ERIC KIM

We Tire of The Beautiful, but Not of the Ugly?

No such thing as an “anti” hedonic treadmill, or an “ugliness adaptation”:

We often talk about the “hedonic treadmill”— how are quickly tire of things which bring us pleasure, for example, beautiful views, luxury homes, fancy clothes, watches, cars, beautiful women, etc.

But one thing I’ve discovered — there are some things we do not get used to — such as dark homes with no natural light, loud street noise, and ugly views and ugly architecture.

For example across my street, straight from my kitchen and bedroom living rooms, I see this horrendously ugly apartment building that I must look at a hundred times a day. No matter how long has elapsed, I cannot stand its ugliness. So much that I often just keep the curtains closed so I won’t see it’s ugly view.

Lesson:

When touring homes or apartments, don’t just look at what is inside the home or how the home is designed. Look outside — you will see these views a lot for a long time!!!

Which makes me wonder:

When it comes to checking out homes or apartments online, why don’t realtors ever shoot photos of “the view” looking out?

Which makes me think:

Perhaps it is best when choosing a home to actually choose a home with a nice (or at least not an ugly) view.

We might tire of the beautiful, but we never tire of the ugly.

Life is infinitely too short for ugliness

So perhaps— life is far too short for ugliness. Ugliness as how you perceive it — ugly homes, ugly views, ugly neighborhoods, ugly clothes, ugly cars, ugly tools, etc. Why was Steve Jobs so obsessed with making computers an everyday objects beautiful? He said something like:

We are going to have to use these things every day, and all the time. Why make it ugly?

As a kid who grew up in the 90s I can personally attest — the computer PCs of the time were all ugly beige boxes. And as much as 90s stuff has become “retro” and “cool” now, even as a kid I thought the 90s aesthetic was quite ugly.

On beautifying your body

Another insight:

What is the most important thing to beautify? Our body. Why? It is the thing we look at the most, and it is one thing we can at least control (to a large extent) how beautiful or ugly it is.

Unfortunately we do not have much control over our morphological features, but we do have control over simple body composition: our body fat percentage and muscle mass.

But what about the whole “body acceptance” thing and all that jazz?

I accept how my face looks and the basic proportions of my body and height and stuff. But what I hate and cannot accept is when my body fat percentage is too high for my tastes. Also, I love the fact that I can actively positively beautify my body by increasing my strength and muscle mass. Simply put the easiest and most direct way to simultaneously lose body fat and increase muscle mass:

Intermittent fasting during the day, and break your fast at night with a hugely meat heavy meal (3+ pounds of meat) with no starches, sugars, sweets, alcohol, etc.

Sacrifice and hustle towards a more beautiful life and existence

Moving forward I’m willing to sacrifice it all for a more beautiful and elegant future. Reminders to self:

  1. Opt for a more expensive and more “luxury” apartment — priority of aesthetics, location, view and other amenities (on site gym). Willing to work more in order to pay for it — considering we are all working from home and living this quarantine lifestyle.
  2. Become even more picky with my clothing, shoes, and accessories — own only one of each, but that of which I consider the most beautiful.
  3. When in doubt, pay the extra bucks for aesthetics and quality.

The Philosophy of Aesthetics

side selfie ERIC KIM muscle flex 00030-resized