ERIC KIM

Augment Yourself

Augment yourself. Make yourself bigger, stronger, and more grand.

iPhone xs selfie

Strengthen your bones, sinews, and muscles.

Strengthen your willpower, determination, and desire to achieve more, be more, and become more.

What is the ideal companion/partner/lover?

To me, the ideal life partner is someone who augments you. Someone who helps you achieve and become more.

For example, if it wasn’t for Cindy, I wouldn’t have had the impetus to start the Photography Club at UCLA, travel Europe as a backpacking college student, start this blog, start the ERIC KIM FORUM, or start HAPTIC or ARS.

Is bigger better?

Contrary to my fellow Americans, I don’t think that big is always better.

I think we equate bigness with strength and power. Thus, it isn’t the bigness we are drawn to — we are drawn to the idea that the bigger thing is a better, more capable thing.

For example, people assume the bigger the camera, the better the image quality. But we all know that isn’t always true.

In short,

We are seeking more powerful tools to augment ourselves.

Why augment yourself?

“I’d rather die enormous than lie dormant.” – JAY Z

The cool thing about life —

You can live your life however you want.

You can design and build your own life for yourself. There are always tradeoffs and consequences with the life you decide to live, but you must ask yourself:

How bad do I want it? How important is this to me?

For example, to me — the ultimate thing I desire is autonomy, freedom, and self-control. Anything which impinges on my personal life evokes the hellfire of Valhalla.

The simple things

Ever since I was young, I never really cared for money. I liked joking around, modifying my 1991 Sentra SE-R (I always loved to tinker and upgrade), build gaming computers (Counterstrike 1.6), playing Texas holdem with my friends, drive around, go on adventures, play sports (football and tennis), and blog (I’ve been blogging since I was 15).

Money to avoid misery

From an early age, I knew that money didn’t buy happiness. Yet, I knew that gambling money fucked up families. I knew that NOT having enough money to pay the rent, or fix the bald tires on your car during the rainy season, not fixing your brakes (because you didn’t have that extra $300) was horrible.

“Having money isn’t everything; not having it is.” – KANYE WEST

Which means,

Money isn’t everything to life. Yet not having enough money to cover the basics of life is the most horrible shit.

So at this point, I am not really that personally interested in augmenting more personal wealth for myself. I am more interested in paving new innovations in thoughts, ideas, with technology, art, entrepreneurship, photography, and life.

The great thing is this:

To innovate ideas, you don’t need much. Just eggs, coffee, and WiFi.

You just need access to any internet connected device — a phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, whatever. It is the ultimate liberation to pioneer new and brave ideas, and to share them online on your own website, platform, or blog.

Self-Augmentation

Anyways, to sum up —

  1. Augment yourself: Get stronger by lifting heavier weights at the gym, attempting greater things in life, and augmenting your own intellect and muscles.
  2. Seek others who augment you: Your life partner must augment you — otherwise they’re just a companion (something a dog can do). Also with friends, family, or others ask yourself: “Do they augment me, or do they just leech off me!”
  3. Seek technology which augments you: Be honest and ask yourself, “Is this piece of technology a tool or a toy?” Tools are good, toys are bad.

GO BRAZEN!
ERIC