Month: November 2020

Sunshine beautiful sunshine!

Meat glorious meat!

MONOCHROME GYM: Great lighting, very interesting aesthetic and approach:

Why do we feel so alienated and lonely in modern times? Because of the change in social spaces. Covid 19 has accelerated and augmented the shift for us to be more antisocial, more stuck at home, and more lonely. A stay at home quarantine lifestyle away from other humans is the worst lifestyle.

What’s our goal? To keep growing. Larger than life. To continue to grow in size, stature and bulk.

And it isn’t about how objectively big you are or not, but your perception and acknowledgement of your growth. For example seeing yourself bigger, stronger and more massive today than yourself yesterday!

Inspiration literally means to “in+breathe” while expiration means “out+breathe”.

We seek artistic inspiration… but what if we also need artistic “expiration” (a breathing out of art work or concepts or ideas) in order to create an artistic flywheel between the inspiration *and* expiration side of art?

The gym as the ultimate playground to test your courage; and not to succumb to fear and horror!

FIRST SENT ON ERIC KIM NEWSLETTER >

Dear friends, a motivational photo thought:

You are what you photograph, and you photograph what you are.

The point ain’t to photograph anyone else who isn’t you, but to photograph YOU. To photograph your own life. Your own wife. Your kids, your partner, your friends. Your daily activities.

And towards what ends do you photograph? Because as you photograph, you are giving a kiss to everything you shoot. Meaning, photography is signaling gratitude towards yourself in your life in terms of what you value. The photographer photographs what he or she values.

And why share what you value? Because it brings you joy to share what you value, and it also inspires and motivates others to share what they value. And the more you can get others to share what they value, the more you can change the world!

The best life is the life in which you direct all your energy, force and courage towards things you can control, while realizing almost everything else is outside of your control, and that’s fine!

The two vices which grip mankind and hold back man from his fullest potential.

What would a life look like in which we had no horror or fear? Perhaps the best and most noble life!

Great health not for the sake of it. Great health as a means and as a road to great creative thoughts, which will lead you to great creative productivity (to think great thoughts and produce great art works, ideas, photos, videos, blog posts, essays and more!)

Not new cameras, not new lenses, not better smartphone cameras, new formats, etc.

The future of innovation in photography as technique, approach, new modes of sharing and publishing your work, innovations in photo-video-animated GIF hybrid, innovations of philosophy, and ways to more effectively filter, sort, edit and select your best works!

The difficult thing to reconcile in photography:

Thinking about our past, present, and future photos.

For example, I think most of us photographers tend to get stuck on our past photos, and as a result we forget to focus on photographing the present moment (right now, today) while also looking forward to FUTURE photos (future life, future experiences, etc).

In fact what I think is this:

The best photos photos are the ones yet to have come!

My personal greed and desire:

To do more, experience more, and become more in a single given day!

Arcade as a great place to shoot photos and videos!

The bright new optimism for our future as photographers: the reminder —

With every new rosy fingered dawn means a new day for us as photographers and visual artists to make new photos!

Our goal:

Never stop climbing for higher heights … literally and metaphorically!

In Praise of One Rep Maxing for Dumbbell Press

Safer, more fun, interesting and independent than one rep max bench pressing:

What’s the difference between nature and man? Nature grows organically while man builds.

If we think about our cities, our malls and all our man made creations … it is all predicated on this notion of growth (via building!)

Towards what ends do we build? To continually build and grow the human spirit. No end!

This is often the problem:

We get suckered by what looks more sophisticated (silly exercise balls and “mobility” stuff at the gym) rather than what is more *effective* (one rep max deadlifts, squats, chinups, etc).

Why this bias? Marketing. It is easier to sell which seems more complex and “fancy” than what is simple.

To save money for the sake of saving money or refusing always to use money and resources is foolish and scrooge-like. What we gotta determine and figure out is this:

In which *contexts* is saving money good and in which contexts is *spending* more money better?

Some thoughts:

1. If you’re an internet entrepreneur, spending more money on a faster home wifi connection is wise. For example I’m sooooo much happier and more productive having insanely fast wifi at home (Verizon gigabit fiber optic internet speeds at home) for far faster upload speeds, which means I can produce and share more with less delay, less lag and less frustration! Morale: don’t cheap out when it comes to your home wifi connection.
2. I have zero qualms on spending a bunch of money on (cheap) cuts of meat. For example I can buy pork for only 99 cents a pound. So I’ll buy a shitload of meat for home, and eat as much as I desire when I break my fast for dinner!
3. If you’re cold at home during the winter, fuck it — just crank up the heat! And if you’re cold outdoors, wise to spend a lot of money on very good warm winter clothes (especially if you plan on spending a lot of time outdoors). Get a good down jacket, good merino wool socks, a good goretex jacket or good goretex boots.

What’s a poor use of money? My thoughts:

1. Expensive smartphones are a horrible life decision. Same goes with expensive cars.
2. Don’t waste money on expensive designer clothes which aren’t functional or warm. Best to think of clothing more as battle armor.
3. Don’t waste money on expensive sneakers. Best to just buy some very good Goretex shoes (Asolo, Salomon) instead.

Typically we have been taught and trained that the more energy, electricity and resources we save and don’t use, the better. But what if the opposite were true:

The MORE energy, resources and electricity gas and heat you use and produce, the better?

Towards a more “wasteful” mindset, ideated around prolificacy, expending *MORE* energy but also producing *MORE* energy. To generate a “net positive”. To use more resources in order to produce more resources?

The trillion dollar question:

We shoot all these photos. How do we know which photo or version is the best?

Just watched the new episode of the Season 2 of Mandalorian and really didn’t enjoy it. Why? It became too “Disney-fied”. First season of Mandalorian as more dark, cruel, and “angsty”. But this is more interesting, and we can better relate to this “Mando” character.

But the new season of Mandalorian, the new episode (the town people and the sand people) get together and “work together” in some sort of happy go lucky (if we just saw past our differences and worked together … we would be so much happier). But real life is tragic and cruel and things often *don’t* work out well in the end. And perhaps this is what makes better art?

As a side note, I think first season of Mandalorian is perfect — a 10/10.

When Mando is more dark, cruel and mercurial — we love him more! Perhaps the reason why we like Batman and Bruce Wayne so much — we love his cruel anger?

An interesting and robust way to live your life.

I love zen. For me, to have the calm and energetic and focused and sublime mindset of zen is supreme.

To just walk, observe, photograph … isn’t this one of the ultimate zen practices?

Great trees, colors and vibes:

Training for our photography; a metaphorical photo gym!

This is what I believe drives us.

Almost all books (most modern) bore me. Far more interesting to focus on art, aesthetics and the body over “wisdom”.

Trees are phenomenal. Why?

1. Theory; being in trees, you get increased oxygen and other micr-pollens in the air, which are good to awaken and enliven you?
2. The joy of fractal patterns; The joy in looking at, witnessing fractal patterns which are intuitively enjoyful for us to look at?
3. Depth: Being able to exercise depth perception when looking in nature. Good to exercise our ability to see things really far.
4. There is something about all the great textures and growth patterns of trees which bring us joy and delight?
5. The sound of rustling of trees as very calming and zen for us?

My desire:

To be in peak physical shape and fitness and strength … and utilize my peak fitness to supersede my (past) limits.

Or how udderrly grateful I am for life:

Thought:

The reason *WHY* I like to drive stick shift instead of automatic because it is more fun *BECAUSE* it requires me to exercise my skill!

For example, coasting on top of a hill at a stop sign with manual (moderate gas on pedal, moderate clutch). Also shifting through gears as more fun!

Even though I’m rich, I prefer to own cheap stuff. Why? Simple reasons:

1. Less anxiety associated with ownership. For example when I’m at the gym and I need to go to the bathroom real quick, I can just leave my $150 Android smartphone and keys in my spot (to mark it) with zero anxiety with someone stealing it. Even if they stole it, it ain’t a big deal.
2. No fear of scratching, breaking or scuffing things: For example I put my keys and random things in all one pocket, and I can care less if my phone screen gets scratched or breaks. Same goes for my $800 Subaru Outback (2003 5 speed)– I can beat the shit out of it with no fear someone is gonna jack (steal) my car or fuck with it. If I owned a Lamborghini, always the annoying fear that some asshole kid would scratch (key) a penis into the side or paint.

In praise of thunder thighs:

Who or what is a philosopher? An individual who sets values … who says:

This and that is worthy and of high value and worth your energy, life and pursuit.

And also, more importantly what is *NOT* worth our time, effort, money and pursuit!

A great idea for maximizing the potential of our human physiology, growth, muscles, recovery:

In the morning, icy cold showers to get you going.

Then at the evening, insanely hot baths to rest, relax and recover your muscles, and when washing off finishing off insanely cold and icy.

Barbell theory:

Perhaps for our optimal health, to barbell heat *and* cold is best.

Or even if you have the option, combining hot sauna and icy cold showers. Or regularly expose yourself to cold weather (walk around the cold outdoors in just a T-shirt during the winter time), but make sure you’re warm at home (bundle up at home) or just blast the heat at home?

MANDALORIAN
Jump in the Dolorean
Fast forward back to the future
Know that you’re future is already here
No need to clear your mind, or drive blind or stay divine
Stay direct, stay straight, stay great

No need to placate the haters, or erase the light headed macers
What you gotta do is stay laser focused on your own life path
No need to worry about shattering; you’re anti-fragile, break the glass!

ERIC

What do we want and desire? To live the best, most beautiful, most blessed life and experience known to man. And to innovate and discover:

How to live better.

To discover new modes of living better which have yet been discovered!

In order to train your mind, train your body.

On one rep maxes:

One of my greatest joys in life:

Going grocery shopping, shooting photos and videos, cooking food (especially greens and meat), and then eating and feasting!

A lot of people tend to be critics of the touch-bar on the new MacBook Pro, but I love it!

A beautiful zen calm feeling of snow— hyper white, outline, great clarity, great purity and great joy!

You don’t need a data plan for iPhone. Perhaps it is *superior* to have as a pure creativity tool (iPhone can be thought of a more portable iPad).

A fun addition to the prior Zen Brush 2:

Really grateful for the Apple App Store team for recommending this app as the app of the day. Very good, creative, thoughtful, fun and interesting camera app. Super fun and highly recommended!

The goal:

To be seized with creative rapture, and you never stop creating!

For me, it is the only way to live. If I don’t produce, make things, and imagine … I feel like I’m degrading.

Or in other words why I hate “running” or “jogging” and would prefer powerlifting (one rep max), or a combination of walking and sprinting.

One of the best ways to live:

Focus on your own self-development.

Now how do we do it?

Some thoughts:

The best type of determination to have in life:

To have the power to determine your own future, your own fate, your own future!

1. I got a car (2003 Subaru Outback, 5 speed). Bought for only $800 USD on Craigslist!!!
2. I got an abode, and have zero interest in owning a home or purchasing a home (anti home ownership, anti mortgage)
3. I got my food and meat and coffee
4. I got my wifi, laptop, and camera.

What else do I need?

Thought:

One of the most robust and independently interesting ways to live your life is this: to just focus on your own self development.

Self development as continually augmenting your knowledge, understanding, wisdom, body (physiology, muscles, muscle mass, one rep max strength), to keep making new art, innovating and discovering and creating more things!