Month: July 2020

Sociology: the art of breaking, bending, and transforming social rules, norms, and “laws”.

It is sooooo fun because you realize:

Reality is malleable.

Also:

You are strong enough and courageous and brave enough to mould reality to YOUR liking!

The trap:

Trying to mould yourself to reality and society.

The better way:

Realize you are strong and powerful. You can mould reality to your own liking! You got the hammer!

What is lifestyle, and why is it important? Some thoughts:

Links *ARE* the internet. Thus when in doubt, link more.

My quarantine lifestyle is uber-simple:

Wake up, have coffee, walk around, type out some thoughts on my laptop or iPad, make art, share, create, help Cindy, workout, eat meat, and sleep!

Then perhaps is the best life the most uber-simple life?

1. In Praise of a Choice Minimal Lifestyle
2. BETA LIFESTYLE
3. In Praise of a Ghetto Lifestyle
4. Park Lifestyle

What if the desire for us to travel were a vice, a bad thing?

Let us say you can never travel again. Then … ask yourself:

How can I shoot meaningful photos in a future without travel?

You are the brand and platform.

Create a solo company, where you can run the ship yourself? No delays problems or stresses?

This difference is soooooo important. Why? When we talk about “gaining weight” what we really mean to say is fat (adipose tissue) gain. And what’s the big health risk problem and public health problem?

If you’re a man with more than 10% bodyfat, or a woman with more than 20% bodyfat, you’re far more likely to get metabolic diseases (which worsen your life) such as Type 2 Diabetes (which is reversible by quitting sugar) and Type 3 Diabetes (also known as “Alzheimer’s).

Furthermore, metabolic diseases involving the irregulation of insulin (consuming sugar, alcohol, sweeteners [both artificial and “natural”]) fuck up our bodies. It prevents “programmed cell death”, which can lead to cancer (irregularion of cellular growth).

Hard to quantify the “best”. Easier to quantify “the least bad”.

“The good is mostly in the absence of the bad.” – Ennnius

Sign of physical health, vigor, and strength.

Standard photos are often so boring!

Emojis are the future of communication and emotional expression:

why do we like or prefer the foreign and exotic?

Why don’t we prefer the domestic and local?

The sword always cuts both ways, and this is good!

In other words:

What people see as your ‘flaws’ are actually your greatest strengths.

Also:

What you consider your greatest strength might be your ‘fatal flaw’.

My take:

All is good.

ERIC

Something good to ask yourself — WHY?

Every child is born a philosopher. If a child ever asks ‘Why?‘ — entertain the child forever:

Working out is like breathing for me:

Meat is the future:

It seems simple … create some sort of thing, service, or idea/technique/art which helps a billion people!

Facts:

The future … street photography video:

Simply put:

Fear marketing is most effective.

For example, telling people (or making a sign saying):

Put on a face mask to prevent OTHERS from infecting YOU.

The notion of “put on a face mask to prevent yourself from potentially infecting others” is not effective!

Simply put —

1. Increase your testosterone
2. Decrease your body fat (adipose tissue)
3. Increase your muscle mass (skeletal body mass)

To do this easiest:

1. Stop eating during the day (intermittent fasting). No breakfast or lunch, just a massive meat-heavy dinner in the evening once the sun goes down.

A business which promises you to gain more muscle mass (skeletal muscle) is good business. Also a business which promises you to lose body fat (adipose tissue) is good.

The best angle in photography … the widest and closest angle.

A world without hyper-links is not an internet.

Thus with your website and blog:

Link a lot… both to yourself and to others!

In praise of meat, cholesterol, saturated fat, red meats, etc:

GoPro … one of the most under-rated tools for artistic creation and expression:

I’ve never cared for politics. Why? My experiences and thoughts:

Art tech … art and technology (Jun Goodhouse Kim concept). Arsbeta.com. This will be the future.

The true origin of new wealth: “to make” (facio in Latin).

My personal critique on Silicon Valley. Why I’m pro-Peter Thiel, less so almost everyone else.

No such thing as justice. Capitalism is cruel, blood hungry, and feeds on inequality. To believe anything else is folly.

Whoever is anti Amazon and their labor practices and environmental stuff yet still has an Amazon prime membership or shops at Whole Foods is a virtue-signaling disingenuous person. I personally think Amazon is the shit. Why? It has made everything so much more accessible for me, someone who grew up poor.

Truth be told all my friends are miserable, none of them (besides my friend Kevin) is happy. Why? My thoughts:

Ads are anti-productivity. To become more productive, block all ads with a vengeance. Simple thoughts:

Some basic productivity principles and ideas which have helped me:

Simple strategy to get a lot of strong coffee (costs around $4.50) and a lot of hydration. And I just keep re-using the cup at home. Uber-convenient, fast, cheap, and Starbucks cold brew (no water, no ice if possible) tastes really good! Also Starbucks light roast coffee (blonde roast) tastes good too.

The best artist does it all; audio, visual, photo, video, podcast .. whatever!

How to thrive in today’s Brave New COVID World:

To provoke– to call forth. To challenge. To be in front of, to be for.

Now with COVID, it seems we are all spending more time in-doors and on our laptops. Less time and need for phones. Because… why do you need a phone if you’re never going to leave the house anyways?

Which makes me think:

Perhaps in terms of design thinking and life … we should adopt a ‘laptop-forward’ or ‘laptop first’ design thinking principles.

To become rich is ironic; to spurn wealth. That means:

You’re rich enough to *NOT* care about money.

Or like my friend Soren says; money is no longer your god-value.

The privilege of just owning a few (really good) things– the new uber-privilege of the rich.

In praise of just sharing everything:

If art is the goal, then perhaps we should also see our own blog and website as our own ongoing art project… forever evolving and in flux!

The philosophy of digestion: how we should perhaps think more about the importance of digestion; both physiologically and philosophically.

When we criticize others, we are actually criticizing ourselves.

When we praise others, we are just praising ourselves.

Perhaps our egos can only grow as a consequence of consuming other people, and feeding off their ego to augment our own ego?

Ignorance: choosing to IGNORE what is contrary to your own personal belief. ‘Ignoro‘ in Latin– to NOT know (‘nosco‘ in Latin means “to know”). “Gneh-” in Proto Indo European as “to know”.

According to Wiktionary ‘democracy‘ means “demo [people] + [cracy] “rule”. Which essentially means “rule from the people”. Or in other words:

All voices are equal voices, all votes are equal votes.

Also:

The people should rule the government; not the government ruling the people.

My thought and critique:

Now in America (and beyond) you are no longer allowed to have your own opinion.

What I mean is this:

The ‘thought police’ (Politically Correct “PC” culture) makes people scared to voice their own opinion.

America is great because we are a tolerant nation. But slowly, we are becoming less and less tolerant.

How I do it:

I consider street photography as the apex form of photography. Why? It takes the most guts. Also to compose skillfully while dealing with the anxiety/fear of photographing a stranger … the ultimate courage.

My theory:

Perhaps there is more intelligence in our legs, and muscles than in our ‘brain’.

My theory and heuristic:

When people come off too much as a “nice guy” on the outside, they’re probably the MOST to be suspicious of. For example people like Bill Gates, Mark Z, and Warren Buffett).

For example, Warren Buffett is hugely invested in McDonalds and Coca-Cola, which has probably caused more cardiac and Type 2/Type 3 (Alzheimer’s) in America and beyond. Warren seems like such a nice guy though… but when we trust nice guys, they do the most damage.

If you do not share your opinion, how can society progress?

A riff from Gary Taubes’ book: “Good Calories, Bad Calories”. This is my general philosophy and thoughts on food, nutrition, human physiology, and why Coca-Cola is evil (and even our best friend Warren Buffett cannot be trusted).

My thought: life will be “normal”, besides the fact we will wear masks all the time (just like Asia; Vietnam, Japan, Korea).

The rich and privileged will lock themselves home all day and just deliver everything (contact less). The poor and working class will exist in embodied reality. Ironically enough the future health (physical and mental) of the rich will be worse than the poor working class.

Only the truly privileged in today’s world can afford privacy. Note how all the really famous and successful people; what do they value the most? Their privacy!

First step in health and mental health: ruthlessly prune all toxic people from your life.

Street photography as a way to love others and strangers. Street photography as the path to mutual tolerance, understanding and love.

You photograph others out of love and respect, not out of spite and malice:

The future portfolio ain’t in print or physical; it is your website.

The most difficult thing for us to do as modern photographers — have the skill to choose our best images; the photos we truly care for:

One of the best ways I re-inspire myself in photography:

I look at my old photos and let them re-inspire me to keep making new photos!

When I look at my old photos, I feel the energy and the zest and the spirit *associated with* making the photo. I can feed on my own photos; the serpent that eats its own tail!

Towards an uber-robust way to handle, approach and think about entrepreneurship:

Run so lean that you will never run out of money!