If you want more energy, just take off your shirt and go into the sun.
Month: June 2022
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Lame
Just follow your gut. You know what is lame and what is not lame.
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Don’t just imitate or copy the successful models of others
The reason why others were successful in their model, is probably because they were the first.
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Don’t Invest in Boring Stuff
Even if it can make you a bunch of money. Life is too short to invest in boring things.
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Ignorance is Wisdom
Ignorance is wisdom when the information either doesn’t pertain to you, nor affects you.
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The best is the most reliable?
For example, perhaps the best car is the most reliable car.Â
Why is this? Well, it seems that your car (breaks down) or doesn’t turn on always at the most inconvenient time. Tail events (super rare events), when you need it the most.
For example, the worst time you don’t want your car to break down (or not turn on or work) is during a blizzard or snowstorm.
Same goes with airlines– perhaps the best airline is the most reliable, the *LEAST* likely to get delayed, rescheduled, or having flights get canceled.
Or in IT– we all know that uptime is the most critical metric.
So perhaps it is a bad idea to use beta software– the bugs make it unreliable.
Maybe also with blockchain; the best blockchain of the future will not be the fastest or the ‘best’, but the most reliable?
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Teaching your body how to thrive on stress
It must be good stress, “eustressâ€. The stress which strengths you.
The stress must be in a very short duration. Prolonged stress and chronic stress is bad for you and your health.
For example, attempting to lift the maximum weight you can lift, once is good for your health. However, lifting weights, in the same repetition range, every single day is not good for you.
With stress and fear, it is good every once in a while to get really frightened, like seeing a lion in your bedroom as Nassim Taleb says. However, always living in trepidation or fear about your work or your boss is not a good idea.
For example, I hate looking at my investments. I only check my investments, maybe at most once a year. Ideally, once every two years.
Also I have a theory about coffee and caffeine consumption. Perhaps it’s only good to have an extreme amount of caffeine in the morning, but not steadily throughout the day.
The same thing goes with hunger and eating. Intermittent fasting is good for you, because the stress of hunger during the day actually strengthens you. Also the process of “autophagy†acts like a vacuum cleaner effect, getting rid of the bad and weak proteins in your body. And when you are going to break your fast in the evening, eat a shitload of meat.
Maybe it is also the same thing with anger. Hold your tongue 99.9% of the time, but allow yourself to violently erupt maybe once a month or every other month.
Maybe it’s the same with alcohol— better to get shitfaced once a month than having a beer every single day.
Maybe also the same thing with marijuana: better to just get very very high once a month, then smoke every single day to put yourself to sleep.
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Fail Safe
You always want to feel safe. For example, when attempting a one rep max squat, you always want the power rack with the safety pins behind you. Because if you can’t get it up, you can just ditch the bar behind you.
Burning the bridges behind you is not a good idea. Even though it sounds very romantic.
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TRUST YOUR BODY.
Your body has the deepest, most accurate sense of wisdom and truth.
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Modern things don’t last
Modern design things don’t last. For example, at Cindy‘s moms house, was installed this “modern water faucet, but the other day it literally broke in my hands. Ironically enough the old school hot and water turn on handles works better, and last longer, even though it is less “modern“.
Same thing goes with modern ideas. Modern ideas don’t last.
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I buy it for the marketing
I also don’t like strange looking models.
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True luxury should allow you to spend less money, not more
Beware of the hidden cost of “luxury†on your Lexus or Lamborghini, which causes you to spend more money on gas, also premium gas.
The upside of of Tesla — electric costs less.
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Why Traveling Will Make Your Life More Exciting
Dear friends, a thought this morning: why traveling will make your life more exciting.
Ultimately, I think what we strive towards is to live a maximally interesting life. What does it mean to live a more interesting life? A life of more uncertainty, danger, and challenge.
Why is modern life so boring?
My theory is this: modern living is modern slavery.
For example, the downside of technology, email is this: the asymmetry of task allocation.
As an example, as a thought experiment let us say that you receive 100,000 emails a day. It is literally impossible for you to manually respond to each email. The amount of incoming email increases, yet you cannot personally scale yourself.
How do we tolerate this modern slavery? Escapism and promise of a brighter future. For example, buying the new Tesla, buying the new Apple product, or waiting for some new product to come out, that will somehow cure us of our modern day feelings of enslavement. Even a lot of the consumers things we purchase, is a promise of living a more exciting life.
Why live a more exciting life?
As a pragmatic thought: what is the upside of living a more exciting life?
My thought is that it is human nature to desire more excitement. More challenges, greater difficulty, greater horizons and greater explorations. I believe it is actually the desire for more, in the lust for adventure is what has brought us humans here.
Why travel and photography is a great combination
The tricky thing is nowadays, a lot of travel is another prepackaged product. The trend is towards having a little bit of adventure, yet not too much. The trend and tendency towards organized group tours, and excursions, which are just like prepackaged Disneyland rides. It is the promise of adventure, without uncertainty.
Also, a lot of travel is consumptive. A lot of people travel in order to just eat, and vegetate, without doing much else.
The reason why traveling in photography is so virtuous is that it actually gives us a real motivation to go out and do stuff and create. The ultimate aim and goal of traveling and photography is traveling in order to experience new things, in order to make new photographs. And I suppose the difference between “travel photography“ and travel street photography is this: much of travel photography focuses on making postcard images, sunsets and the like, whereas travel street photography is more about the human element, uncertainty, randomness and chance.
All foreign places are good places
Honestly, traveling anywhere which is uncertain and new is good. For example, I even recently did trip to Charlottesville, and Ottawa in Canada, both places which are not considered the typical popular tourist destinations, yet I loved both. Why? They were different. Because I had zero knowledge of the cities, it was an open map for me to explore, photograph, and discover.
Why traveling inspires you to make new photographs
I believe there is a hidden compulsion for us photographers to photograph things which are new. Certainly we are more interested in new things than old things.
Even for my son Seneca, traveling to a new place, and being in a foreign environment stimulates him the most. He loves running around the airplane back cabin, he loves being in new hotels and Airbnb‘s, and he loves exploring new cities.
The whole notion of “be grateful for what you got, or be grateful for where you are“ I think is more Puritan notion of sour grapes. People would prefer to be in a new place, but because they are stuck in the old place, they try to mentally trick themselves into thinking that they should be grateful for it.
But new things are good things.
How far do I need to go?
The interesting thing about traveling and photography is that honestly, you don’t really need to go that far to experience me new. Any form of difference and novelty is typically good.
For example, in Southern California, even going to Joshua Tree is hugely great. I find something very refreshing and Zen about the desert.
Going abroad
My general sense is now, we could finally start planning life after Covid. We got the vaccinations, and the booster shots. I still think it is a good idea to travel on a plane or at the airport with a face mask on.
So the question is now: where can, or where should I travel to internationally?
It looks like a lot of people are still eager to go to Japan, yet Japan is only open to organized group tours, which seems pretty boring.
Searching places which I love which are currently open include Mexico City, Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea.
Cindy I and Seneca are actually going to Phnom Penh Cambodia this summer, as well as South Korea. The flight is long and arduous, yet the promise of new experiences and adventure is what interests me the most.
Why live your best life?
The notion of “living your best life†is actually a good one. Why? Let us just assume that this is your only conscious life. Let us assume that you’re allocated the maximum human lifespan of 120 years. Life is infinitely too long for it to be boring (Nietzsche).
For myself personally, I am the most curious about what can a human life be. That in this life, what can I accomplish and do, discover, and create? The same curiosity is what also is my parenting philosophy with Seneca: what can a child become?
In order to develop yourself to the max, one needs a monster of a challenge. For example, it is still my personal ambition to deadlift 700 pounds before I die, and perhaps squat 600 pounds. And maybe even bench 400 pounds. I may or may not ever achieve this challenge, yet having this insanely audacious challenge and pursuing the curiosity is what drives me.
Also, my personal ambition with photography is unlimited. Now that I have discovered the upside of JPEG, extra small JPEG, Ricoh GR 3X, blogging, the Internet, and myself, photography is infinite. No upper ceiling.
Fulfillment and photography
So the question is, do you ever want to be fully fulfilled in your photography? Perhaps not. If you feel that you are 100% satisfied and fulfilled, there is no more motivation for you to do anything else. It is actually dissatisfaction, and the lust for more is what drives us.
However my intervention is this: when we are fully maximally pursuing our passion in photography, and pushing and challenging ourselves, we feel fulfilled in exerting ourselves to the maximum, yet we still do feel motivated to do more, explore more.
Therefore as a simple thought: push yourself in photography to the maximum, and love the pursuit and challenge. Yet always have a hunger and desire for more.
ERIC
ERIC KIM EXPERIENCES
Are you hungry for new adventure? Discover your soul in Street photography at my new and upcoming Seoul Street photography travel workshop experience >
Travel More
- Travel Notes Print // DIGITAL
- ERIC KIM NECK STRAP MARK II: The ultimate Ricoh GR travel strap
- HENRI SHOULDER STRAP: For the heavyweights
Share the ideas
If this gave you any interesting ideas, feel free to forward to a friend!
MORE RANDOM TURBO THOUGHTS
- When is white better, when is black better?
- What if there could be such thing as a self washing car?
- Deadlifting will offer you a greater out of body experience than squat (one rep max)
- iPad Pro is insanely great. Just get the small one. I like it 1000 times better than my laptop.
- Why is Apple playing it so safe? My thought is when you’re on top, you should become more reckless in your innovation. This is what Steve Jobs would have preferred.
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The ancient Greeks could not weigh or time things
Then it seems wise for us not to weigh ourselves or time ourselves for anything?
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ERIC KIM GOPRO LIFE VLOG
MY LIFE.
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Extreme Loyalty
Talking to a new Tesla model three owner, I asked him how he liked his car. He told me he wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world.
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MINIMUM VIABLE VIDEO SIZE
720P IS ENOUGH.
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How to Discover Yourself in Photography
1. The camera as a tool of self introspection
The first thought is that the camera is a tool of self analysis. For example, gopro in Ultra Wide mode, you can literally document every part of yourself, your daily life, what you do, where you go, what you eat, etc.
Lately I’ve been making a habit to just record mundane and every day details with my GoPro. What I eat, where I go, where I took a nap, how I cook, how I work out, how I flex, look at my face and body, and how I make my morning coffee. Reviewing the footage is fascinating: because it gives me a chance to analyze myself, and my life from a third person perspective.
2. Selfless photography
Ultimately at the end of the day, I see ourselves as instruments. We are instruments to document, photograph, and make art out of embodied reality. Ultimately I don’t really care for myself too much, I’m more interested in the act of documentation and photography, introspection, and sharing my thoughts and findings with others.
The irony is this: we are both ego-ful, and egoless photographers. We must use our personal ego in order to understand the world around us. But ultimately when we photograph, we lose our ego.
When I’m really in the zone of photographing, I lose a sense of self. Similar when I’m doing a one rep max power lifting, especially deadlift. When I do a one-rep max in my dead lift, I literally have an out of body experience. When I’m doing the maximal lift, I lose all sense of self. And even after the lift, I kind of forgot what happened.
3. Photograph yourself
I believe ultimately the most virtuous thing you do is photograph yourself. literally to shoot selfies yourself.
Why photograph yourself? You cannot refuse yourself. Also, you are the center of everything. You are the oculus in which you perceive, understand, and engage with the world.
Therefore, I encourage you to shoot more selfies. Shoot your reflection, shoot yourself in the mirror, shoot yourself topless, shoot yourself in uncommon settings.
Also, assuming you want to become more fit, I think actually it is a good idea for you to shoot selfie‘s of yourself topless, in order to track your progress. If you have a keen sense of how you look, you’re less likely to eat sugar, and other things which make you fat. Also motivate you to become more determined to keep working out, in order to augment your muscle mass.
4. Blog through your photos
For myself, in order to make sense of my photos, I must blog about them. Typically what I do is I will post the photos on a blog post, write about them, and as I am selecting the photos and reviewing my photos, I remember the photos, and I also make sense and meaning out of them.
I don’t think your photos exist until you post them.
5. Critical feedback on your photos
Arsbeta.com is the ultimate platform to get critical feedback on your photos. Otherwise, becoming self critical in your photography is not about self flagellation and bemoaning on how bad your photos are, it is about getting a more critical sense of how you judge your own photos, which photos you find meaningful, and which type of photos you want to continue to shoot.
Otherwise, just keeping asking yourself why in the context of photography. Have a chat with WHY APP?
EK WORKSHOPS >
Turbo thoughts
- Life is better with powerlifting than without
- iPad will make you a better photographer
- Why are the new Apple products so boring? Also, why are the new colors so strange?
- Probably the best laptop for you to buy as a photographer is the new MacBook Air
- What if there could be such a thing as a self washing car?
- Maybe it is a good brand idea to create the male equivalent of Lululemon
- Consuming beef liver, and beef heart is the ultimate natural steroid
- Just vlog it with GoPro
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iPhone SE long term thoughts
Having the new iPhone SE for a while, but ultimately the reason I don’t recommend it is this: there are too many bugs. The old form factor of the iPhone SE does not play well with the new iOS.
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What if being wasteful were a good thing?
A funny thought: if others are frugal, we feel that we should respect their decision, that they don’t like being wasteful.
However, if our personal preference is to be wasteful, it is less tolerated.
My intervention: both sides should be tolerant to another. That frugal people should respect the choices of wasteful people, and wasteful people should also respect the choices of frugal people.
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Just say what’s on your mind
No filter!
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Create, re-create something new
The great thing with remixing, screenshot Ing, or creative upcycling things is this: you create, and re-create something new, based on something you’ve already heard. A new interpretation of some thing is also something new.
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The antidote to insomnia
Extreme one rep lift max powerlifting during the day (one rep max sumo deadlift or squat), extreme meat consumption for dinner (beef ribs, liver, eggs) at night.
