Month: August 2020

Photography— the gift that keeps on giving!

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Why have I never met a self-confident photographer with high self-esteem? My thoughts:

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The world is your visual oyster:

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An individualistic economics perspective:

Don’t worry about world global and macro economics. Focus on your individual economics.

Let us remember the first notion of “economics” is actually regarding home economics (Aristotle on Home Economics [Greek is Οἰκονομικά and Latin is Oeconomica]). “Oikos” as referring to “home”.

Also Hesiod on home economics (Works and Days, and his theories on household management— like starting your own farm, getting a woman maid, getting an ox, etc).

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A life without photography ain’t a life worth living.

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Just experiment and have fun:

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I think I got it figured out: it ain’t about the country life *VS* the city life … instead, it is about a ‘virtuous cycle’ between the both. Harnessing the barbell of both the loud and noisy city life *AND* the peaceful and quiet “country” life. My thoughts:

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According to the Ancient Greeks of the high period, they didn’t believe in “sin”. However they did believe in folly, foolishness and cowardice. Therefore in life don’t worry about becoming more “virtuous” or “good”. Instead focus on this:

Just don’t get suckered and duped by others!

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Super simple:

Just don’t do anything in life which bores you.

Is such a life possible? Of course!

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The new digital caste system:

1. The elite tech folks on top who ironically use almost no technology. No Google account or Gmail. No Facebook, Instagram or What’s App. Preference for hiking and doing outdoorsy stuff. Distrust of Google or Google Chromebooks for their kids.
2. The digital “untouchable”class addicted to cheap free entertainment on YouTube, advertising backed spammy click and tap/idle based smartphone games, addiction to mind numbing advertising. Too much of their self esteem in social media, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

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An essay on Millenials.

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Simple:

1. Become self employed (you are the sole proprietor of your business). In praise of solo entrepreneurship.
2. Don’t desire to buy stuff … desire to make, design and create stuff! In praise of design and designer thinking.
3. Don’t buy anything. Either get it for free or insanely cheap. Note— I was able to buy a brand new Android Motorola smartphone for only $150!!! And whenever possible buy used or refurbished.
4. Don’t desire to travel. Travel desire or the desire for the exotic as a form of escapism, or perhaps the new Millennial form of consumerism.

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My photos are my photos. Your photos are your photos. Then the goal:

Keep shooting (more of) your own photos!

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As long as you got a boss, you’re not economically independent. As long as you got a mortgage, you are not economically independent. As long as you desire to buy a house, buy a car, or buy x, y, z … you will never become economically independent.

If you’re indefinitely on welfare, a universal basic income, on unemployment etc … you’ll always be economically dependent.

For me, I prize my own economic independence above all. And the easiest way to do it … opt for this Stoic-Spartan-Ascetic lifestyle. I prefer a life of poverty and extreme freedom than a life of uber-extravagance and wealth and economic dependence.

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The best life is mostly “via negativa”. For example to become happier subtract more bullshit from your life. The best life is the life with the least amount of bullshit, unnecessary stress, cares, worries, or negative people and ideas. This means keel subtracting bullshit and only focus on that which you truly care for and love.

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The natural world is soooo insanely beautiful!

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A Maverick essentially means an “unbranded cattle”. Essentially the gist was this:

In order to *NOT* be controlled, don’t let anyone ‘brand’ (poke you and brand you with the hot-iron, to mark you as a thing of property).

This is why I find it hugely hilarious when people are so into brand named things. Do they want to be branded like cattle… to be marked like forms of property?

An interesting idea from the economist Henry CK Liu: this notion of “hedonic Inflation” . Similar to the notion of “hedonic adaptation” except more nuanced and also from an interesting economist’s perspective:

Why do our hedonic desires (related to base pleasures) continue to inflate while our income and money earning potential remains stagnant?

For example our income hasn’t really changed yet we have seen prices of almost everything creep up so much! For example our salary and income remains steady yet how we got $220+ sneakers, we got $1000+ smartphones and the prices of cars don’t seem to really be going down anytime soon. And certainly rent isn’t getting cheaper. So this makes me wonder:

How can we cut costs moving forward into the future in a meaningful and substantive way?

Also is the problem is that our hedonic expectations are simply getting higher or is it that from an economics perspective everything is just getting more expensive? Because while the truth of the matter is now that $1000 smartphones exist, you can still buy a brand new iPhone SE for only $400!!! You can buy a brand new iPad for only $330!!! You can buy sneakers on Amazon for only $20!!! But is it that we are simply getting too greedy for fashion, external social affirmation or something else?

My ideal:

Tools which are the smallest possible size, with the highest quality.

For example the best iPhone is iPhone SE. Best camera is RICOH GR III. Best clothing is Outlier.NYC black merino wool T-Shirt. Best laptop is 13’’ MacBook Pro Touch Bar (refurbished and maxed out specs). The best Tesla is probably the Model 3. The best gasoline car as Lexus UX hybrid. Best Leica lens is Leica 35mm f2 Summicron ASPH. Best Fujifilm camera is XF10. The best luxury car is Genesis G80. Best hypercar is McLaren.

In terms of my aesthetic taste and approach — strive towards the smallest possible with the maximal quality (note MUSE by KIM).

Let us not lie. There is certainly a hierarchy of human male forms. For example a man with more muscle mass and less body fat (also taller) is preferred over a man with less muscle mass and more body fat (and shorter).

Now there are some things we can control about our form and some things we cannot. We can control our ability to put on muscle mass and to subtract bodily fat. However we cannot control our height (this is etched in genetic stone).

So I suppose when it comes to thinking about the ideal male form, better to think to yourself (if you’re a man):

What is my own personal ideal male form, and what am I willing to sacrifice or do in order to attain it (no drugs, no steroids, no human growth hormone or strange metabolism enhancer or deregulators).

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With almost everything, subtraction is simpler, easier, more effective and often superior to adding. For example:

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Something people don’t think about:

I think the iPad as a creative tool is 1000x more interesting, useful and artistic than an iPhone.

Or in other words, better to get iPad Pro over an iPhone Pro.

My critique of Apple’s marketing and direction for iPad Pro:

The iPad isn’t a computer. It is a visual artist creativity art tool.

Adding all these keyboards and pencils is bad. Steve Jobs (while he was still alive) was insanely anti keyboard attachments for iPad and super anti stylus devices. Don’t you see what Apple and Tim Cook did after Steve died?

1. Made a big iPhone variant (Steve Jobs would have abhorred the notion). The iPhone “Plus” and “Max” as a monstrosity.
2. Introduced keyboard and the Apple “pencil” (I hate this notion) to iPad. iPad is best when you use it with no cover, no pencil, no external keyboard.
3. Made an iPad Mini (Steve Jobs deemed the “normal” size for the iPad as optimal). Even the bigger iPad canvas is something Steve would have hated.

The ultimate secret on how to become more productive:

Identify that which kills your productivity, and then ruthlessly kill the nodes of “unproductivity”.

For example for me it is the phone. So no phone for me. Also email. No email for me.

If the internet distracts you, install Freedom.to to block your wifi access. Delete or throw away mementos which remind you of negative past memories or people. Get rid of the negative emotional triggers in your life.

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Why I love to shoot videos of my food, or the food of others. Simple reasons:

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The notion of ‘calories in, calories out’ or the notion that we ‘burn calories’ when working out is insane. Trust no person who actually believes in this myth (as long as I keep my calories below 2,000 a day, I should be ‘healthy’ and not put on ‘weight’).

Why is this notion of calories such a charade? Let me explain:

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Something interesting I got when reading Juvenal’s “Satires”:

“Humanity has been on the decline, even since Homer’s time!”

And thinking about today’s brave new world, and today’s modern world-society I can also say:

Yes, society is on the decline. Humanity is on the decline.

My thoughts:

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My heuristic:

If I can plug-in the vacuum in the middle of the apartment and I can vacuum every single corner, the apartment is a good size.

Why this preference for such huge living quarters? My thoughts:

1. Either we’ve been socialized or duped into thinking we want bigger living quarters or homes (a case of “miswanting”). We see MTV Cribs and desire huge mansion homes… we get dazzled by the prestige (remember, prestige means “trick” or “magic trick” in Latin).
2. It is a non-concept to prefer smaller living quarters (the American mantra “bigger is better” fools and suckers us).
3. We don’t realize even if we are rich and have a huge house … we still gotta clean and maintain it! Even if you have servants or maids cleaning your house, there is hidden anxiety that they may be stealing your shit.

Morale of the story:

Choose higher quality (luxury) apartments, but opt for the smallest space possible (MVL, minimum viable living).

ERIC

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Simple:

When others criticize or insult you it is because of their own personal anxieties, their own personal self-hate, and their own personal misery.

Morale of the story:

Disregard any criticisms and insults of others as a reflection of their own personal weakness, timidity, or cowardice.

Ignore the yelping puppies. You’re a dragon.

ERIC

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I hate to admit this but it seems life and society is only worth it if there is division, there is hierarchy and there is distance (“pathos of distance” as Nietzsche says) between different social classes.

The nuance:

You can be poorer, but more elite than someone who is very rich (but enslaved to his or her job).

For example if you’re a consultant earning $500,000+ a year but you have no control over your own life, you’re just a very rich (low class) slave.

Money is nothing to us. Instead it is about personal freedom and autonomy over our life, freedom to think, sleep, nap, challenge preexisting dogma and to plumb new sources of knowledge and to share that knowledge and wisdom with others!

The Coca Cola Corporation as well as Pepsico has probably *CAUSED* more death in America than any other entity (indirectly through diabetes (Type 2 Diabetes which is via over-sugar consumption and also Type 3 Diabetes which is just a metabolic disease of the mind caused by insulin-imbalances in the body, trigger via over-sugar consumption).

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Your voice is your own voice and cannot and *should not* be changed.

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I think it comes down to fear, envy or jealousy. For example I’ve noticed a lot of (rich) folks in Hong Kong hate the “mainland”Chinese because they’re so rich.

Then in Vietnam there is a strong anti-China sentiment because of the tenuous relationship with China colonizing Vietnam for so long.

And the Koreans hate the Chinese (the slur is to call a Chinese person a “짱께”to perhaps mock their language) because China is the powerful dominant country (중국 literally means “center country”), and also because Koreans want to build their own distinct culture (even though Confucianism and many scholarly traditions are adopted or borrowed from the Chinese).

Americans are anti-China because America sees China as an economic threat. I don’t fear World War 3 because in fact, the future warfare will be an economic one, not a bloody one. Also a war based on ideology.

Morale of the story:

I’m not afraid of China. In fact, I admire their brazenness, their “lack of standard morality”, and their long-term vision.

Just use and abuse it! The more wears, tears, holes and patina it has… the better.

Free inspiration and motivation on ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER

Dear friend,

Some quick thoughts on discovering your own voice in photography:

First of all, start with your voice. Each person has a unique voice particular to only him or herself. No matter what, you cannot change your voice which means:

Have pride in your voice.

Second: then think to yourself:

How can I best make photos which reflect my voice, instead of making photos to please others?

This means:

Know what your personal voice and style is and THEN figure out how to make photos to best reflect your voice.

One again:

Discover who you are as a human being, and make your photos follow.

Why this distinction? Too often we try to go out and make ‘good photos’ (whatever that means). Instead, better to simply live your life and have your camera tag along.

Some basic ideas:

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The brave new world of education:

First of all… we have proven we can still teach (although not as effectively) online vs in person. Certainly the in person learning experience will always be superior but I’m more interested in this notion:

What do we *really* want out of education?

We send our kids to school… but for what? Towards what ends? Job training? Life training? Free baby sitting? Knowledge and wisdom augmentation? What exactly?

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The biggest difficulty in our photography:

How to cull down our photos and get down to our best phones.

Or to “separate the wheat from the chaff”. Some thoughts:

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We must think it ain’t just about shooting, taking or making photos — it is the whole *experience* of making photos.

The word ‘experience’ is also tied to the word ‘empirical‘ (tied to reality, real life). ‘Experience’ comes from the Latin “experior” which means “to test, to try, to attempt, to prove, or to ‘put to the test’). And as you do, you practice and learn and discover a deeper truth about x, y, z.

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To be self motivated in photography means:

I love the act of making photos, I love looking at my photos … I love the whole photography *experience*.

Thus because you love it … you keep doing it!

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The first step to sincerity as a photographer — ask yourself:

“If nobody could ever see my photos but myself … would I still make photos?”

If the answer is ‘yes’ … this is great! You will never run out of motivation to keep shooting, because it is for selfish (auto-telic reasons) which means you are auto (self) motivated to shoot.

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In life, and in photography and art design think and shoot outside the frame! The frame can often be a “Procrustean bed”. Refuse to be bounded!

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All lives are equal, and all lives are equally legitimate. Thus your goal then is:

Just share your own life as openly, freely, and open-heartedly as possible!

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In life, we are constantly in a stream of becoming. Thus when it comes to your life pursuits or how you live your life … recognize:

You are always becoming (more of) yourself, and (less of) yourself.

What this also means is this:

As a creator, don’t be too worried about longevity or good or bad or whatever. Just keep making stuff and keep sharing stuff.

Towards a more ‘iterative‘ or ‘bricolage’ (trial and error, learning through practice) approach to life.

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When in doubt, prioritize your own body and personal form, physique and bodily composition above all.

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A quick pump at my home gym:

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Questions:

1. Why do we love growth so much?
2. How do we perceive growth and quantity it?
3. Is it useful or good to quantify growth?
4. If you don’t track your growth but you’re still growing, does it count?

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Sketches from Bugatti —

The perfect synthesis of beauty and force.

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If we study the highest point of human civilization and culture (Ancient Greeks and Romans) you will see they deified the human body and form above all.

In modern times, we prefer luxury goods, cars, watches, devices and stuff. How come no more deification of the human form?

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Something I don’t really get or understand:

If you’re an American, why be anti-American?

Or in other words:

If I’m an American, why am I not allowed to be “proud to be an American”?

For example, there doesn’t seem to be a concept such as “American pride”. There is Gay pride, there is “Asian Pride” (popular when I was a kid), etc.

Shouldn’t people from a certain nationality, ethnicity, race, etc be proud of their nationality? Or where they came from? Or their ancestry?

Extreme otium (leisure) necessary to pursue very interesting ideas and to plumb more interesting thoughts, knowledge, ideas, and wisdom.

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Pseudo-choice, pseudo-individualism in modern capitalistic and modern consumerist society. For example:

Did you know that a Lexus is just a re-branded and expensive Toyota?

Or,

Hyundai owns both Hyundai *AND* Kia?

Or,

The Volkswagen group owns 12 car brands which include the VW (Volkswagen car), Audi, Bentley (yeah, a Bentley is just a very expensive VW car), Lamborghini (yes, the VW group owns both Lamborghini *AND* Porsche!!!), Ducati, Skoda, Sear, etc.

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So… what is an Audi car? Just an expensive Volkswagen car. An Audi A-series car is just a very expensive Jetta or Passat. What is a Lamborghini Urus? Just a re-branded and more expensive Audi Q8-series car. What’s a Porsche Cayenne car? Just an expensive Volkswagen SUV. What’s a Porsche 911 car? Just an expensive (souped up) Volkswagen Beetle-Bug. What’s a Bugatti? Just an insanely modded out Lamborghini.

Schizophrenia:

Having a “schism” or a split in your mind.

I think I might have “low-key” schizophrenia. When I write, I am no longer me (ERIC KIM). I feel as if when I write I can speak as an authority … sort of like a voice beyond me. Certainly I am grounded to reality and do not see strange apparitions, I don’t hear voices nor do I sense any weird stuff. I am not spiritual. I don’t believe in religion (literally). I’m a pure empiricist, I like logic, I like hard facts, and I am a huge skeptic.

My dad had “high key” schizophrenia (he heard voices, told me that Lucifer talked to him, and my dad would say he saw signs of the devil or Lucifer when he zoomed into pixels on my website or whatever). He went on strange rabbit holes on Wikipedia and said that he has to “save a village” or “save a town” (kind of like Nietzsche when he fell into madness). In fact my dad read Nietzsche and Zarathustra.

So I wonder … perhaps my great fortune is having been born to my dad (high key susceptibility to schizophrenia) and my mom (the most warm, kind hearted, and social person and ultra grounded to reality) and this made me the ideal hybrid. I wonder … great artists, philosophers and thinkers are part “autistic” or “asbergers” or “schizophrenic” (Kanye West) … yet can still function well in society?

The trend I see happening to men:

Softer, more fat (more adipose tissue on men above 10%).

Less consumption of meat. More trends towards “plant based” diets, or “meat in moderation”, or “only lean meats like chicken breast”, or “only red meat once in a while”, or trends towards vegetarianism or veganism.

And on the other extreme … guys and kids and teenagers and everyone in between getting suckered by protein powder, creatine, casein protein, supplements, energy drinks (no sugar), steroids, human growth hormone, gear, testosterone supplements (either oral or injected in the left butt cheek), or other weird stuff.

Kind of a confused aesthetic. On one hand, to be stylish and cool with street wear clothing from the 90s, one cross earring on the left ear, some kind of weird bleached blonde hair, and it being cool to be “anti social”. Inability for men to hold eye contact, make an open and candid conversation. Less ability for men to soak lie without alcohol, weed, or other weird drugs.

Also modern tastes — it is inappropriate for a man to be “masculine” or to openly process he likes to eat meat. Yet in private he still watches sports with a passion, watches UFC fights, jerks off to porn (RedTube or YouPorn or Reddit NSFW/Gone Wild, or Japanese porn torrent off of PirateBay). But appropriate for men to “flex” their masculinity via their car (Tesla, BMW, Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, etc), their bank account or their clothing style, or their watches (Rolex, Panerai, etc). No tolerance for men to be loud.

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A realization while living abroad in Vietnam and Japan for around 2 years:

We in America have too much stuff… stuff as codified as “matter”.

The reason I’m an elitist minimalist is because I prefer less stuff and matter. I prefer having less stuff to manage. I prefer less bulk, less weight. I don’t like superfluous add ons.

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The bad trend:

Rather than following and listening to our own design aesthetics, we are always so quick to kowtow and bow down to the design trends and aesthetics of others.

For example, the “matte black” aesthetic has become quite in vogue now. But when I was a kid and teenager, I always thought it was really ugly. My ideal aesthetic was red car, black carbon fiber hood, carbon fiber trunk, and gold or bronze rims. Also all the kids at school who wore “goth” (all black) outfits were lame. Now to wear “all black everything” is the trend.

Even worse, it seems right now amongst teenagers and college kids the “90s” aesthetic is popular and cool. But I see it as really ugly. Even as a kid in the 90s growing up, I thought the aesthetic was ugly. I personally preferred the clothing aesthetics when I was in college (more form fitting clothes, more muscular build, kind of the “metro-sexual” look, but more masculine with a touch of femininity).

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A bad trend in design:

You cannot open it, you cannot fuck with it, you cannot fix it (yourself), you cannot modify or change it.

This is due to the genius and tyranny of Steve Jobs (much to the distress of Steve Wozniak). Wozniak wanted to create Apple devices which could be changed, modified, and expanded. Steve Jobs didn’t. The philosophy of Steve Jobs:

The users are stupid and will fuck things up.

Now Steve Jobs is partially right. There are a lot of people like your mom and my mom that just want something “that works”. But perhaps for other people like me and you (we have the hacker ethos) — we would faaaar prefer having ultimate control, flexibility, modificability, and the ability to hack, change, modify, and add (or remove) to things! Perhaps this is a reason I don’t want a Tesla:

With a Tesla, you cannot modify and change it.

The Tesla is certainly a work of art. But would you rather buy a work of art, or create YOUR OWN work of art? I’d choose the latter. This is why social media is also lame:

On Facebook, Instagram, etc … you cannot change and modify your profile and account the way *YOU* want it to be. You can change basic stuff like your profile picture or whatever … but that’s insanely basic and boring.

My belief:

There are no “problems” in the world to be “fixed” (this implies there are ‘broken’ things in the world or that somehow people are ‘broken’ or need to be ‘fixed’).

Instead I believe life is most fun and interesting when we work on epic challenges which we consider interesting, curious, and fun to us!

A day in the life of ERIC KIM. My fun workflow:

1. Shoot all videos on RICOH GR III in cross process filter mode, 1080p, 60fps.
2. Import all .mov videos to folder on MacBook laptop.
3. Drag all .mov RICOH GR III videos into iMovie
4. Delete sound, add BEATS by KIM
5. Export as video, and upload to my YouTube and here!

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Is it truly your own personal moral and ethical imperative to help others?

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Is it the duty of the strong to help the weak? I think so.

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When others are critical of me, they judge me, or they criticize me … I don’t mind so much. I just hate it when people insult me or harass me.

For the most part, I enjoy my zen-like zone, focus, and peace of mind to think deep thoughts, to think turbo thoughts, and to pursue my art!

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To be judged is fine. However to insult is bad.

Then for us our ethics should be:

Judge others with love and sincerity. But don’t insult them. Certainly not behind their back *nor* to their face!

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The closest link to the word ‘think‘ comes from the Proto-Indo-European ‘*teng-‘ which means to think, to know, and to feel. Some thoughts:

First of all, why think? What is the critical importance of thinking?

Two — is it useful to think for thinking sake?

There — how can we think more?

My ideas:

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I am totally for people who decide to go vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons or religious reasons … but for physiological or ‘health‘ reasons … this seems nonsense.

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A further inquiry on why we think laziness is a vice:

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To be ‘critical’ comes from the Ancient Greek ‘kritikos‘ which literally means “to judge”. Thus when it comes to any knowledge, informations, opinions or ideas… go to the source (primary documents, not human-centipede secondary documents) and judge for yourself.

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We all go ga-ga over how to get more followers, likes, blah blah blah. But how come we never ask:

*WHY* share your photos?

Some of my thoughts:

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Simple reasons:

First of all, I like having the control. The control what goes into my food and what weird crap *DOESN’T* get put into my food. For example with restaurants my biggest problems include:

1. I can never eat enough meat to feed myself (the other night I ate 1.5 pounds of steak and 5 pounds of chicken) as well as a bag of collard greens and a bag of frozen kale.
2. Restaurants take too long. I don’t like to wait.
3. Too expensive to eat out. I can buy pork for only 99 cents a pound!!! I can buy steak for only $2.99 a pound!!! I can buy a dozen eggs for $2 USD.

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Towards a critique of the false narrative that human nature is to be ‘lazy’:

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The best ideas:

You wake up, and you already have an idea you want to write about.

The problem of modern society:

We wake up, and we are spurred by external promptings (checking our email, text messages, social media messages, news, etc).

Solution:

1. When you get home, turn off your phone totally off. When you go to sleep, ensure your phone is OFF (hard off).
2. Don’t wake up with an alarm clock. If you need an alarm clock, buy one of those external “stand alone”alarm clocks.
3. If you want to get some good morning writing done, use a device that doesn’t have access to email, text messaging, messages, whatever.

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There is no difference between watching the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) or “professional wrestling” and politics. If you don’t think that wrestling is real, then you should also accept politics also ain’t real.