Mount Jirisan; the most epic mountain I’ve ever climbed!

JIRISAN WIKI

1. Get rid of notions of respect

챙피 (Cheng-Pi), which is the Korean word for shame or shameful. In Korean culture, and also Confucian culture, neo Confucianism, the new Confucianism practiced in abroad Chinese, Cantonese people, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. is this; the number one thing to avoid in life is shame.

In America, we also have a similar same culture. Fat shaming, smoking shaming, poor shaming, etc. Ugly shaming, etc.

But what is shame?

2. Shame is a German word

In ancient Greece, the eternal shame is cowardice. Cowardice in the face of the enemy or in battle. To have discarded your spirit, and your shield, and have run away, is the ultimate tardis, shame, and vice. In ancient Greece, ultimate valor is dying with courage when facing the enemy. The ultimate shame was running away from battle, and living.

In Confucianism, which is effectively a synthesized thought concept cosmos order from the politician philosopher Confucius was basically the idea of how to create the ideal society and government.

Shame was the most effective technique to control people. To keep people in order, and to achieve harmony.

3. Why I would never shame my son

To me, shame is illogical, and, will stunt the potential of your kid. Assuming that you aspire your kid to become greater than you, why would you shame your kid? It makes no sense. Also, technically your kid is a mini version of you, or metaphorical clone of you.

I am very lucky unfortunate to have been grown as Korean-American, my DNA is Korean, South Korean, with my dad being from Seoul and my mom being from Busan. Yet I was born and raised in the states. Therefore, even though I still have some shame culture still within myself, my Americanness helped me supersede notions of shame.

4. Who does shame benefit?

Shame benefits the person who is doing the shaming. For example, it also prevents Koreans and Japanese people from stealing stuff; it is deeply entrenched within their upbringing that no amount of shame is worth a potential financial gain from stealing something. The only people who would actually have to resort to stealing in South Korea or Japan would be the insanely insanely poor and destitute, but even then, assuming they went through some sort of traditional K-12 education, they would prefer to starve than to steal.

5. Why is there so much more petty theft in America?

My theory is because America is so diverse; if you steal from somebody, you don’t put a face to them. Thus you think that you’re stealing from some other sucker, who is different from you. Compare this to South Korea, and also Japan, in which it has one of the highest homogeneity percentages in the world. That in South Korea, to be Korean is both a culture as well as a biological classification, so if you steal from a South Korean, and you are also South Korean, it is like stealing from your mom or your aunt.

Compare this to America, if I steal from somebody who is not of my ethnic group, my clan, or my racial heritage, I feel less shame. I am more afraid of being caught.

6. People just don’t question it

For example, in America as well as Korea, there is much more shame given to girls than boys. Why is that? Effectively, historically speaking women were household labor. In South Korea, my theory is that it was only poor working class Koreans in which the wife actually had to work. Why? If you were actually of royalty, the women will not lift a finger. It would be the slaves and servants who would do all the dirty work.

In America, maybe it was kind of a similar thing. That the initial American settlers were very poor; therefore it seemed that the most logical allocation of labor was for the men to do the hunting for the meat, and the women to do the household duties. But assuming that you were of royalty or high class in Britain, once again, you would have a small army of servants and maids to do your dirty work. Imagine Downton Abbey; would the royal women have to cook and clean? No.

Even if you think about the Iliad, or the Odyssey, the queens don’t lift a finger in the kitchen. They had a bunch of slaves and servants.

Even when you see some of the old school drawing depictions of the Ancient Greek queens, they were always accompanied by at least two female slave servants.

7. Boundary testing

To me, it takes more courage to walk around without a shirt on in public, down a busy street, than to drive with your top off in your brand new convertible Lamborghini. In fact, anyone who wears sunglasses, wears a hat, uses limo tint in their cars, are a bunch of cowards. They want to look cool without actually assuming any personal risk of looking foolish.

Something very interesting for me in South Korea, my mom always yells at me whenever I walk around without a shirt on. I asked her whether it was illegal, and she said no. Otherwise, people who would go to the beach in south Korea in Busan would be legally required to wear a shirt. However, it looks like in most of the world besides Europe, women are required to wear a top covering even when at the beach. I think it might only be Europe which allows women to be nude at the beach.

8. What is your desired end goal?

My friend Geoffrey Chen, told me the best advice life in life to be successful, is to be shameless.

Dear friends, a thought on my mind, how can we maximize our own personal creativity and motivation? How to get rid of toxic negative people from your life, and just do more of the thing that you want to do?

Opt for bad

The first very pragmatic thought I have is opt for bad. That is, better to do a bad job and a shitty job, than no job at all.

For example, cleaning. I frequently clean the house, and do a “bad” job at it, and I am not very thorough. However, the upside is that I just do it a lot, and I think if you weigh everything, the house and place tends to be a net positive in terms of cleanliness.

Or, in the context of photography and art. The best way to become more creatively productive is to not strive to do or make anything good. Rather, maybe it is a good idea for us to try to make it as bad as humanly possible, but you just do the thing. A big step for us forward as creative artists is to disregard notions of good and bad, just think about if you are productive or unproductive.

But isn’t quality more important than quantity?

First of all, let us consider the definition of the word “quality“. What does “quality“ even mean?

When I searched this, the notion of quality comes from this notion of “quale“, which literally goes to the ancient Greek of a notion of an atom. Therefore, if you consider the “quality” of some thing, you were just trying to discern what type of atoms it is made out of.

Is there a hierarchy of atoms?

To some extent, yes. For example, if you want to build a robust automobile, maybe it is not a good idea to build it out of wood. Perhaps better to build it out of aluminum or steel instead.

Or, with our clothing. If you’re in Siberian winter, perhaps not a good idea to just wear a T-shirt. Maybe it is better to wear down, or a very thick Canada goose jacket.

Can one really discern what quality is in the context of creativity art

I think not. For example, if you consider Picasso and his last painting, it looks like even a monkey could’ve drawn it. But, we know that it has value because it was drawn by Picasso, who had his own artistic legacy, even when he was still alive.

Or let us consider Matisse, when at the end of his life, his disabilities prevented him from painting in a more realistic manner, and therefore he opted instead for doing construction paper cut outs of seeded women and nudes. but, he is mostly remembered for his abstract cut outs, something that any adept seven-year-old could do.

Therefore, notions of quality is all about marketing.

For example, let us consider the Leica camera and the Fujifilm camera. If you think about weight, the Fujifilm camera superior because it is lighter. In real world photography, lightness wins. The lighter the camera, the more likely you are to carry it with you everywhere you go, end up making more photos, and discovering more satisfaction in your photography.

Leica camera is not the Leica camera which once existed. Leica Camera went bankrupt, and Dr. Andreas Kaufman, an Austrian, bought it out, and revived it to become a new luxury good. Very much how Maybach and its trademark was purchased by Mercedes-Benz. Also, how BMW owns the Rolls-Royce trademark, in actuality, it is not a continuation of the same legacy. Same thing goes with Lamborghini, it was bought out by the Volkswagen group, so essentially when you drive a Lamborghini, you’re just driving a very expensive Volkswagen. Let us also consider that a Porsche 911 is just a very very good Volkswagen beetle turbo.

Disregard notions of quality or good

For example let us consider YouTube. When I started YouTube, in 2010, it was just a random dumping ground for videos. If you had a video wanted to share it, YouTube was the only option. At the time, most of the videos were probably only in 540P, and over of mostly random videos of cats, viral videos of people playing music, etc.

But the YouTube of today is a different beast. It is insanely high production. In fact, some of the most talented people who upload videos onto YouTube can and should be creating their own Hollywood films.

However, the downside of it all is that you are so easily influenced and primed by notions of “good quality“, based on the guy with 1 billion views. And this is very dismotivational, because you might think to yourself, no matter how hard I try, I will never get 1 billion views.

But, why? I think most people who want 1 billion views either want to make a lot of money, or they want to become very very famous.

In the context of K-pop, my thought is the members of BTS or BLACKPINK are probably rich, but not as rich as you would think. What desire instead is fame.

The real billionaires are not on YouTube. Just like Jay Z said, would you rather have 1 billion streams or billion dollars? Or 1 billion views, or $1 billion?

What do you want to do with your fame?

America’s funny, because Americans desire both fame and money. I think in Korea, what they desire is fame, they don’t really care about money that much.

What is fame anyways? if you consider the Latin, it is based on “fama”, which was more about your reputation. However the question is, what is more important, the number of people who know that you exist, or the small number of people who know you very very well, and are zealot-like of you?

My opinion is that it is better to have three or five insanely loyal fans, rather than having 1 million slightly interested people in you.

Why?

Would you rather own 1 million Honda civics, or one Rolls-Royce? I would prefer the one Rolls-Royce.

Also, a financial thought; if you really want to monetize your passion in a deep way, better to have five very very rich people (whales) attend your experiences, rather than trying to nickel and dime a billion people.

Even from a philosophical and pragmatic approach; better to have your stuff free and open source, and instead, do the deep monetization through high-end ultra luxury products, and ultra luxury and boutique experiences.

For example, better to charge $9995 for a weeklong creative retreat, and get 1-3 people to attend, rather than trying to get 100,000 people to give you a dollar. Perhaps this is my prediction why Amazon will fail; high volume but low profit margins do not make for a robust business. Consider instead the genius of Elon Musk and Tesla, better to sell fewer products at a very very higher price point, similar to Apple, rather than sell lots of products at a lower price point. Another reason why Walmart will fail in the long run.

Just have fun with it

Some of the most successful people that I know, are actually the most childlike and fun. The really really rich people I know are essentially kids just having fun. Also, Nietzsche once said that the ancient Greeks were just like overgrown children.

Would you rather be a barbarian having tons of fun, the gay happy monster, or the well-regarded slave? I would choose to be the happy beast.

Opt for happiness

Then, maybe optimizing your life for happiness is a good idea in terms of photography art and creativity. That is, the more fun you’re having, the more productive you’ll be, the more motivated, etc.

For example my son Seneca. He is one year seven months old, and his favorite thing to do in the world is to pick up rocks, in varying sizes and weights, and throw them into ponds, streams, water. Does he do this to make money? No, he does it simply because it is fun and enjoyable for him. If I think Seneca had it his own way, his personal paradise would just be crispy thinly sliced pork belly, being surrounded by 1 billion rocks and 1 billion bodies of water. He would definitely be able to join the Squirtle Squad. Similar to his dad who is a big fan of Gyarados.

Another fun thought, when you meet another millennial, roughly your age, in between the ages of 20 and 39 years old, just ask them, who is your favorite Pokémon? Or which Pokémon is your spirit animal? Anyone who has grown up watching Pokémon or playing Pokémon is a kid at heart.

Just have fun with it!

My new favorite fun activity to do is to just experiment and have fun with video. Shooting 24 FPS high contrast black and white on my Ricoh GR 3X, or doing video vlogs on my GoPro hero camera, in Ultra Wide mode, and experimenting with different resolutions. 4K, 4K24 FPS, 4K60 FPS, 1080 P 24 FPS, etc.

Also, throwing around rocks. My thought is if you want to maximize your fun, more fun to throw around heavy rocks than to go to the gym. Just search for eric kim rock toss challenge, or eric kim rock workout, and you’ll find some fun video and stuff. Search for on YouTube, eric kim rock.

How to have more fun in photography

If you want to have the most fun experience of all time, check out upcoming ERIC KIM EXPERIENCES, and also, make a YouTube channel of your own.

ERIC KIM MINIMALISM PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP 2022 (Downtown LA, November 5th, Saturday) // OCTOBER 31st early bird deadline (PAYPAL BUY IT NOW LINK HERE)

YOUTUBE THOUGHTS

How do you make a YouTube channel? If you have a Google account, or a Gmail account, you already have a YouTube account. That is, all you gotta do is start uploading videos to YouTube, you could do this directly on your iPhone, iPad, MacBook laptop, android or Windows device, etc. In the browser just go to youtube.com/upload, or if you have the YouTube app, open up the YouTube app, and just press the plus button in the bottom center, and just upload videos directly from your phone.

In terms of settings, just turn off comments and views. This is a great way to stay more motivated. By focusing on views and comments, you will lose motivation and stop.

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Follow JTINSEOUL YOUTUBE. Also check out his blog (jtinseoul.Wordpress.com)

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