ERIC KIM

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Archives for April 2019

Elevate Yourself

Elevate yourself, elevate you 

Elevate yourself beyond the UV— discover new hues. 

Beyond the blues and blacks, keep your creative attack strong. 

Avoid the throng and herd— fly high//sharp-eyed bird.   

What’s the word? Keep flying higher. Keep moving forward, ain’t no getting tired. 

ERIC

Visual Kinesthesia: Muscles and Art

A thought about art, music, ideas, music, technology, and other haptic feedback:

Perhaps what we are seeking is audio-visual-movement to stimulate/motivate our own movement, excitement, and vigor in life!

Anything which motivates me is good.

Motivation as meaning movement.

Whenever I experience anything that motivates me to create, think more, or feel more powerful — this is good.

For example, rap and hip hop music which gets my creative juices flowing, and puts my muscles into motion.

It also seems the best visual art to consume is the visual art which actually motivates you to go out and create more of your own artwork. Finding inspiration from other artists isn’t about fawning over their works into perpetuity; it is to discover a new source of motivation to create more of your own artwork.

We must think more of the artist as an athlete; create art which puts your muscles in motion!

ERIC

Thanks to Mark Ittleman for the idea on visual-kinetic synesthesia!

#nogenre

Never trap yourself in any genre, category, style, approach, or box. Escape all genres, and refuse to box yourself in anything.

Spontaneous Living


Don’t plan ahead, flexible, iterate, create spontaneously, walk spontaneously, exercise spontaneously, speak and act spontaneously?

A spontaneous life is a better life.

Spontaneous as meaning — “of your own accord” (living according to your own inner compulsion, gut, needs, and desires). Follow your own unique mode of living and preferences.

Eternal Creative Cycle

Treat everyday like a mini-lifetime. Create today as if you will die tonight.

To be eternally creative:

  1. Create things from morning to night.
  2. Perhaps fast until evening (no breakfast and lunch, only dinner) in order to maximize your potential for creative activity. Avoid “food coma” during the day, to create as much as you can during waking hours.
  3. At night, prioritize sleeping early (no watching videos or looking at screens/no audio-visual-kinesthetic stimulation before you sleep). This will ensure you will have prime energy for tomorrow.
  4. To find inspiration or motivation to create, walk more. Walk more through parts of your city or town which are more foreign. Perhaps shoot photos on your phone, and quickly edit and process photos on your phone, and share them to your own website/blog.
  5. Dont aim for “perfection”— just create for fun. Treat your creative play like a child (no rules).
  6. Maximum human lifespan is theoretically 120 years, yet you might live far less than that. Thus optimal strategy is to live everyday like you will die tonight (memento mori).

Creative Transience


All is transient in life — perhaps this is what motivates us to create great things? To try to conquer transience? Or perhaps we are forgetful— we forget the things we’ve made in the past, and we are hungry to create new things? 

Desiring an eternity for all of existence — perpetual creativity!

Bring Your Ambition into Fruition.

Bring your ambition into fruition 

Don’t dilute you, stay fully concentrated — no fillers, all killer 

Live your life thriller and thriller than anyone else has done, smoke raising from your gun. 

Pen new rhymes. Sing new chimes. 

Make new pics that explode with power

Make the tones boom louder. 

Let your inner-ambition fly and soar 

You got no limits— harness the whole world tour!

ERIC

No Faults

A thought:

There is no such thing as a “fault”. All different character traits of ours can be used however so, and the interpretation of our actions or behaviors being “good” or “bad” is socialized.

For example, let’s say you’re characterized as “aggressive”. Now, perhaps others say this is a bad thing — but in what regard? Certainly if you’re a boxer, aggression is a positive trait!

Or let’s say you’re not good at “focusing” and you’re easily distracted. Perhaps this is a good thing — you don’t follow bullshit, and you learn at a much more rapid pace.

So the takeaway is this:

Don’t see any of your actions or behavioral traits as “good” or “bad”, nor should you think of them as faults.

Your character traits are your “mutant powers”— simply harness that character trait and your personality in a powerful way. Yield your personality like a powerful tool and weapon of self-empowerment.

Be more unabashedly you.

ERIC

Maximize Your Energy


Conserve your energy— use your limited energy and maximize it!

That means:

  1. Don’t do what you don’t want to do— only do what you want to do.
  2. Don’t engage in any social interactions or activities you don’t find personally meaningful.
  3. Conserve your energy — don’t engage in petty arguments that are beneath you.
  4. Don’t engage in superfluous talks on politics or gossip you don’t care for.
  5. Figure out what you think is your “Archimedes lever” (your strengths) and focus on using all your life-force energy to maximize your personal impact. For example for myself, it is focusing on blogging, writing, sharing ideas, teaching, motivating, and making visual artworks.
  6. Don’t squander your strength on things you don’t care for. Curate your energy — and don’t let anything or anyone steal it from you without your approval.

Own Less, Appreciate More

You can appreciate and love something without owning it!

To me, ownership is overrated. Too much stuff to maintain, carry, organize, and keep track of. Best to appreciate things (art, cars, fashion, design, architecture, nature) without owning it.

Instead of owning stuff, just photograph it to “posses” it!

[Read more…] about Own Less, Appreciate More

Life is a Live Stream!

Your own life is a live stream.

Thoughts:

  1. Never stop streaming
  2. Never stop sharing your art works
  3. Never stop experiencing new things
  4. Delight in change, flux, and “real time”.
  5. Don’t desire anything else but the present moment; desire to extract the fullest maximum from now!
  6. Your life is the best life. Don’t desire to live the life of others, desire to share and stream more of your own personal life!

Why Criticize Others?

Why not just ignore others, and stay focused on yourself?

It seems the only reason we critique others is to prop up our own ego and self-estimate of ourselves by disparaging others (lowering them, and thus feeling more superior in comparison).

But why not build your ego independently, without the need to prop up or bring down others?

I propose the following:

  1. For a year try to never critique someone else outloud or in conversation with others. I think to critique others in your head is natural and fine; but just keep it to yourself.
  2. Before critiquing someone else, ask yourself: “Have I been guilty of that in the past?”
  3. Focus on yourself and ignore others.

Stay focused on yourself!

ERIC

Visual Hunter and Gatherer

Perhaps we as photographers are like our traditional “hunter and gatherer” forefathers, and our desire to photograph and make images is rooted from the same compulsion inside our human DNA?

Eternally Photograph Yourself

  1. Never stop photographing yourself (selfie, showing your soul through the photos you shoot and make).
  2. There is no final “state” for you to become or achieve in photography or art. Eternally delight in change, flux, and your own visual growth and evolution.
  3. Never stop experimenting with new aesthetics, new techniques, new approaches, and new types/styles of images.
  4. The point isn’t to make a perfect photograph, or a timeless photo book/product. The goal is to keep staying motivated and inspired to make photos until you die (hopefully at age 120).
  5. Never stop traveling, exploring new areas, experience new cultures, and meeting new types of people.
  6. Never stick with the same camera for the rest of your whole life; evolve with technology.
  7. Artistic productivity as the means and the final goal.