ERIC KIM

September 2020

  • ERIC KIM PHOTO STUDIES

    Images I am currently interested in, and digesting and analyzing — from a variety of image-makers, photographers, visual and graphic artists:

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  • How to Live with a Partner

    Simple thought: Never compromise. Better to kowtow to your partner on 99% of petty matters, but be insanely stubborn on 1% of life matters.

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  • Self Development Over Happiness

    Virtue =/ Happiness The bias in philosophy: The end-game is to maximize your personal happiness (often hedonic happiness). Then comes the notion of ‘eudaemonia’ (human flourishing) or it literally means in Greek: Good (eu) + Daemonia (your inner-spirit, soul). What do you do once you’ve maxed out your happiness stats? I have had many days…

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  • How to Do More Work

    Not work for work sake but noble work; work you only care for. To not do any ‘bullshit’ work (busy work). I am convinced, much of the modern notions of ‘work’ (vainly checking your email, trudging through your todo list) is things we hate to do. No child likes to do busy work in school.…

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  • ANTI SWEET

    Bitter is betterThrow me a letter and send it into the airLet it fareWellBeWellDo wellDo good Do what you think you should in life; not what you think is ‘right’. There are no wrongs, only compromise. Look through your green eyes, and see it real. Keep turning Ixion’s wheel, and never tire. Keep flying higher,…

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  • Just Don’t Do Anything Which Hurts Your Pride

    Follow your prideDon’t do anything which hurts itYour pride is wise; don’t do fake virtues in disguise in desire for praise Ignore what the nay-sayers say, and tell you what to do. Follow your pride, your pride is wise! ERIC

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  • Mass Success is a Failure?

    If you get millions of views and followers perhaps it is a bad thing? Do millions of people own a Lamborghini? No, but we do got millions of people drinking Starbucks and eating McDonalds. Just because it is popular, it doesn’t mean it is good. Same goes with Android vs iOS/iPhone: Android is far more…

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  • Not *All* Indifference

    Just be indifferent to shit you don’t care for, but be insanely interested and passionate about what you truly care for. To extinguish all of your passions and feelings is a bad idea. Towards a critique of Buddhism.

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  • Google is Adware?

    A thought: I think if we really think about it, Google is just adware. I think people tend to get too caught up in the whole ‘privacy’ thing, when the real issue here the advertising thing. Perhaps in the earlier more utopic days, Google was supposed to be a tool to ‘democratize the world’s information…

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  • Tried & True

    More faith in tradition and the ‘tried and true’ approach than the new for the new sake (as Nassim Taleb calls it ‘neomania’– the mania (craziness) of the new for the sake of the new).

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  • How to Master Google SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

    Optimus means “best”. So think to yourself: How best can I architect or design my site which makes it easy for people to find my website/blog on Google or any search engine or YouTube (which is owned by Google and the #2 search engine on the planet?)

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  • Atoms vs Bits

    In today’s brave new world, it seems better to focus on bits than atoms. Why? Bits can travel indefinitely and aren’t constrained by space and time and are infinitely duplicateable. Atoms cannot.

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  • More Space, More Problems

    Something I have learned and discovered in life: The more space for almost anything, or the more space things take up, the worse. For example:

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  • In Praise of Patriotism

    Very strange bias for us liberal and left-leaning Americans: It is considered low class or unintelligent or unethical or “bad” to be patriotic or “proud to be an American”. Why this bias?

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  • Life Optimization

    In life we often optimize for the wrong things. We optimize for wealth, money, power and influence. But why not optimize what *really* matters… life itself?

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  • Productivity Towards What Ends?

    It is true that certain things and modes of doing things make us more “productive”. But the better question: Let us say we become the uber-productive individual. Once we have achieved this state, what do we desire to do with our productivity power?

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  • ALL USB-C EVERYTHING

    USB-C rules everything around me. All USB-C is best. USB-C phone (Android), USB-C laptop (MacBook Pro), and USB-C charging capable camera (RICOH GR III). USB-C as an ethos, approach, and aesthetic.

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  • Inefficiency is the Ultimate Luxury

    To not worry about being “efficient” in life as the ultimate luxury. For example, to have the luxury to cook and clean yourself (slowly); this is a luxury. It is the poor and enslaved class which needs to have “working lunches” at their desk with their sad microwaveable lunches. True luxury is to do things…

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  • No Brainer

    Simple thought when it comes to decision making theory: The best decisions are no brainers. You don’t need to rack your brain to make a decision. If the decision isn’t a no brainer, it probably is a bad decision or a sub-optimal decision. Thus when a certain opportunity comes your way whether it be something…

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  • The Future of Fiat Currency

    Fiat currency is faith based currency on the US Dollar which technically has zero intrinsic worth. But considering America has the US Dollar Hegemony on the planet this means: As long as America has the world’s most “lethal” military presence, the US Dollar will always be the primary global currency. Even consider when we are…

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  • How Do You Want to Be Remembered?

    RGB just died (rip). She will definitely have a great legacy and be remembered as a great individual. Which makes me wonder– how do we want to be remembered and for what? And why does it even matter? Legacy.

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  • ERIC KIM HACKER ETHOS

    The best approach is the HACKER ETHOS: You can control, hack, edit, modify, and transfigure reality to your liking! Or simply said: Just hack it.

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  • Maximize Your Archimedes Lever

    Figure out what you are really really good at (your ‘archimedes lever‘) in life, and then focus all your energies and efforts on maximizing and exploiting it! For me, this is blogging, photography, and teaching. I focus all my efforts on this, as a means to maximize my ability to impact society, others, and the…

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  • Wealth is Not Wisdom

    Let us not be fooled and suckered: Just because you’re wealthy and just because you’ve made a lot of money doing x, y, z doesn’t mean you’re wise. For example, we look at Bill Gates (the uber-nerd) and Warren Buffett as the heralds and sages of knowledge and wisdom. But … if we really look…

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  • How to Hack and Perfect Your Sleep

    I am convinced — there is no greater physiological joy than sleeping well. If you could give me a quadrillion dollars in the agreement that I would sleep shitty and poorly and only 2 hours a night for the rest of my life or make me a pauper but sleep like a god every night,…

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  • How to Become a Photography Blogger

    What am I, ERIC KIM? Technically I am a photography blogger. What is a photography blogger? Many things: I blog about how to make better photos I blog on the theory and philosophy of photography I blog about random stuff which interests me and I just attach random photos I like blogging and photography and…

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  • Blogging as Superior to Programming and Coding?

    Blogging was a mainstream thing when I was in middle school and high school. Programming and computer programming/coding yet wasn’t a “thing”. Computer Science (when I was in college) wasn’t really that popular as a major (it was all about pre-med, pre-law, business, engineering, etc). And the interesting thing: becoming a blogger has afforded me…

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  • Hybrid is Better

    How to maximize upside while clipping the downside? Hybrid. To hedge your approach: The upside of the new, and the upside of the old-school and classic. For example (unfortunately) a hybrid car (still dependent on petroleum) is more convenient in modern life (and also on the east coast). Electric Tesla cars are far cooler, sexier…

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  • How to Become a Street Photography Sharpshooter

    As much as I hate to say, shooting street photography is (kind of) like shooting a gun. For example when I was a Boy Scout during Boy Scout summer camp, I got all three (archery, shotgun, and rifle merit badge) all in one summer! And similar parallels between ‘Zen in the Art of Archery’ vibes…

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