ERIC KIM

THE PHILOSOPHY OF RISK TAKING

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Greater fates, greater futures.

Force finds a way. 

Nietzsche once said; the secret to the greatest amount of happiness is living the life with the maximum amount of danger! I think this was from twilight of the idols, or maybe from the will to power at the end of the book.

I think we live in an interesting time. I think currently the world has been hijacked by internet website advertising, mostly Google and Google Adsense to blame, as well as pernicious sneaky sponsored advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, Google Chrome etc. Same goes with YouTube.

Also something I have learned from things; I think we are actually much more visually sensitive, image sensitive, sound sensitive than we think we are. Also, the mind is subtle; even if I accidentally see some sort of weird thumbnail image, in fact, it puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the day etc.

I think the big problem here is that the news and information has become so hyper sensationalized. Why? Everyone is trying to maximize their income earning potential of the internet and media, assuming that whatever they are posting is on a website or blog or news agency leveraged by Google Adsense, the drive is to maximize eyeball viewing time, and click through rates, for the publisher to make money.

“How much do you pay a month in rent?”

Also, something that I have learned about solo entrepreneurs in the media space; everyone is trying to search and seek and strive for some sort of “legitimacy”, or, they’re just struggling to pay their rent.

For example, let us say that I am some sort of internet personality, some sort of fitness influencer, even photographer. Perhaps the only way I could pay my rent is through some sort of sponsorship or brand deal, in which I am being paid maybe only $500-$1000 a month, and barely maintaining even my expenses.

Also, even some inside intelligence on YouTube; the super facts is that even if my video gets 100 million views, assuming I had advertisements on it I might only make about $7000 to $8000 USD. That is actually not that much. You’re probably better off working as an Amazon prime delivery driver, or even Uber driver. And even the best creators, it is very rare that they make a video with so many views.

As a consequence, there is this low-key bias or optimization towards creating videos or things which strive to hit that benchmark. Once again it is things that have to deal with more with the sensational, audacious, the bizarre, even the morose?

Who to trust

Truth be told, in today’s world especially with internet blogs, ChatGPT 4, the funny thing I learned:

Even ChatGPT doesn’t know if ChatGPT wrote it or not!

For example, instead of just googling myself, I have just been ChatGPT’ing myself. For example I have the paid premium version of ChatGPT, which gives me access to the new newest version of ChatGPT which is version 4, which I rate at least 1000 times better than the free ChatGPT 3.5.

So for example I’ll do something like search “ERIC KIM FACTS“, and just see what ChatGPT tells me, and I will just copy and paste that into a new blog post on my own personal blog titled “ERIC KIM FACTS“, And within a week, ChatGPT indexes that and links back to that. It is almost like a snake eating its own tail, the ‘Ouroboros’.

As a consequence, let us just think and consider; how today’s media landscape is created within the internet. Let us say that I am some sort of news agency or publisher; I will hire writers, and a lot of these writers will use ChatGPT or other artificial intelligence editing and writing and text generation tools. It is impossible to ascertain how much of it was written by human or ChatGPT or whatever whatever; and even so… assuming that even if 100% of the information was hand typed by a human being, it almost doesn’t really matter because a lot of these writers tend to be dark morose and sick people.

Currently speaking I live in Culver City Los Angeles California, where Jeff Bezos Amazon, Amazon prime, Amazon prime studios just leasing a huge lot of land, the Culver studios, owned by the developer Michael Hackman, apparently even Jeff Bezos bought out the movie theater, the culver theater next-door. Also slowly but surely Apple is getting in bed with Sony entertainment, producing movies like the new Napoleon movie as well as the new killers of the flower moon with Leonardo DiCaprio.

During this whole period I saw a lot of people from the writer strike, and honestly… a lot of these people look very unwell. Most of them do not look very physically unfit, and you could just see; they don’t spend enough time outside, none of them look happy jubilant and gay, and just think simply;

If the physiology and health of somebody is poor, what kind of artwork or ideas do you think they will produce?

There is this weird bias that we think that somehow the mind is divorced from the body, but in fact, the mind is the body. That is if your body is sick, your mind is sick. However, if your body is strong robust and great, so will your ideas.

  1. ON THE BRAIN, BODY AND MIND
  2. Trust Your Body More Than Your Mind

Therefore, a simple fitness idea; first, maximize your physical fitness and your physiological wellness, then, your artwork will naturally follow. 

How we lose our backbone

I don’t think it’s a modern day trend or shift; my thought is honestly all generations all histories people in the past, seems like everyone has always lacked a spine or a backbone.

For example, even when Homer was writing the Iliad; Homer the writer was already critiquing people of his generation. Saying that the people of his generation were weak degenerate, no longer strong.

I wrote a nice little piece back in Vietnam titled ADAMANTINE SPINE (Adamantine Mind); imagine yourself like wolverine; the best way to imagine things is that you are actually like wolverine, your body is made out of adamantine metal, and what happens is every time that somebody tries to destroy you, you regenerate and you re-heal, it will be at a very painful process, but you still do it. The reason why I like this idea is that perhaps every time we regenerate and re-heal we actually become stronger than we were before.

Perhaps this is actually how weightlifting works, every time we lift weights, very very heavy close to our maximum, we actually micro destroy our bodies, and in the regeneration process, which takes time… and we eat meat, sleep, do other stuff, we actually become stronger than we were before.

Recall the scene in which Deadpool was cut to shreds, very much like Dionysis; he is sitting on the couch, a little stub of a body, talking with the blind lady. The process of regeneration seem to take him several days close to a week before he was 100%. Maybe the same thing with weightlifting:

Better to deadlift seven plates a single time, in a single week… than do some sort of hateful CrossFit exercising every single day. 

The reason why I really love Ryan Reynolds and the Deadpool character is there is a little bit of fun dark humor here; I think when people take things to literally, too seriously, life loses its bigger it’s fun its jubilance. 

However a bad example is when you turn the needle too much towards the comedic; for example there is this notion called “campy“, when things are almost too cheesy, and lame. For example all of the new Thor movies, as well as all the new Disney Marvel movies, they are insanely lame.

What are good examples?

All modern day media is bad. Only good ones I think are actually ancient Greek epics; the Iliad, after that the Odyssey. If you’re curious, I think that the Iliad is at least 100 or 200 times better more interesting and more fun than the odyssey. Whether or not both were written by Homer or not doesn’t really seem to matter; I think the overall storyline of the Iliad is much more exciting and intense whereas the odyssey is a bit boring.

The Odyssey just drags on and on… Odysseus is a good character but not as grand as Achilles. 

Greater risks, greater futures

It seems that a lot of modern day humans want some sort of weird free lunch; somehow… we want to live a better more greater more grand life that is more exciting and fun, yet we seem to not desire taking any personal risks.

For example let us think about video game culture. My simple heuristic is this; don’t play no video game in which you have actually not done the real thing yourself. For example, all these grown men playing video games in which they are shooting each other with guns, and they have actually never shot a real life gun seems little bit weird.

The same thing goes with American football; don’t watch American football as a spectator if you have never played American football. Otherwise you are a coward.

Easy to critique and criticize football players who fumble the ball, if you have never worn real life football equipment, a helmet, limited eyesight and mobility, and fight fatigue and fear.

Also with basketball, instead of drinking beer and watching basketball and eating onion rings for an hour or two in the evening, why not just go to the local basketball court, bring a basketball and play some pick up basketball instead?

Another fun thought; in the evening, instead of turning on Google incognito, private browsing, brave browser, brave browser in private browsing mode, turning on your VPN, hitting up pirate bay or whatever… why not just go to the local gym and talk to the pretty ladies instead? Or even get a CorePower membership and talk to the pretty ladies there?

A funny thought I often have for men —

A lot of these guys, after they’re done with work or whatever… And they go home, in privacy, and they turn on Google incognito… what do they really look at?

Elementary school kids, middle schoolers, highschoolers

Also I have a rule; video games should only be permitted for poor kids in the hood, we have nothing better else to do.

Also a cutoff time; no adult over the age of 18 years old should play video games anymore. I think it is fine for highschoolers and middle schoolers video games, but not grown men.

I ended up quit playing video games when I was around 18 or 19 years old, my freshman year of college. Why? I literally had no time! I had a part-time job, working around 20 hours a week as tech-support for the UCLA undergraduate admissions office, I was active in many clubs, having to study, and do other stuff.

I actually think that some weird ways, video games are like pornography for the mind-body and soul. The generalized thought is that in video games, everyone wants to be a hero, take risks, go on quests, obtain some booty whatever. Yet, embodied reality real life doesn’t seem to allow any outlets for this. Therefore, people escape into video games.

My simple intervention:

How can we inject desires of video game stuff into real life, real embodied reality?

Simple suggestions:

  1. Walking 50 miles a day
  2. Lifting insanely heavy weights, screaming loudly, slapping yourself in the face hypelifting etc. HYPELIFTING AS AN ETHOS TO LIFE!
  3. Striving to make your body look like a demigod, instead of playing a video game in which your character looks like a demigod. 

How video games are bad.

The big issue with video games is that ultimately, you are a slave to the platform, the closed loop system, the video game producer and publisher etc.

For example, already… It seems that the video game Fortnite which was insanely grand is already being forgotten. Let us say you are a person who devoted 10,000 hours to playing the Fortnite game, but now no longer anybody plays it. All of your time has been wasted.

Even StarCraft, StarCraft professional players; nobody really plays it anymore, let us say that you’re a professional gamer sponsorships making money playing StarCraft tournaments, now you no longer have any sponsors. All of your time was for naught. 

More thoughts

A critical thing I believe for men, us men, is that we require some sort of physical risk, physical challenge, some sort of physical risk taking.

For example, in my mind the only type of weightlifting which is interesting includes some sort of “risk”; for example, when I would atlas lift seven plates, eight plates, nine plates, 10 plates, max out the bar, and then clip on an additional 25 pounder in between and on top of the 10 plates, the jaws of others would drop; and then a few people would actually have the chutzpah to tell me:

“… be careful.”

My thought;

People actually want to see me get hurt, or “fail”. When I succeeded, I have somehow dismantled their narrow worldview.

Is ERIC KIM on drugs? 

Another funny bias; when I was doing so much crazy turbo thoughtting while in Vietnam (I was off the grid, got rid of my phone, didn’t communicate for about two years, no email no communication no social media no nothing… People would ask…)

Is ERIC KIM okay?

Or,

Is ERIC KIM on drugs?

Or–

What happened to ERIC KIM?

Simple; when you are disconnected from the BS of traditional American media thinking… you think different. Also, not having a phone, I think this is the 10,000X secret cheat code to life. Assuming that you were a crypto trillionaire, and you no longer needed other people, “opportunities“, or you didn’t really desire to get paid money from other people or corporations… what real use do you have of email anyways?

When people say “opportunities”, I think it is a weird carrot and stick; part of it is chasing some sort of legitimacy, part of it is chasing some sort of financial opportunities, brand sponsorships etc.

Something I have personally discovered is this:

Brand sponsorships are a trap. 

Example, if you are sponsored by any sort of company or corporation or whatever… you are not really going to 100% say what is really on your mind. This is the same thing that goes with “brand ambassadors”– I find the whole thing a bit base; Why? He or she who focuses too much on getting some sort of “ambassadorship” is a signal that they are just chasing clout in some sort of mean way.

Once again, if you already have $200 million worth of cryptocurrency bitcoin or chainlink or whatever – why do you need to get some sort of brand “ambassadorship” from anybody? Why do you want free equipment gear or stuff? Why not just buy it yourself?

This is actually something I have discovered with a lot of guys in the photography space; they are already independently wealthy from some sort of other ventures, whether it be business etc. And then they go seek to try to become some sort of “ambassador“, for Leica camera whatever.

That is not forget that Leica camera, the modern day rendition is essentially the brainchild of Dr. Andreas Kaufman– who I discovered is not a “real“ doctor; he got his PhD in philosophy, which I think is a good idea but I think when people talk about him they assume that he has some sort of medical doctor or something.

Would actually find very bizarre about Andrea Kaufman is that there is almost little to no information about him on the internet. Who is he really?

Apparently his family made its fortune and I think the paper business. Therefore, maybe his like some sort of really rich kid, and Leica camera is essentially his passion project, his toy?

Let us not forget that essentially Leica camera went bankrupt, and I think what Dr. Andrea Kaufman did was purchased the naming rights of it, and then revived the brand. Similar thing that BMW did with Rolls-Royce; Rolls-Royce went bankrupt, switched hands a few times, and then I think the last 7 to 8 years, the new Rolls-Royce brand is essentially an expensive Lexus version of a BMW; even look at any BMW X7 compared with the Rolls-Royce Cullinan; the BMW X7 looks the same. Even the BMW 7 series, with the star light stitching in the headliner of the car– same thing as the Rolls-Royce. A Rolls-Royce ghost or phantom or whatever is just an expensive re-badged BMW 7 series.

Also some more super facts:

The Volkswagen group owns Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati etc. A Lamborghini is just an expensive Audi, Audi is just an expensive Volkswagen,  and a Porsche 911 GT three GT3RS is just like a Volkswagen beetle turbo on steroids. 

Also, the dirty secret that Leica camera doesn’t want you to know is that the Leica Q camera is essentially a really expensive Panasonic Lumix camera; I think it uses the same sensor from Panasonic Lumix. Therefore if you just want good quality images, just get a Panasonic Lumix camera instead.

For example with the Leica Q camera, you could use Panasonic Lumix batteries in it! 

Even when Leica camera was first developing its digital Leica M rangefinder camera, the Leica M8, M9 etc.… I am pretty certain they did some sort of co-collaboration co-sponsorship deal with Panasonic Lumix to develop the digital sensors for it. Therefore that is why Leica has borrowed its namesake for some of the Panasonic Lumix lenses saying that it is a “Leica” lens, when it was actually produced in Japan.

Or let us think about the compact Panasonic LumixLX 100 cameras, Leica has a re-badged version of the “LEICA D-Lux” cameras. 

What is the point of taking risk?

My personal thought is that in life, risk makes life more fun! Life without risk is like a life without salt. Life has no vigor, no flavor, no interest.

So how can I incorporate real risktaking into my real life? 

Simple ideas:

  1. Extreme speculation with 10% percent of your life savings: perhaps the best thing I have learned from NASSIM Taleb which has probably saved me millions of dollars is simple; never put more than 10% of your life savings into anyone speculative bet or “investment”, no matter what they say about “risk” and it being “safe”. The best strategy is simple: take 10% of your life savings, and put it into some extremely maximally speculative thing, which you believe has 1000X upside potential. For example, let us say that you have $100,000 of life savings, take only 10% of that, $10,000, and put it into a speculative cryptocurrency which you think could go up by at least 1000 times. This is far more effective than the boring, put 100% of your money into some sort of boring mutual fund, etc.
  2. For weightlifting very simple; the only type of weightlifting which is actually worth it is any sort of weightlifting in which the chance of failure is high. That means, always striving to increase your one repetition maximum lift; only single repetitions here. No stupid sets no stupid repetitions; one repetition or nothing. This means just start off with a dynamic warm-up, and then slowly add weights, gradually, until you can no longer budge the barbell. Simple exercises include doing an elevated deadlift, put your barbell on top of cinderblocks or the power rack, and when you are doing a “rack pull“, you lift with your thighs your legs, and you max out. Or the ERIC KIM ATLAS LIFT — just Google or YouTube it.
  3. Social risks: Better to be annoying, rub somebody the wrong way, and be insanely friendly rather than being the typical antisocial loser with headphones on, sunglasses on, facial hair, a hat or a beanie etc. Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore.

Now what?

Some assignments:

  1. Smile and wave and say hi to everybody you meet for a whole day.
  2. Take a photo of somebody without their permission, and if they make eye contact with you smile and wave. Street Photo 101
  3. Open up a Coinbase cryptocurrency account, and invest 10% of your life savings in some sort of cryptocurrency or technology which interests you. For myself currently I put 90% of my crypto into chainlink and 10% as bitcoin. My personal thought is don’t dabble “alt coins“, and also one scamming cryptocurrency I think is Ada Cardono– Ethereum is interesting, but also, I don’t really trust it. Why? If Ethereum is creating its own private enterprise thing, not a good sign for a platform.
  4. Opinion risktaking: Stop censoring yourself and stop speaking politically correct. Speak your true mind, 100% unfiltered, rub feathers the wrong way whatever. Better to be an asshole and happy, than to be politically correct and passive.

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Now what?

The number one advice I have for any photographer entrepreneur etc. is simple: start your own blog. Self hosted with wordpress.org and a platform like Ionos.com or bluehost.com

Also, delete your Instagram. My creativity productivity happiness and innovation has increased by 1 million fold after deleting my Instagram in 2017 with about 60,000 followers.

Also, the best way to stay connected with your audience and fans is through a simple email newsletter, I use sendy.co — which is insanely cheap, hosted by Amazon simple email service. At least 1000X cheaper than mailchimp.com

No more WordPress.com?

Automaticc… WordPress.com … you guys done messed up. I think one of my random wordpress.com websites “violated some sort of content policy“, and as a consequence, the whole blog was wiped. 

I no longer recommend anybody to use wordpress.com. No way Jose.

The only legitimate path is a self hosted website which is censor proof and tamperproof. That is, the service provider cannot just switch a button and delete or turn off your website or thing.

For example I personally predict that sooner or later, Google is going to shut down my YouTube account. Therefore, it is best to just think and consider that sooner or later you’re going to violate some sort of content policy and they’re going to delete your platform.

What cannot be deleted? Your own hosted website, even building a website on Amazon web services seems like a good idea.

Think open source, PDF, JPEG, zip files, decentralized systems and mirrors 

I’ve been in the game long enough that sooner or later, stuff breaks. Hyperlinks no longer work, images no longer work or load, etc. Ever since I was 18 years old, now until the age of 35… I have seen information come and go, platforms rise and fall. Even within my short tenure I’ve seen companies come and go like xanga.com, liveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.

It seems the only real way to deal with issue here is think about the Hydra approach; propagate, duplicate, create more hydra heads. That is if somebody tries to cut off one of your heads, two grow in place. 

The ERIC KIM HYDRA approach: 

  1. erickimphilosophy.com
  2. erickim.com
    3.erickimthoughts.wordpress.com
  3. erickimfitness.com
  4. erickimcrypto.com
  5. EricKim.ai

Just think of yourself like the Pirate Bay; nobody could shut down pirate Bay because there are 1 trillion mirrors. The decentralized notion and idea of Pirate Bay and torrents and mirrors and magnets are fascinating to me; it is bad, it does seem like real freedom.

My very very simple suggestion for media corporations is… Don’t put too much care or concerns about pirating. It ain’t a really big deal. At worst, one percent of your fanbase is going to use it, pirating and torrenting is far too complicated for the average human being. Just ignore it.

Other experiments

  1. Upload your favorite photos to arsbeta.com 
  2. It looks like ChatGPT premium paid model is closed. Maybe it is time for me to start creating some sort of open source solution.
  3. Create your own blog
  4. Order some weightlifting equipment on titan.fitness or roguefitness.com
  5. Get a gym membership, whether it be LA fitness, crunch fitness, golds gym, hot yoga membership. Corepower is fine. 
  6. Take more insanely hot baths or showers at home, and alternate with extremely icy cold water. The undulation between both extremes of hot and cold is a good stimulus to our metabolism. What I have been doing during this winter months is starting off with a very very cold shower, and then filling up the bathtub with boiling hot water, and taking an insanely hot bath, and then, ending with a cold shower. If you don’t have access to a bathtub, just start off with an icy cold shower, make it insanely boiling hot, and then finish off cold.
  7. It does seem that the best place to buy meat is Costco. Or the local Mexican meat market. Try to get some beef liver or kidney or Oregon meats or heart at the local Halal market, or Mexican market, if you go to Costco… Get the 100% grass fed ground beef, or the new Wagyu ground beef which I like. Also I really like the Lamb leg roast at Costco.

So how can I be happy? 

  1. Move out of the bay area, San Francisco, the East Bay, the south Bay, San Jose whatever. Come to Culver City Los Angeles California, my new paradise. I specifically like the arts district. Also, get out of Brooklyn; Brooklyn is for losers. Either live on the main island, or get out. 
  2. Perhaps the ideal strategy in life is to not buy a home, but instead… better to live in an insanely great apartment, in an insanely great location than to buy and own a home in a good location. It’s insane, the difference of 100,000, 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, 500,000, $600,000… Better to just buy a Tesla model S plaid instead. 
  3. Delete email Gmail or whatever from your phone. If you got to do it for a living just do it on your desktop or laptop and also delete the YouTube app from your phone. Also delete Spotify podcasts or whatever. When you drive, drive silent, and let yourself think.
  4. Publish your thoughts photos videos audio to your own blog.
  5. Lift weights, do hot yoga, or go on a hike at least twice a day.

More thoughts — EK BLOG

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