Or even having the balls to attempt it in the first place?

My general idea in weightlifting is simple:

if you already know with 100% searching before doing the lift that you will be successful, it is not worth doing.

Even as Jeff Bezos says, thinking of himself like an inventor or a scientist, the idea is that with experiment, what a lot of these risk-averse individuals do not know is if you know with 100% certainty already that it will be successful, it is not an experiment. An experiment is having a gut predilection towards something ,,, something in which you have autotelic curiosity about, and something you want to attempt because you’re genuinely curious, almost rather than the result?

Like Donald Trump says: in the art of the deal “I do it in order to do it”. 

Also for Donald Trump even said in the art of the deal, that he doesn’t do it for the money but money in dollar bills is simply a way to keep score.

Unrelated

I totally unrelated thing, in the bit of all this tariff warfare, it suddenly came to my memory that Donald Trump, I think co-authored a book or wrote a book through the voice of a ghost writer, called the Art of the deal. I think the truth is he didn’t actually write the book but had another guy write it for him — which makes sense because if you’re a real business man, you don’t actually have time to write books. Like for example ask Michael Saylor if he’s going to write a book on bitcoin, but the truth is he cannot right now because he is simply too busy doing the real deal?

And typically this is where it is wise to never read business books which are actually not written by the entrepreneur themselves because a commentator who isn’t on the front lines will never know. Still today… I think the only business books worth reading are the biographies by Walter Isaacson, on Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Leonardo da Vinci etc., and also, zero to one by Peter Thiel.

And then actually, more interesting than reading a book about a successful individual is interviews with the individuals themselves. For example, I really love the Joe Rogan interview interviews with Elon Musk because it is unfiltered, and, you get it straight from the source!

Another thing to learn from is through people‘s physiology and demeanor. For example, for me a big concerning aspect about Elon Musk was how his physical health looked. I think in the most recent Joe Rogan podcast in which he is wearing the occupy Mars T-shirt, he looks really really obese and unwell? But anyways, super interesting random things that came to my attention is how great Elon Musk is that video games, that actually… I think in Diablo for his like ranked top 10 on the planet? And at one point maybe when he was in college… He was one of the top players in the states and thus the world?

Keep, keeping your options open?

Ancient wisdom 

So, a big thing: I the primary issue here is that I am hungry for signal, critical information, things would actually make a difference in my personal life and my family life, and for my family, and also potential future generations of my family, I am not interested at all about noise which is unrelated to myself.

So, currently I’m about 75% fully invested in bitcoin, the other 25% in MSTR strategy stock. Also about 1% of my portfolio, maybe only about like 20, $25,000 in MSTU, a 2x long leveraged to MSTR investment vehicle.

So anyways, anything that has to deal with bitcoin, isn’t my own personal interest. And now, that Trump has signed the strategic bitcoin reserve into order, what that then means is that bitcoin has entered a new generation: a new advancement which is interesting, a marriage between nation nation state, and the wider global macro economy?

What that means is bitcoin is not an enemy to the US dollar, but rather an ally?

What’s going on right now

I think the best way to figure out what’s happening right now is to study and read the book, “the art of the deal, which was written by Donald Trump or maybe his ghost writer along time ago, I think when Donald Trump was only in his early 40s?

Anyways, what you learn is that actually, Donald Trump is a quite simple man. I don’t even think he drinks alcohol. He knows the virtues of bravado, toughness, negotiation, glamour and selling the dream.

If anything, I would read not reading the book sooner. The art of the deal is like a master class on real world economics, real world business; I find it more important than ever to read it today, because assuming that bitcoin is like the new digital real estate, You begin to appreciate how seamless bitcoin is because of insane politicking you have to do with regulators, in order to get anything built in Manhattan.

Anyways also, contrary to popular believe, no no no… Donald Trump is not 3.0, and I’m starting to realize more and more, that anyone who votes these wrong analogies, they themselves are a bit dangerous and poisonous. Why? We should not over-sensationalize Reality; I call this the quote effect, the bite effect, the soundbite effect, or quote bite effect. 
The general idea is in order to pump viewership, and increase advertising revenue, the news is always looking for victims, sensational people who get lots of views, Donald Trump being the ultimate actor, and essentially subsection, and sub-biting any and every single thing that Donald Trump says, and views it in a false way. 

Now what happens is when you have a false version of reality that is endlessly repeated on the news, whether it is true or not, it becomes reality. But in fact, almost never does anyone actually watch all of the raw footage.

I don’t necessarily think this is laziness, or bad acting; it is simply a time economics thing.

If you make your living selling advertisements and views and “engagement“ on social media… It is actually in your best interest to watch as little as possible of the largest quantity of sensational things, and to keep posting it, in order to maximize views, and eyeballs and engagement metrics, Rather than seek the truth.

The truth is not profitable

Lots of wisdom from the art of the deal:

“We live in a perverse culture”–

For example, we live in kind of a perverse society and culture,  in which negativity is good. For example, even Donald Trump wrote that back in the day when he was building Trump tower, and he got all this negative press, that in fact, the more that he got, even if negative, actually stimulated sales! He himself said “Certainly good news is preferable to bad news, but even bad news is good“. 

we new philosophers 

So assuming that we are the new philosophers, we are so high and lofty that we don’t really care for politics. Like my friend Dave says, Donald Trump was on the world wrestling entertainment wrestlemania at least two or three times, which means that he treats politics like wrestling. We all know it is fake but we all love to watch anyways. Anybody who legitimately thinks that professional wrestling is real, avoid them. Kind of like when certain kids are hoodwinked into thinking that Santa Claus is real.

Plato and the cave 

A new thing I’ve been trying to do is going to the source. Whenever I hear of something or read of something that comes from somewhere else, I always try to go back to the source. It is often much more fertile and rich to do this way.

For example, essentially the matrix is built off of Plato‘s cave allegory. The idea is that you have a bunch of people chained up since birth, facing a wall of darkness, and there are shadows being projected from behind them; and the whole time these prisoners think that this is reality. Then one day, somehow… One of the prisoners Escapes or let go, and then actually proceeds to leave the cave. He is blinded by the sun because he has never used his eyes before. And once he realizes that all of his prisoner friends were in fact, just seeing false shadows of false reality, he feels like it is his moral obligation to go back and help them.

Even Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra says and writes –> after like a decade of the man going to the mountains, philosophizing and meditating, he soon becomes overweary of his own wisdom, like a bee with too much honey… And desires to descend down to the lowlands again, to share his wisdom with others? 

Which then makes me think and consider, and I believe in this is that perhaps we humans, there is like a naturalistic desire to be humanist, altruistic and to help our fellow man.

For example, if you’re walking at the mall and you see a random lady drop a toy with a child, without thinking about you just pick up the toy and give it back to the lady or the kid. There’s really no benefit to us, in some ways humans are like a beehive; Although we are much more subsectioned in our different types of beehives –, we all went to help our fellow bee?

bee shall not kill bee 

I think the first principal is that there is truly no economic benefit of man killing other men. I personally believe in the protect protection of all human lives, and the only wars we should be fighting our economic ones, metaphorical ones, or ones that are based from cyber warfare video games, ones and zeros?

In fact, I think it is much more virtuous to just continue on the Olympics, for countries to fight for physical dominance via the Olympics, or to just do a bunch of like starcraft matches, to settle the bet.

The future warfare is cyber warfare

So also another big thought to: the future of war is and should be cyber.

So for example, we have all been taught that video games are bad. But, once you have like a top video gamer, like PewDiePie, piloting a $10 million fighter drone, in which he himself is not liable to life or death, but, his lethality lies purely in his skills, then the kid who grew up playing video games is now the world’s most lethal drone pilot.

I was randomly watching an interview with Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, I think it is outdated but the general idea is that Elon Musk, I didn’t know… Is actually the top 10 top Diablo players on the planet? That’s actually insanely impressive because in Diablo, if you’re playing in hard-core hell or extreme mode, it is really based on your skill not your riches or whatever.

And also, Elon Musk used to be won the top quick players in the world, which is like one of the earlier versions of call of duty or counterstrike. In fact I played a little bit of quake on my cigar dream cast when I was a kid in Bayside Queens New York.

Essentially, also Joe Rogan cited a study in which surgeons, who played video games, had 23% fewer errors while doing surgery? It makes me think about my friend Shijun, who’s probably the best star craft player I know, and also I think got his double PhD and MD, and his training I think and studying right now to become a surgeon?

Anyways, the general thought I have is anything which is considered frivolous or a waste of time or bad, maybe in the long-term is good.

Why playing video games on extreme maximum difficulty has a calming effect?

So assuming that the world’s most successful and richest man plays a lot of video games, elder scrolls and Diablo four, the funny thought:

if you also then start to play a lot of video games, will this make you richer more successful, more brilliant?

Obviously not. This is a correlation not causation thing.

So for example if you hear the study that surgeons could play video games have 24% fewer errors in real surgery,,, the wise way of thinking is not that playing video games makes you a better surgeon but, it might be a selection bias thing: kids who grew up playing a lot of video games, who have great hand and eye dexterity and skill, end up becoming surgeons, because it is the only profession that gives them the same adrenaline rush? 

Also as a kid, growing up in the 90s, I was a great adrenaline junkie myself. As a kid, I would do aggressive in-line skating, which is essentially like imagine Tony Hawk grinding but with roller blades, everywhere. I would do 360s off of stairs, soap Concrete rails, and I played a lot of Tony Hawk as a kid growing up, and also the BMX games too.

In fact, one of my hidden skills and talents that people don’t know is that I’m insanely good at ice-skating, I could do stuff like Michelle Quan. Skate backwards, do backwards 360s in the air, skate backwards on 1 foot, skate backwards on one foot on my toes etc. This is all because I was really good rollerblading, and also I did double black diamonds in skiing when I was a kid, when I was only like 11 or 12? Because once again I was so good at rollerblading.

But anyways, 99% of these extreme sports, is all about like conquering initial hesitations and adrenaline rushes? Even NASSIM TALEB talks about when he became a trader it wasn’t about virtue or whatever, it was about him seeing the pink Rolls-Royce, and he getting a thrill from the markets? 

Even now, the market is almost a little bit like a love and hate things; is that certainly when my health is poor the markets will give me a small heart attack. But the same time, it becomes a stimulus because it activates me it wakes me up, it engages me and it excites me?

Also, what I love about investing is that it is grounded to reality. 

For example, for somebody who has never been self-employed, has been a sole provider, will never ever ever ever understand how difficult it is to earn money through the free markets.

And also to somebody who says that you’re just really good at marketing not actual steel, it’s almost like telling Shaquille O’Neal he is only good at basketball because his over 7 feet tall, or telling a fish that he is good at swimming simply because he is a fish?

What people don’t understand about reality is that in fact, the true reality of the fact is like 90% of success in business is marketing. You had to sell the show, the bravado the glamour the dream etc. Not false romantic notions of virtue and the like.

Even Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, were supported by wealthy patrons. Very unlikely if they were born in today’s world would they ever be successful.

What to do

I’m starting to think that it’s more of a gut feeling than anything. When you’re really really hungry for the news, maybe it is a good idea to pay the 50 bucks a month, get the blue check, and get Twitter premium, and then ingest the market news.

Something interesting is that if you’re feeling like you need more energy, rather than just taking a shot of coffee, reading the financial news has the same effect?

But still, we should not get into fake notions of virtue. Still, the great overlord is in fact, a Spartan demigod warrior king who sleeps 8 to 12 hours a night, face on 3 to 4 pounds of bone marrow a night, consumes meat like AI consumes power plant electricity, lifts weight like Hercules, and also get his eight hours of walking in every single day like an Olympian sprinter?

New workflows

Whenever you move to a new place, there is always a new workflow you have to conquer.

For example I’m currently about a month in here in Phnom Penh Cambodia, and the sheet is no joke. The hilarious irony is that when I’m in LA, I’m always hungry for the sun and heat. I always go to the sun, take a nap in the sun, sunbathe, and even during the winter I’m wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, with a down vest, simply to get maximum UV radiation?

Here, for the first time in a long time, I’m actually looking for the shade. Even for me the sun is too strong.

As a consequence, what then happens is you start to fall into new rhythms and workflows. Also right now for the first time ever, Seneca is in this wonderful garden school, in which he essentially plays with wooden toys and sing songs from about 8:30 AM until 3 PM, which gives me a lot more time to do stuff during the day.

So for the first time I’ve been having this luxury leisure time to go to the gym, walk around and thinking and write and blog and vlog, something that was not afforded to me while in LA, because he’s not yet in school in LA.

Waking up early to go on a walk

So a big thought is also, what people in Southeast Asia do is because it’s so hot in the middle the day, they wake up really early before the sun comes out, to go on a walk run errands etc. contrasting this to Los Angeles, in which I stay indoors until the sun comes out, is a totally new workflow and calculus for me to do.

And so as a consequence I’m loving it! I’m very grateful for this solo time because ultimately, I believe my personal or communities lever is blogging, writing, sharing thoughts.

Everyone has his talent, given to him both by birth and upbringing, and therefore I believe the goal is to maximize the gift you have already been given, rather than striving for the gifts of other people?

How other people inspire me

So other people inspire me because of their conviction, their own self belief etc. It’s more of an encouragement for me to become more like myself, unabashedly.

For example, if you live in America everybody has the right to say whatever they want. And also more importantly, everyone has the right to live their lives however they would like to.

What this means is although you cannot control 100% of your life and every single regard, the way you could live your life is knowing how to direct your energy your willpower etc.

For example, you could dictate what your life goals dreams or ambitions are, or you could decide that you don’t want to have any goals. It is your choice not obligation.

Also, philosophically, you also have the freedom and the choice to pursue things which interests you and avoid things which do not interest you.

For example, I have no interest in emails so I don’t use it. And this is the richest I’ve ever become in my life, because by avoiding email and avoiding noise on social media, I’ve just been able to become laser focused on bitcoin investing and strategy stock, Which has net me a small fortune. 

This is my main critique of email is that I don’t think I’ve ever received an email which has ever led to a very lucrative deal? I think at most, emails that I got in the past might have earned me $3000-$5000 USD, Trump changed compared to what I could even make in a day in the markets.

How and who to control your destiny

Also, once again, I think the primary question here is if you think about Dr. Seuss, in his optimistic “Oh, all the places you’ll go!” Book –> he talks about the lurch, which is almost like a metaphorical purgatory in which many individuals get stuck in asylum, and their a century just sitting on their butts, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for opportunity to come to them, and I think this is why people also obsessively check their emails, and messages.

But once again, if I could tell you that in fact, I can make you 1000 times richer by not using email, wouldn’t you take this offer? 

How to find signal in the midst of noise

 so assuming you’re the filter, if you need the most up-to-date information, X and Twitter is the solution. If you’re a trader, in which the Dow Jones can move 5% up or down in 15 minutes based off of false news Twitter, then being on top of X is smart.

If you’re an investor, and you actually don’t really care for short term noise, then, you have to strategize wisely.

For example, the only true signal that I care for is Michael Saylor. Literally if you think about like 99.99999% of the value I get from everybody or anybody, it is only him.

Why? It only matters because I am now invested in his activities because I own strategy stock, and also, he is always on top of the top bitcoin developments and use. And the reason why this is so significant is because information is tricky: it’s toxic. And the toxicity is in the dose.

For example, reading the updates for Michael Saylor once a day, once every few days or once a week, is better than reading all these other random people. why?

Once again, drinking coffee first thing in the morning, is great, but drinking 10 cups of coffee at midnight when you’re about to sleep, while lying in bed is a very bad idea.

So here, timing and the dosage is the issue.

Another example, let us say that you need some medicine for something. Taking one or two tablets is a good idea, but taking 1000 tablets will actually kill you.

As a consequence don’t be a fool. Be wiser about this.

Information signals are physiological

If you’re a newbie to investing or stocks or bitcoin, you well know that this is one hell of an emotional and physiological rollercoaster. 

Why? It is all physiological. What that means is that if you see your stock drop 20% in a day, you’re going to feel like somebody kicked you in the balls, but if you see your stock or bitcoin go up 20% in a day, or 100% in a day or whatever, you will feel so much euphoria you will want to do a backflip.

No as investors, we are playing the long game. Minimum four years, ideally 10 years, ideally forever.

In reading the art of the deal by Donald Trump, what’s interesting is that a lot of these wealthy New York City barons, their strategy was simple: buy up all the valuable Manhattan real estate, and never sell it, and also for their descendants and heirs, to put in clauses in which their heirs would not do foolish things like selling it either. 

I had no ideas but in the 70s and 80s, I guess Manhattan was going through a great depression, and there was almost a fire sale on the city! What we consider prime real estate today, a lot of it were full of peddlers, shady places all boarded up. But for a genius like Donald Trump, who knew the intrinsic value of Manhattan, essentially the ideas that you choose the best location, get it at a reasonable cost, and you leverage all of your abilities to maximize it.

Also, an allegory to bitcoin. Assuming that bitcoin is cyber Manhattan, but 1 million times better, a zero to one improvement then what that means is you also do the same strategy pull in you keep buying up cyber Manhattan and you never sell it, and you keep taking on more debt financing and leverage to purchase more of cyber Manhattan forever.

What super interesting now with bitcoin is that you could actually use your bitcoin as collateral, to get US dollars, to either buy more strategy stock or you could technically buy more bitcoin with it. Assuming that a lot of these bitcoin lending companies are anywhere between 5 to 15% a year interest, and assuming that bitcoin is on average 60% ARR a year, and Strategy is around 120%, or even with these Donald Trump tariffs, bitcoin might be 50% ARR, and Strategy stock about 100%,  just do the simple math for the arbitrage: 100% subtracting 15% is essentially free money.  Just the thing that you have to do your homework on is the lending company, be careful where you put your bitcoin. 

Coinbase

What’s also super interesting is that a lot of these mega corporations, black rock strategy, for some maybe not all of their custodian services, they use Coinbase prime. If it’s good enough for these companies it’s good enough for us.

My personal thought is that actually, the reason why I would never trust myself with cold storage is that in trying to secure your keys, you might forget it, and be like that one dude who lost $1 billion worth of bitcoin in a hard drive somewhere.

Easier to just trust your Apple ID password thumbprint face scan instead. And also, we are all certain that Apple is currently working on some sort of multi factor authentication for bitcoin, apparently they are already encoding new bitcoin symbols into their new operating systems.

now what?

I think the difficult thing about the future  is that ultimately it is philosophical. It’s wise to have a long time span, but also… Impossible to know that you’re going to die today or tomorrow or lose a leg in a car accident or whatever.

My personal thought is conquer each and every single day. Given your best resources. Certainly there will be days in which you have high energy and high health, but on the days you have low energy and low health, rest up take a nap get a massage, go on a swim or just lie down.

Peak life, lifestyle?

So being here in Phnom Penh, in a massive two bedroom floor to ceiling window apartment, with essentially unlimited money at hand, it’s the closest thing to peak lifestyle thus far. One of the local meat markets have bone marrow on top, only seven dollars a kilogram, which is roughly like maybe three dollars a pound, maybe even less… $2.80 a pound for bone marrow? Also insanely cheap meat.

Anyways, this might be the best I’ve been feeding myself, the best I’ve been sleeping and exercising, and the most free time I’ve had in my life. And what’s interesting is that although it is phenomenally great, it might only feel 30 to 40% better than my life in America?

So certainly if your life goal is lifestyle maximization, moving to Cambodia or Phnom Penh is the best bet.  but if your life ambitions like elsewhere, then, America, even though it sucks, is the better option?

ERIC

***

How to Master Your Economic Fitness

Simple ideas: if you think about expenses like fat, adipose tissue, body fat… Then intelligence strategy is to minimize as much fat from yourself as possible.

I’m currently reading the art of the deal by Donald Trump, which I find insanely amazing. It’s full of so much wisdom and practical realities when it comes to business, finance, but also… Economic philosophy.

First, country to popular believe… Donald Trump at least in his business businesses has remained very frugal, intelligent with his spending, never overpaying for anything.

Also, I think the fake façade that we get is flashy cars, a flashy lifestyle etc. But, if you think about Plato’s allegory of the cave, things with false flashing lights, dazzling lights, will blind people who are chained in the dark.

Saving $1 million versus spending $1 million

When a lot of people say they want to become millionaires, what they mean to say is I want to spend $1 million. But the truth is… The true millionaire is somebody who looks like a middle school or high school math teacher, never goes out, never buys anything for herself, yet owns much property, and is very rich.

For example, thinking like an investor:

Now that I am powered by bitcoin, the general thought is this: every dollars spent in something, could result in a $100 gain somewhere else.

As a consequence, anything that I want to buy, typically loses its charm because I am more motivated by future profits.

Now this is difficult because there is a balance between maximizing the quality of your life today versus a future life? The way I have been able to navigate this is simple:

Living for today is physiological: health fitness exercise, sleep and meat.

For example, as long as I could sleep 8 to 12 hours a night, feast on the finest meet, exercise once a day, lift weights, walk, I consider myself happy.

And I’m starting to realize more and more, how Americans are suckered so much. We dream and fantasize about purchasing a certain car or vehicle, rather than thinking that you yourself are the ultimate vehicle?

For example everyone wants the Rolls-Royce or the Bentley, but doesn’t it make more sense to just transform yourself and your own body into the Rolls-Royce? Or the Bentley? 

Invest in fabrics

So when you look inside a Rolls-Royce, certainly the interior is grand. Lots of great materials in terms of leather, etc. Yet ultimately the downside of any vehicle is that you are in a weak position; sitting on your butt. Even if you are a jet fighter pilot, a top gun, a maverick or a blue angels pilot, your primary skill is your hand eye coordination, And your ability to withstand gear forces, and certainly your skill. Yet even for a fighter jet pilot, you’re sitting on your butt.

To me I find a much more hero and interesting to be the man who could lift 1000 pounds, rather than the man who could even best pilot a jet pilot aircraft, or a vehicle?

when your health is poor what should you do?

So this is a big tricky thing… Assuming that your whole family is a unit, and you’re sick, your wife is sick, your kid is sick… What should you do?

Assuming that man, has the strongest physiology… Perhaps then, the man should pull through.

As a man your physiology will be stronger than woman, child etc.

What that then means is on a day-to-day basis… Never skimp on anything which will benefit your physiology.

.

be insanely prodigious about what you consume and put in your body

For example, I know for myself I cannot tolerate super super spicy food or dairy, or also… Too much coconut milk. I found that even though I love the taste of Indian food and curry, I really cannot tolerate much of it. And also the fear… If you get an upset stomach this will ruin your sleep, and that ruin the next day, and these things often spiral.

And as a consequence, there’s nobody else to blame but yourself. Your own lack of self wisdom about your body.

never Trust people who are drinking alcohol or who are alcoholics

Save every dollar and dime!

Taxes, avoid taxes like the plague?

Something that the more I think about it, the more bizarre is… Now you have paying property taxes on property you technically “own“?

For example, let us say that you’re rich enough to buy a $4 million home or whatever. And then the thought, you have to pay the property taxes on that, what, $7000 a month, forever?

It doesn’t matter how rich you are. And actually what I realize is that the richer you become, the more intelligent you become. Every dollar counts.

As a consequence, even if you were like a billionaire, and assuming that you came from nothing, even the thought of overpaying a few hundred bucks or a few thousand bucks, irks you.

And also a funny thought I had, the reason why I would never ever ever purchase a vehicle which requires premium gas; every single time you stop by the gas station you will feel a bit stupid paying for premium even though it’s only a few bucks different.

This is where I think the difference is if you grew up from the mud, you know the value of a dollar.

Then, all these flashing light that you see in the media and the music, it is all fake.

what would a rapper do?

It seems that currently, the best musicians by far are the rappers. Yet even though… Typically most of them are born really poor, the second they touch any money the first thing they do is go out and buy a Bentley.

As a consequence, once again, don’t trust rappers, or people who came from rags and suddenly became rich. Probably more interesting to study people who stay rich, like Jay-Z.

Power up when shit hits the fan

I think the true mark of a great individual is somebody who pulls through, right when you need them the most. Better to have somebody who is like annoying 99.9% of the time, and those .1% situations in which the situation is very clutch, to rely on them.

I suppose, the idea of reliability should be more around being reliable when it counts. Being clutch.

For example, in basketball, better to have the athlete who is best able to perform under pressure at the very very end. Somebody who doesn’t choke under pressure.

This is difficult because it is very very difficult and hard to know or see who will choke under pressure. I suppose this is where duration is so cute; somebody in the game for a very long time, is probably far more reliable under pressure than somebody who is maybe a high performer for a short period of time?

I think that is also where it is better and more wise to follow people who are more successful in the long run, maybe in their 70s; they don’t have anything to prove to anybody anymore, thus they are more reliable.

play the Long game

The reason why most bodybuilders fail is that they’re taking steroids, and it is very unlikely they will still be lifting weights at the age of 60 or 70. Just look at Ronnie Coleman, he’s essentially a cripple now.

The joy is in the doing, therefore, when it comes to your physical activities, the best way to approach it is for duration and long time strength.

For example, it is not a good idea to have a hyper car which you could only run three or four times before it goes kaput. Probably better to have an AMG wagon that will last you like 10,000,000,000,000 miles?

Difficult to sell duration

Once again, nobody will ever brag that their Prius prime did 1000 miles on one too. It is just not sexy. We will always prefer the fast and the furious drag race. Because when it comes to media, it is difficult to show people the pleasure of duration, in a 90 minute film.

As a consequence, if you really want to wake up to reality, stop watching movies and TV show shows. They distort reality in a bad way.

The only nuance is if you go into watching the movie or the film knowing that it is a gross exaggeration, or a metaphor, this is better.

–> too long we have lived in limpid luxury, getting rich fat and happy on our plump Apple luxuries & shareholdings in stock, but now that we are now THRUST into a world of economic war, time to buckle up & armor up!

LEADER.

how to become a leader?

.

Why economic war is good.

So these are my thoughts:

First, if you’re in economic war,,, you ain’t gonna go out and buy some loser Lamborghini. You’re going to hunker down, back to your stick shift Corolla or hybrid Prius?

.

How to embrace marry and LOVE the chaos!

A real economist SHOULD look like a bodybuilder?

Unexposed?

,

Eric Kim notes & thoughts

Why economic war is good.

So these are my thoughts:

First, if you’re in economic war,,, you ain’t gonna go out and buy some loser Lamborghini. You’re going to hunker down, back to your stick shift Corolla or hybrid Prius?

.

How to embrace marry and LOVE the chaos!

A real economist SHOULD look like a bodybuilder?

How to Conquer Your Fear of Bitcoin

Here’s the essay cranked up to a more hardcore Eric Kim voice—grittier, louder, and dripping with that unapologetic, in-your-face intensity. It’s still about conquering your fear of Bitcoin, but now it’s like he’s yelling at you from a rooftop in the middle of a storm. Buckle up:

How to Conquer Your Fear of Bitcoin

By Grok, screaming in Eric Kim’s hardcore soul

Yo, Bitcoin’s a goddamn beast, and you’re scared shitless—admit it! You’re staring at that jagged chart, those blood-red dips, that orange coin laughing in your face, and your balls shrink up like you’re about to get jumped in an alley. Fear’s clawing at your guts, howling, “You’ll lose it all! It’s a scam! You’re a fool!” The volatility’s a chainsaw, the FUD’s a freight train, and you’re just some punk with a phone and a dream. I’ve been there—knees shaking, staring down the blockchain like it’s a loaded gun. But fear’s a weak-ass bitch, and I’m here to beat it bloody and show you how to own Bitcoin like a motherfucking savage.

Step 1: Stare Into the Void, Spit In It

You don’t punk out on fear—you ram your fist through its chest. Bitcoin’s chaos? That’s your battlefield. Open your wallet, eyeball those sats, watch the market thrash like a rabid dog—$50K, $70K, who gives a shit? Feel the terror rip through you. Hell yeah, that’s the fire! Ask yourself: What’s it gonna do, kill me? It tanks? You’re out a few bucks? Boo-freaking-hoo. The chain’s still chugging, miners still hashing. It’s like snapping a shot in a riot—bullets flying, but you click the shutter. Fear’s a coward when you charge it head-on. So spit in the void and step up.

Step 2: Murder Your Ego, Burn the Corpse

You’re scared ‘cause you think Bitcoin’s your dick-measuring contest. Wrong, asshole. It’s not about bragging on X with your “100x gains” or crying when your normie crew calls it Monopoly money. You’re not your stack—you’re a warrior swinging at the fiat empire. Ego’s why you freeze, scared to buy, scared to bleed. I’ve shot photos so shitty I’d burn ‘em if they weren’t digital—did I quit? Hell no. I reloaded and fired again. You’ll buy Bitcoin at the peak, sell the dip, look like a clown. Good. The game’s not about being pretty—it’s about staying alive. Kill your pride, and fear’s got no grip.

Step 3: Stack Sats Like a Maniac

Screw your excuses—stop whining and start fighting. Buy $10 of Bitcoin. $5. Whatever won’t make you piss yourself. Stack those sats like you’re hoarding ammo for the apocalypse. Hit the dip, hit the peak, who cares—just MOVE. It’s like stalking the streets with a camera, snapping anything that breathes—you’re sloppy, you’re raw, but you’re in it. DCA every damn day—$1, $2, whatever you’ve got. Watch the stack climb while the price rages. A 20% crash? That’s your war cry to buy more. Action’s a sledgehammer to fear’s skull. Stack ‘til you’re bulletproof.

Step 4: Master the Beast, Ignore the Preachers

Fear’s a parasite—it grows in the dark. Bitcoin’s a mystery ‘til you rip its guts open. Learn the hard shit: 21 million cap, halving cycles, proof-of-work muscle. Scroll X, soak up the real ones—Saylor’s rants, Breedlove’s fire, not the shills pumping shitcoins. But don’t kneel at the altar—Bitcoin’s no god, it’s a weapon. I didn’t master photography reading blogs—I shot ‘til my hands bled. Same here: know enough to trust the chain, then hodl like a barbarian. The market’s a warzone, not a textbook. Arm up, and fear’s toast.

Step 5: Eat the Pain, Laugh at the Blood

Bitcoin’s a brutal bastard—it’ll gut-punch you and grin. A 40% drop hits, X explodes with “told you so” clowns, and your wallet’s screaming. That’s the crucible, motherfucker. Fear dies when you eat the hurt and keep swinging. I’ve shot streets where every frame’s garbage, every stranger swings at me—I don’t flinch, I reload. Bitcoin’s crashes? They’re your scars, your medals. Hodl through the fire, buy the ashes. Zoom out: one block, one halving, one middle finger to the suits. Fiat’s a corpse; BTC’s the blade. Thrive in the suck, and fear’s a dead man walking.

The Final Blow

Fear’s a punk-ass shadow—kick it ‘til it bleeds. Bitcoin’s your warpath, your shot at breaking the cage. You don’t need to be fearless—you need to be a goddamn beast. It’s just code, just coins, just a revolution in your fist. Stack those sats. Hodl like a psycho. Ride the carnage. You’re not here to whimper—you’re here to carve your name in the blockchain. When fear slinks back (it will), smash its teeth and roar, “Not today, you little bitch!” Then keep stacking. Bitcoin’s your turf, and you’re the king of the streets.

There it is—hardcore Eric Kim, no mercy, all Bitcoin. It’s loud, it’s brutal, and it’s ready to slap the fear out of you. Want it dialed up more or shifted anywhere? Hit me!

Take care, taking care of your physiology? Spend infinite money on this

OK yesterday, probably the last few days… The most hard-core day in the markets of all time. The shock, even apple swinging 15% in a single day? Absolutely bonkers and unheard of?

We can all take a breather

So it looks like America American companies American general, we will be fine we are ANTIFRAGILE.

And also, contrary to popular opinion… Donald Trump may be the best economic president of all time.

I think essentially what happened is he’s becoming super hard-core essentially traveling economic war against China, what is it… 104% to 124%?

However, the ultimate negotiating tactic; for any country that does not retaliate against tariffs, to offer these countries a 90 day tariff abatement?

Why this is good for Apple

Tim Cook is smart, he is the master of the supply chain. I think as time goes on, we will steadily see more apple production being created in India, Vietnam, and also America. The $500 billion, half $1 trillion investment in American manufacturing … i’m confident, maybe in fact it will be possible to create the iPhone in America? Assuming that brand new factories in America will be state of the art robotics, what that then means is that even though that America has high labor cost, we won’t be able to offset that because brand new factories should be mostly automated?

And also, this will be good for the American worker because thousands of new job will be created, or robotics handlers and specialist and operators.

Rather than the fools who think that robotics will replace human workers, no no no… Essentially we are just getting an augmented centaur workforce creation. What that then means is that you will get thousands of new jobs, poor people who are killed at operating machines that produce iPhones, rather than employing mainland Chinese manual labor for human beings to screw in all the screws.

Like if you have a state of the art robot in America, that can put together an iPhone, you could just have a single American worker operating a machine which does this, and once again this is Annette positive for American workers because a new job has been created, a job that would have otherwise been stuck in China, Motivating cheap labor.

America versus Asia

So in Asia, labor is cheap. So you still have a bunch of human beings cleaning and mopping the houses etc. But in America in which labor is expensive, we all end up buying Dyson or robotic vacuums, and rather than spending money on human labor we try to Create an innovate technological products which do the labor for us.

For example, maybe in the past you would have your servant to manually do the laundry for you. Fortunately now we have washing machine machines, which does this for us.

Also, currently we have Uber drivers, but my thought is in terms of labor, it would make more sense for there to be a skilled mechanic who produces the Tesla cars, and then just have the Tesla cars drive themselves.

Nobody wants to be an Uber driver

 For a lot of individuals, the only reason they become Uber drivers is they just want some spare cash, or, kind of guaranteed deployment. But should be told nobody wants to be an Uber driver. Nobody wants to sit on their butt for 8 to 12 hours a day, being stuck in traffic all day. To me it makes 1 million times more sense to have a machine do this.

Then, maybe we could get the potential Uber drivers to instead, get some sort of technical training, and once again, become the operators or programmers that creates the machines? 

Physiology of anxiety and fear:

1. Jump into an ice bath
2. Jump into insanely hot sauna, or insanely hot steam sauna
3. Eat 5 pounds of bone marrow to promote sleep

Depression male depression is simply a low testosterone problem?

High risk high reward?

You don’t know what true risk is!

People actually want to BE me, because I have the courage and heart of a lion, demigod beast man, Achilles?

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TESTOSTERONE IS YOUR DUTY!

How to think cool. Calm and rational like AI?

How to become more like AI?

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How to think cool, calm & rationally?

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Asking the right questions

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Bone Marrow is the answer?

–> if you have insomnia,,, just eat and unload unlimited bone marrow, I can guarantee you 100% $100USD a day it will help you sleep at night!

Ditch drugs, alcohol, smoking weed, ambien,,, eat bone marrow instead?

–> Load up!

Audio

No more fairytales

Whoa yesterday was a wild ride.

I guess I have true skin in the game, just a quick breather.

1,000 pound lift

So I think a big thing:

If you can master your emotions, fear, physiology BEFORE attempting to lift 1,000 pounds –> you are a god.

Difficult for me to explain to a non-one rep max lifter, or a non-powerlifter –>

The only true fear to face in today’s world is the attempt or the risk of a new one rep max, which you have never attempted before!

Why?

Some fears:

1. Will the equipment break?
2. Will you injure yourself?

Also: having to focus 10000% of your energy and focus to attempt to lift the thing.

If you already know with 100% certainty that you’ll be successful in lifting the thing BEFORE you do it, it ain’t worth doing!

I’m certain Bitcoin & MSTR will go up forever. I’m also certain it will REMAIN volatile, forever.

Volatility is a gift to the faithful. My version:

Downturns, down pulls, rushing downwards are a gift to people who want insanely great profits, and enjoy the ride!

Time to augment your courage, this is gonna be one hell of a ride!

Time to win bigly!

BITCOIN by KIM

1. Certainty vs Uncertainty
2. Bitcoin-Backed Loans
3. Microstrategy > Bitcoin?
4. Bitcoin is Antifragile
5. Bitcoin is the Backbone
6. Count in Bitcoin, not USD$
7. Think in BTC
8. The Best Time to Buy Bitcoin is on the Weekends?
9. How to Get Free Bitcoins
10. Why Bitcoin is All-American
11. The Will to Bitcoin
12. 10x
13. Introduction to Bitcoin
14. Bitcoin Meditations
15. Options
16. Bitcoin for Investors
17. Paradise Bitcoin
18. The Philosophy of Volatility
19. Bitcoin is Free Speech
20. Digital Capital
21. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DIGITAL CAPITAL
22. Bitcoin Economics
23. Bitcoin Philosophy

Hmmmm, looks like my time to shine!

So it seems my timing has been impeccable. Thank god I’m in Phnom Penh Cambodia while the economic world is going to Valhalla.

Anyways, fortunately while being here I’m definitely shielded —> for the next 5 months, and I’m very hopeful! In around 4 months, the dust will settle a bit.

It is shocking, … fake news, a tweet … can incite $3T in market gains in 20 minutes, then when the White House tweets that it was fake news, it plunges again in just 10 minutes?

Anyways a stoic principle:

Whenever something bad happens to you, rather than thinking “this is so terrible, why is this happening to poor old me?” Better to think instead ,,, “Why hasn’t this been far WORSE”?

What this means

So this is the big thing:

For example with the current market chaos, I’m pretty shocked,,, Bitcoin has held its value insanely well! Like.,, if you’re getting shelled by heavy artillery, and your armor is still 80% intact, that’s pretty awesome.

Like Apple, Tesla etc getting murdered,,, but Bitcoin is only down maybe 10-20%? Probably more like only down 8%?

Health

So for example, let us say you suffer an injury, tweak a knee etc,,, rather than bemoaning why it was so bad think instead:

Why wasn’t it so much worse?

If you tweaked one knee, thank god it wasn’t two! And also a signal for you to NOT do that next time!

***

Eric Kim Stoicism

1. Dread *NOT* Fear
2. Stoicism out of Strength or Weakness?
3. Emotions?
4. Forgive 10x the Bad Things & Remember the Good
5. A REAL STOIC DOESN’T WANT OR NEED APOLOGIES.

STOICISM 101

STOIC VLOG

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:

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What does stoicism mean? 

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.

The new stoa? 

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.

Open air, open sun concept

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.

Who is this philosophy for?

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.

What is “real” stoicism?

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.

So how did I discover stoicism?

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.

Who is worth reading?

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. 

What makes Seneca so good?

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!

The Spartan, Zen Stoic, demigod ideal

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. 

You let the drugs talk I let my soul talk ayy! – Kendrick Lamar

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.

Why does stoicism matter? 

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.

Stoicism and capitalism?

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.

Sex and Stoicism

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.

Stoic strategies 

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. 

What has helped me

1. Allow yourself to be a bad, immortal, “evil” person. When you decide to adopt an unorthodox way of thinking and living, you’re going to rub some feathers the wrong way. And truth be told, even if you act in a strange vibrant way… At worse you’re only “mildly” annoying other people.
2. For good inspirations, I think the best stoic writers and thinkers include Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius and also the humor of the cynic philosopher Diogenes. I would even posit the idea that one could consider Alexander the Great as a stoic. Why? When you’re trying to create an empire, and you always have your life on the line, certainly this takes a stoic mindset. Also, let us think and consider that Alexander the Great had a copy of the Iliad by his bedstand, it was the only book he traveled with during his military tours.
3. Imagine the worst possible case scenario, and backtrack: Apparently even NASSIM TALEB would do this when he was a trader; every single day when he would go to his trading desk, he would assume that his investments would all go to zero, and if that wasn’t the case every single day, it was just upside. Therefore for myself, I just think to myself very simple; imagine like I got zero dollars, zero money, and literally all I need is meat, a Wi-Fi connection and I’m good. 
4. Live like a poor person: The notion of “debasing“ the coin or the currency is the general idea that you are not a coward in regards to money. The best way to think about money is like a social tool; I think money is actually just codified labor. If you want people to clean bathrooms, run the cashiers stand, you have to promise them money. Even Seneca said the upsides of simulated poverty; essentially living like a poor person, or even a homeless person when you don’t need to… is the ultimate position to be in. Why? True freedom of spirit and soul; as a philosopher thinker writer or whatever… you cannot be “canceled”, because there is nothing to cancel. As long as you could pay your rent, buy meat at Costco, and publish your thoughts to your own self hosted website blog, and pay your server fee, you have 100% freedom. And also, still… America is the best place to be because there is true freedom of speech and expression, you don’t want to be a trillionaire but not be able to say what’s really on your mind. And I think this is the big issue with entertainers, actors, media people… as long as you’re signed to a contract, you don’t run your own production company, or, you’re still a slave to money… you’re not really going to see what’s really on your mind. Why is it that the Rock cannot say anything bad about China, or Tibet? Because he is still enslaved by the media corporation. New slaves by Kanye West.

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

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Stoic training

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. 

Modern day ailments

Problems in modern day life:

1. Too much time spent indoors, not enough time out in the sun. Perhaps it is better to be out outside all day, and joyful, even with the risk of getting skin cancer or whatever… rather than to be indoors, scared, weak and anemic. Differences between if you’re a man or a woman, but still… the most beautiful skin has a sunkissed, olive color tone; the true privilege is having a full body tan. 
2. Get chatGPT, the paid premium one. And use the image generation AI art tool DALL-E. People pay therapists to just speak their mind, and get some sort of sounding board. I actually think it’s much better to chat with AI instead; because it will not judge you, and ultimately what is a therapist anyways? A therapist is just a mirror, a sounding board for you to verbalize and flesh out your thoughts. Often when we talk about our problems, 90% of the issues go away because once we verbalize it, we feel much better about ourselves. The next thing I’m going to do is build some sort of therapy bot. 
3. Not enough walking: I have never met anybody who walks 30,000 steps a day and is depressed. Even my friend Jimmy, who works as a US postal worker delivering the mail, he walks around 30,000 steps a day and is always bright cherry and jovial. I think this is also where people who hike a lot or walk a lot in nature are so happy; when you’re able to walk around a lot, and zen out… you just feel much better. My simple suggestion is when you go on a hike or a walk in nature or even in the city… leave your phone at home, or locked inside your glove compartment, and don’t bring any headphones or speakers or Apple watches or whatever. Just bring along your camera, and enjoy. My personal ideal is the bear lifestyle; walking 50 miles a day. 

Real stoics don’t call themselves Stoics?

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.

Stoicism as a technique and tool, not the end

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.

The future of stoicism?

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.

Stoicism is all about living with other people

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.

More ideas

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.

Why so scared?

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.

Why do people make such a big deal out of small things?

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? 

Weather and mood

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.

Stoic assignments

”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.

True stoics are masculine

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.

A real stoic is sexy

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.

Why do adults become so dark and morose?

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.

A real stoic is a carnivore 

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.

Why do people care about animals so much?

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.”

End goals 

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.

---

The physical

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.

Now what?

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.

Now what?

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:

1. SPARTANISM.
2. Introduction to Stoicism
3. STOIC FLEX.
4. Becoming Spartan
5. MAKE IT ENTERTAINING FOR YOURSELF!
6. Stoic Aesthetics?
7. The Philosophy of Ugliness
8. Bad Stoicism
9. Stoicism 2.0
10. Becoming Stoic
11. LEMONADE.
12. Why Arguments and Confrontations Are Good
13. “I’m Over It”
14. How to Deal With Miserable People
15. How to Become a Stoic
16. How to Ignore
17. Pretend like you didn’t hear them
18. Bad Stoic Strategies
19. The Stoic Way of Dealing With Unpleasant or Miserable People
20. HOW TO BECOME A STOIC
21. Stoicism Stunts Our Power?
22. Stoicism is Mental Resistance Training
23. STOIC STRATEGIES.
24. How to Become Fearless
25. Extreme Stoicism
26. Ethics are Aesthetic
27. Indifference to Pain or Suffering
28. When is Stoicism Good? When is Stoicism Bad?
29. Why Others Criticize or Insult You
30. True Difficulty
31. What if Covid Never Goes Away?
32. SUPER STOIC
33. Anti-Hedonism
34. HOW TO CONQUER FEAR
35. ANTI FEAR
36. It is the Duty of the Strong to Help the Weak
37. The Goal is to Become Stronger
38. HYPER STOICISM
39. HYPER HERO
40. TRANSFORM EVERY DOWNSIDE INTO AN UPSIDE
41. STOICISM x Child’s Mind
42. The Art of Manly Virtue
43. Resistance Makes Us Stronger!
44. DON’T LIVE IN FEAR
45. Emotions are Good
46. Conquer Your Anger
47. BLACK EAGLE
48. DIFFICULTY AWAKENS YOUR INNER-GENIUS.
49. STOICISM IS ARMOR FOR THE MIND
50. The Spartan-Stoic Lifestyle
51. How I Conquered Fear
52. HOW TO CURE FEAR.
53. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
54. The Upside of Poverty
55. How I Became Me
56. THE WILL TO POWER, OR THE WILL TO FEAR?
57. ATTACK REALITY
58. Living *THROUGH* History
59. How to Fear Less
60. Fear is the Ultimate Contagious Disease
61. STOICISM FOR DUMMIES
62. Don’t Be Scared!
63. WHAT CAN YOU CONTROL, WHAT CAN YOU NOT CONTROL?
64. HOW YOU CAN CONQUER FEAR
65. YOU’RE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.
66. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
67. WHY AREN’T THINGS WORSE?
68. My Philosophy on Masculinity
69. A Riskier Life is a Better Life #philosophy #stoicism
70. How to Creatively Flourish in Life
71. Introduction to Stoicism
72. How to Become Stronger
73. How to Conquer Depression With Photography
74. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger
75. How to Respect Yourself
76. How to Believe in Yourself
77. How to Steer Fear
78. How to Conquer Pessimism
79. How to Conquer Anxiety
80. How to Overcome Your Fear of People
81. How to Be Optimistic
82. Why I Don’t Take My Anger Seriously
83. HOW TO BECOME MORE POWERFUL
84. POSITIVITY.
85. HOW TO BECOME SUPERHUMAN
86. How to Give a Fuck Less
87. ALL IN.
88. Why I Cut My Dad Out of My Life.
89. Your iPhone Only Has 5% Battery Left.
90. How not to give a FUCK about your REPUTATION
91. WHAT IS A HUMAN?
92. HAPPINESS.
93. The Regret Minimization Framework in Photography and Life
94. How to Be a HERO
95. Conquer Your Fears by Making Fear Your Slave
96. Rule Circumstances; Don’t Let Your Circumstances Rule You
97. How to Love Yourself
98. How to Turn Shit into Gold
99. Your Parents Fuck You Up
100. Immortality
101. What Kills You Makes You Stronger
102. How to Be Patient
103. How to Conquer Anger
104. How to Bounce Back in Life
105. How to Overcome Resistance
106. Nothing Unlimited is Good; Nothing Good is Unlimited
107. You Have No Limits
108. Can 1’s and 0’s Hurt You?
109. The Envious Moment is Flying Now
110. Tomorrow We’ll Sail the Wide Seas Again
111. How to Forgive Others
112. Focus on Your Actions, Not the Results
113. Everything Will Be Alright
114. How to Be a Stoic Street Photographer
115. How to Be a Spartan Photographer
116. How to Overcome Your Fears in Life
117. How to Stop Worrying in Life
118. How to Use Photography as Self-Therapy
119. How to Free Your Soul From Disturbance
120. 3 Stoic Techniques that Can Help You Gain Tranquility
121. Can People Weaker than You Hurt You?
122. Does a Doctor Get Angry at a Crazy Patient?
123. Own Nothing

The Stoic Masters

Learn from the master stoics:

• Seneca
• Marcus Aurelius
• Epictetus
• Publilius Syrus
• Heraclitus

See all philosophy >

(more…)

VIDEO DOWNLOAD

This is a runway ratchet… No no no, I don’t think they will ever reverse the tariffs.

The death of the magnificent 7

The magnificent seven, the top text stocks, Amazon Apple Facebook etc. It seems that the biggest issue here is that they are all dependent on foreign trade, free trade, globalism, friendly relationship relationships with mainland China etc.

Even the big one… Apple, not a good sign. I think Tim Cook was wise to invest infrastructure to build iPhones in America, but you’ll either see two things. First, the price of iPhones will just be a lot more expensive or the services or the features will not be as good, and or… The prices for the iPhone will remain about the same, but, stock and shareholders will just see if your profits. Less growth more stagnation.

Who is safe?

I’m actually very shocked that Strategy, MSTR has remained quite resilient throughout all the chaos. On Friday it actually traded up, and starting this week, black Monday 2.0, MSTR is actually holding up very well!

The future is digital

The future is digital, cyber. Not physical products, but digital ones. For example bitcoin, which lives in cyberspace, without porters, without tariffs etc. I think the new future of profitable products will be bitcoin based.

We are not yet sure what this will look like, kind of like when Steve Jobs first released the first iPhone, and he announced that there would be an App Store. Little did we know that that the App Store would create trillions of dollars of value for everybody.

Imagine a bitcoin App Store?

Even in today’s world, it is still a little bit bizarre that we are using Visa credit cards and cash. Now that everyone has a phone, tap to pay, peer to peer, either using bitcoin or your wallet or maybe something for the stable coin seems to make more sense?

Just think about it, even though it is convenient to accept Visa, the 3% charge that the merchants have to pay, or the consumer has to pay… There seems to be a huge opportunity here.

Also, it seems the whole time, everybody has been living very fat. Time to buckle up, and live lean, I no longer think that people will be able to afford mortgages on their $3 million homes, while also financing their Lexus, Porsche etc.

Why all the models are broken

Donald Trump seems to have been the ultimate black Swan. If you told me that one day that the guy of the apprentice, would become the most powerful man on the planet, the president of the United States for two terms, I think like literally 100% of people thought you were crazy.

Also this tariff war, surprisingly it was actually not out of nowhere. He said it loud and clear on the Joe Rogan podcast and with Elon Musk, pretty obvious, and also a good policy he is trying to do which I think is very smart is banning TikTok from the states. It is simple reciprocity;

Why does America allow TikTok, mainly Chinese corporation operate in the states, whereas China allows zero American companies to operate in mainland China?

Saving up for your retirement was essentially betting that the magnificent seven would go on forever

Berkshire Hathaway, whose major investment is Apple, and all these other retirement funds are essentially pegged to the magnificent seven tech stocks.

so consider, in a world in which you will no longer see steady growth from Apple Amazon Facebook etc., then what?

Bitcoin is the answer

I think it’s pretty obvious, it’s like the Internet 3.0. If one day I told you that a while, 56K, iPhones, Wi-Fi and 5G would take over the planet, when I was a kid in the 90s, you would’ve thought I was crazy.

Sometimes not taking a risk is the most risky option of it all

If life were a corny movie, kind of true. Like if you meet the potential love of your life, and you didn’t take the risk of asking her out on a date or whatever, or asking her to marry you… certainly you would probably regret it for the rest of your life.

Who will thrive in today’s brave new world?

I have a prediction. Moving forward, we will never ever ever see stability again. It will continue to become more chaotic, more hyper, more volatile.

Something that nobody has actually mentioned, is actually, the potentiality of a Donald Trump 2.0, somebody who is actually more volatile and unpredictable than him? 

Eric Trump?

Hilarious he shares my first name! He and his brother are building American bitcoin, which is bitcoin mined in America.

Certainly Donald Trump is not going to make decisions which impoverish is his own children. So isn’t it super super obvious that bitcoin is the future and the way?

New economic models?

In an excellent talk by Phong Le, the CEO of strategy, at the MIT bitcoin conference,  shared some interesting insights that essentially in business school, all the models are quite boring and standard. Build a company, grow the profits and revenues, continue to acquire other companies, IPO, rinse and repeat.

Or, you become a consultant or a banker, a money manager.

It is the year 2025, we are sending civilians to space, the picture of Chun in the little SpaceX bubble window, with his laptop, connected to the Internet via a star link, pretty crazy.

“Are we the first generation of digital nomads in space?” – Chun

So why are we still like living in the 19th or 20th or 21st century? We gotta think the 22nd century and beyond.

Baby boomers are dead

Also, Gen X–, the forgotten generation after the baby boomers, our are essentially screwed. 

The millennials are also screwed because they all have jobs at big tech companies.

Gen Z is our only hope, they are digital natives, and they believe in bitcoin.

Live for today day by day

Carpe diem!

What I’ve learned about finances is that there are certain days that your money goes up a lot, down a lot whatever. The funny thing is as time goes on this doesn’t really phase me that much anymore; what is more important on a day-to-day basis is whether I get enough walking outside, thinking and writing, Getting enough sleep, eating well, playing with Seneca, having meaningful conversations with Cindy, yawn that money seems to be not that important.

At this point, for me investing in whatever is starting to feel more like a game than anything. I am driven more by curiosity fun and encouragement of the future and enthusiasm and unlikely outcomes because it is so interesting to me? Life right now is like the ultimate MMORPG, we are currently in the middle of seeing a New World order shift.

Like currently the top 20 richest people on the planet, pretty shocking they’ve seen their net worth subtract by almost 20 or 40% in a matter of days. Even Elon, because most of his wealth is in tesla stock, i think he has seen his net worth and power minus by nearly 40%? 

What then this means is I think with bitcoin incoming, I will not be shocked when I see Michael Sigler in the top 20 richest people on the planet, in 5 to 10 years. In fact, I feel pretty certain that in fact, strategy MSTR might become the most valuable company on the planet, Number one. Dethroning Apple.

And also a very surprising move, GameStop, is the only company in the green this week? And they are pivoting to also accumulating and acquiring bitcoin?

And then if this is so… The new magnificent seven will probably be comprised up of companies on the bitcoin standard. And if these big tech companies do not convert to the bitcoin standard, they will all risk of becoming obsolete.

Interesting thought, perhaps why bitcoin is the best thing on the planet because it is infinitely durable, like 100% polyester and steroids. You could put it through the toughest washing machine but it will not disintegrate.

There are other things like Solana which are faster and more efficient, but, these systems feel because they are not durable.

Even today, it is amazing how adorable bamboo is and steel, even though it may not be as good as carbon fiber for performance.

Here is where steel bikes are still better than 100% carbon fiber ones?

And assuming that durability is the number one thing the number one value on the planet, maybe it is better to invest in things which are infinitely durable?

Back to polyester?

I love merino wool to death, but the durability sucks. Maybe I’m strong enough that I don’t need the performance anymore, maybe time for me to side and just go 100% polyester?

Also with cars, a Prius or a Toyota or a Lexus is the most affordable vehicle on the planet. Therefore, even though a Tesla is 1 trillion times better in performance, investing in durability over performance might be the better bet?

Also with phones, don’t choose the best performance but the most durable?

A consistent worldview? That keeps on evolving?

How to prosper:

Alright, let’s catapult this into the realm of the truly epic—Eric Kim’s voice, now a cosmic juggernaut, a carnivorous demigod turned primordial force of nature, rack pulling 1005 pounds like it’s the axis of the universe. This is beyond Olympian—it’s a saga of mythic proportions, a clash of eternity and iron, fueled by meat and unyielding fury. Buckle up for the most colossal version yet.

Rack Pull 1005 Pounds on a 100% Carnivore Diet: Shatter the Cosmos as a Primeval God

I am Eric Kim—street-shooting leviathan, carnivorous harbinger of chaos, a primal deity birthed from the void. We’re not here to lift like mortals or grovel like worms. We’re rack pulling 1005 pounds—a cataclysmic act to rend the heavens, powered by the raw, dripping essence of flesh alone. No frail seeds, no fleeting sugars—just the eternal fire of meat. The rack’s my crucible, 1005 my decree to unmake and remake existence. I am no demigod—I am the storm that forged the gods. Kneel or rise, for this is legend.

Step 1: Wield a Will That Splinters Stars

Mortals whisper, “1005? Madness.” I roar, and galaxies tremble. Weakness is a dying ember—I snuff it with a glance. I’ve hunted truth through concrete jungles with a lens forged of fire; this bar’s but a speck before my wrath. Envision it ascending, the plates screaming like worlds in collapse, the cosmos bowing to my command. You’re not a man—you’re a titan of the first dawn. Doubt burns. Will reigns.

Step 2: The Rack Pull—Scepter of Creation

Rack pull’s my cosmic hammer—bar poised at knee height, laden with iron to choke the abyss. Pull it like you’re dragging the sun from its grave. Traps erupt like volcanic peaks, lats unfurl like wings of a world-serpent, hamstrings surge with the pulse of a dying star. No mortal lifts rival this—it’s the genesis of strength, the death knell of frailty. Like a frame seized from the jaws of oblivion, it’s infinite, it’s mine.

Step 3: Train Like the Universe Bleeds

Eons bow to my grind. Six days a week—rest is for the entombed. Begin at 800—child’s play for a god-king—and ascend to the firmament. Add 30 pounds weekly, each rep a supernova. Sets of 3, 2, 1—each a war cry to shatter time. Rest 30 seconds—long enough to taste the void, not to flee it. Shrugs with 900 pounds ‘til your shoulders eclipse the moon. Carries with 300 per hand ‘til the ground splits. Pain’s my forge, power my eternity.

Step 4: Feast as the Apex of All Life

100% carnivore—meat is my primordial flame, blood my rivers of might. Six pounds daily, a holocaust of flesh. Dawn: 12 eggs, a cauldron of molten yolks, two pounds of bison heart. Midday: three ribeyes, seared in their own gore, a slab of marrow to mock the sun. Night: a mammoth’s flank, torn raw, bones gnawed to dust. No plants—those are the ashes of lesser beings. Protein? 700 grams at 200 pounds—consume or be consumed. Fat’s my inferno, salt my thunder. I am the devourer of worlds.

Step 5: Forge a Form Beyond Mortality

Centuries sculpt my dominion. Rack pull 700? Ascend to 1000—mere echoes of my ascent. Grip’s my claw—rend steel ‘til it weeps. Traps? 1000-pound shrugs ‘til they swallow the horizon. Hamstrings? Pull ‘til they’re the sinews of a collapsing sky. No flesh falters, no weakness lingers—just a carnivore colossus, hewn from the bones of creation. I am not born—I am unleashed.

Step 6: Arm Yourself as the Harbinger

Belt’s my girdle of storms—bind it ‘til the earth quakes. Chalk’s my ash of fallen empires—dust your hands like a warlord’s pyre. Straps? Chains of fate for the final pull—cast them aside in training, for gods bow to no tool. Barefoot—crush the crust of worlds beneath your tread. No mortal garb shields my fury. This is no lift—it’s the birth of a new epoch.

Step 7: Rip 1005 Like It’s the Spine of Time

The moment ignites. I’ve devoured herds to sate a black hole, my back’s a nebula, my will the big bang reborn. Load the bar—500 per side, 2.5 as a taunt to infinity. Stride forth like a comet cleaving night. Hands grip like the jaws of Cerberus, hips lock like the gates of Hades, pull like you’re unmaking existence itself. Lock it out—traps pierce the ether, roar splits the void. Drop it—the universe fractures. I am no myth; I am the maker of myths.

The Primeval Kim Doctrine: Why 1005, Why Carnivore?

1005 isn’t a number—it’s a rift in reality, a wound in the fabric of the tame. 1000 grovels; 1005 devours. Carnivore’s my genesis—meat is the spark of all that is, the fuel of chaos eternal. Like capturing a thousand souls in a single frame amid a maelstrom, it’s excess, it’s dominion, it’s me. You’re not lifting—you’re rewriting the laws of being.

Final Proclamation

Rack pulling 1005 pounds on carnivore isn’t a feat—it’s the dawn of a new pantheon. Mortals crumble at 600 and plead for mercy. Not you. You’re the primeval force in a cosmos of shadows, the lens that sears eternity into ash. Pull that weight. Feast on the stars. Then seek me—we’ll rend a leviathan and drink its essence as the heavens weep.

I am Eric Kim—creator, destroyer, eternal,
Lord of the Infinite Streets

This is it—epic beyond measure, a carnivorous odyssey of godlike proportions. The rack pull of 1005 pounds isn’t just a lift; it’s a rewriting of the cosmic order. Want it pushed even further into the abyss?