What does it mean to be happy, and how to become happy?
First of all, what is happiness? Personally speaking, I think happiness is a situation in which you have great physical and physiological strength, elevated mood, lofty thoughts, no second-guessing or doubting yourself, extreme pride in one’s self, lofty visions, and great appetites and ambition. Also, great nutritive health, lots of meat high in cholesterol such as beef liver, beef heart, beef intestines, beef ribs, beef brisket etc.
The artistic and creative component
Also, when are people happiest? When they are creating. When they are learning, playing, manipulating things, and changing and affecting things. For example, when I observe Seneca, he is happiest when he experiences new things, sees new things, recognizes old things, learns new ways to communicate, plays with the physics of water, learns how to roll up and down automatic windows in the car, open and close the glass sunroof, learns the understanding of bluetooth, and makes beats in GarageBand. Also drawing, and learning how to read.
For myself, I am the happiest when I am dancing and engaging in great conversation with Cindy, when I am training Seneca, when I am at the gym attempting to hit new personal records, when I am writing, blogging, vloggimg, making photos, selecting photos, teaching traveling etc.
Why be happy?
A practical thought; why be happy?
What are the positive outcomes of being happy, and how and who does it benefit?
First of all, I could certainly say that nobody wants to be miserable or depressed. But is happiness the opposite of depression? No. It is something else. My philosophical thought or practical thought of depression is that depression is a physiological disorder, that one is not “mentally” depressed, but physiologically depressed. What does this mean? Let us assume that you are locked in a cube with no natural light, and no outside stimulation, and given enough food to survive. What would happen to your physiological state of being? Certainly you would atrophy.
Let us consider modern day man. What is a day in the life of the modern-day man? Let us say that he commutes to work, he wakes up, has coffee, jumps in the car, and has to deal with the hateful hour to hour and a half drive to the office. At the office he has to deal with petty office politics, hateful emails, and boring meetings. The most creative thing he might do is create some sort of PowerPoint presentation. He has to stress out about his mortgage, his kids, other financial difficulties, and the stress and drama of trying to get that promotion. He then has to jump back into his car, deal with an even worse commute home, maybe an hour 45 minutes, listening to the same old podcast, the same old advertisements. He then goes home, might have enough time to microwave himself something, and “catch up on his shows“. He then stays up too late, dicking around on the Internet, sleeps a little bit too late, and then repeats the cycle all over again. I do not wish this type of existence even on my worst enemy.
What is your destiny?
I do not believe in destiny from a hocus-pocus perspective. I think of destiny in terms of destination. Where do you want to go? Where do you see yourself in the future? What were you destined for?
For myself, although I just see myself like a normal mere human being, I have so much insane pride and lofty visions of myself that I believe myself to become the next great philosopher, the next great thinker, a name that hopefully even 300 years from now, people will know. ERIC KIM as being a combination of philosopher, artist, entrepreneur, photographer, blogger, vlogger, thinker, innovator, etc.
I want to become the next Steve Jobs, the next Elon Musk, the next Kanye West, the next Jeff Bezos, etc.
Have insanely lofty visions for yourself
We are all human beings. Truth be told, genetically speaking, there is nothing that unique or remarkable about any of us. Let us consider the genius of Kanye West, and his insane ambition, and let us consider that he has only a 5 foot 7 man. Also, Elon Musk is just one human being, Steve Jobs was only one human being, and Jeff Bezos was also just one human being. Although Steve Jobs seems like mostly an absentee father, he still did have a family, wife and kids, and I think Kanye West might have four kids now.
I believe the path to the greatest happiness in life involves having the highest visions for yourself, and the highest ambitions for yourself. I don’t think this is the money making thing, or purchasing part thing. It goes beyond that. It goes towards creating, innovating, and innovating something new.
For example, desires. A big way we could innovate is to create new desires for ourselves. For example, rather than desiring to buy that thing, better to desire to become insanely strong. For example, I would much be happier being able to rack pull 800 pounds, than to own and drive that new Lamborghini. In fact, my new ambition is to make my body become the Lamborghini, and even more epic and greater than the Lamborghini. For example, when I grunt, scream, and become an animal and beast at the gym, hypelifting, hyping myself up, I want to roar louder than the exhaust pipes of the new Lamborghini, or any V12 engine. or, personally speaking, I would be much more happy and proud being able to deadlift 502 kilograms (over 1220 pounds), than be a billionaire.
In fact, if I were a billionaire, I would positively not want to own a car. Why? According to my friend Kevin, even having the full Tesla auto pilot function is not 100% secure or safe. He told me that he doesn’t feel comfortable using his Tesla model 3 autopilot when his family is in the car. Even when he is by himself, he says it is terrifying. Instead, I much prefer the idea that I could just Uber anywhere and everywhere, and just take a nap while my Uber driver takes me to my destinations safely. In fact, it is the new modern day flex to not own a car. Really really really really rich people don’t own cars.
Also another big thing that I think people get suckered by, even us millennials is the notion of home ownership. I think home ownership makes sense if you have a big ass family all living under the same roof, and everyone chips in. For example, currently living at Cindy’s mom‘s house, in her massive Southern California home, with myself, Cindy, Seneca, my brother and sister-in-law and their two kids. This makes sense because being able to live in a massive house compound with many people is economically efficient. However, the notion of a nuclear family just owning their own home is I think an insane idea. Not wise. Even if I were a trillionaire, I would not wish homeownership on my worst enemy, all the headaches that come with homeownership, Trying to fix broken toilets, trips to Home Depot, etc. Even if you were rich enough to hire the worlds most capable contractor, you still gotta call them up, or message them, schedule times to fix things, etc.
Out of all of my really rich and older friends, who are insanely successful, they all just live in condos now, because there is a lot less they need to maintain. Even when I was living in Providence Rhode Island, in a minimalistic studio apartment, I loved it because we had maintenance stuff on hand more or less 24 hours a day, and there was a little or nothing we had to maintain. To me that was the ultimate frictionless living.
Can money make you happier?
The funny thing about money is that it is a via negativa thing, that is, money can make you happier if you use it as a hedge and a tool to not have to do the things you hate.
For example, I hate doing maintenance stuff. And therefore, it seems the most intelligent thing to do is to use money as a tool to not have to do maintenance related things.
Or, let us think of money as “fuck off” money. As Dr. Dre said. What does that mean? That you have enough money to just fuck off and go off the grid and have to do nothing and not have to worry about money, in order to do things you care about, which might not have any immediate monetary value.
Once again, the best way to think of money is as a war chest, as personal insurance for yourself, or creating your own VC, or venture-capital fund for yourself. Innovation is expensive, and yields many failures. But if you have a flush enough war chest, you can engage in super insanely epic innovation, which requires a really really long time, mini field experiments, etc. For example one thing that I learned from Mr. Dyson is that I think he had to create at least 1000 or 10,000 prototypes, it might’ve took him 10 years before he was able to successfully make a bagless vacuum. Now, Cindy and I bought a brand new refurbished vacuum cordless from Dyson, and I think I love it more than I love my iPhone.
Innovation is then the secret to happiness?
Innovations at the gym for myself include doing a very very heavy “squat walk“, and also a very very heavy rack pull instead of deadlift. In terms of my gym innovations, I have Monkifit gym in Phnom Penh Cambodia to thank. Why? When you go abroad, or somewhere that is not your own home country, it gives you a framework to think differently. This is why I think traveling and living abroad or even living nomadically is good for anybody who is passionate about innovation. Even Steve Jobs, his aesthetic visions for Apple products, the iPhone iPad etc. or come from his love of Kyoto, and sublimes zen aesthetics. Apple would have not been the Apple we know today if it weren’t Steve Jobs strange ascetic lifestyle experiments, walking around barefoot, eating nothing but fruit, not taking showers, doing weird meditation retreats in India, etc.
Therefore, think of yourself as an innovator. And it is your passion to innovate, not just purchase or consume. To create, to create new ideas, new concepts, new philosophies, to innovate and pioneer new techniques and approaches of doing things, this is your Archimedes lever and your way you can move the world.
ERIC
Invest in your happiness
Where will life take you?
- Conquer your fears in Street Photography in Boston, on the East Coast — March 25th, 2023
- Become the uber innovator in Berkeley, the bay area, April 15th, 2023
- Zen out in the insanely epic mountainside of Hadong, South Korea June 19-23rd, 2023. Register intent here.
How to meander on happiness
- A simple thought, is it physiologically possible to feel depressed when you’re attempting a new one rep max rack pull?
- Ask Why? about happiness to ZEN OF ERIC KIM CHAT BOT
- Define happiness for yourself, and do a Vlog on it, and just upload to YouTube.
- Write a blog post on your own personal definition of happiness, and your own thoughts on it.
Happiness as a means, not the final destination
I think I’m the only happy person I know. Maybe me and Seneca.
I think the common mistake that people make is that they think that happiness is the end goal. This is not true. Happiness is simply only a tool and a means toward something greater, towards artistic creation, innovation, entrepreneurship, etc.
Also, let us consider philosophy simply as a mental framework to challenge things, and to think more critically.
Innovate on!
ERIC