Don’t invest in dead technology. Or technology which will eventually die.

Or just think — as time goes on, will it become more valuable or less valuable or about the same?

The promise of software — hardware as a dead road.

Why? It gives you an opportunity to innovate!

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The path on becoming a stoic:

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One of my current interest in passions, actually for a long time, is regarding stoicism, philosophy, etc.

Why? I think in the realm of philosophy, stoicism may be the only school of thought which actually is useful in every day living. For example, conquering fear doubt and hesitation, how to advance through setbacks, how to deal with other people etc.

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EK WORKSHOPS

Conquer it all:

1. CONQUER DOWNTOWN LA PHOTO AND LIFE
2. CONQUER SAIGON VIETNAM
3. CONQUER THE STREETS OF PHILLY

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Stoicism 2.0?

I think ever since Nassim Taleb, stoicism has gained a new renaissance. Stoicism is now quite mainstream, and interesting to a lot of people.

First and foremost, we must interact with other people. No no no, even if you were a monk in the mountains, you will still make friends with villagers etc. No man has his own island.

I think it is a good idea to be honest here — and we love people. Everybody loves people. The new ones is which types of people we like and we don’t like.

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Why?

Having the courage to ask why I can be one of the most courageous things we can ask in modern day times. Why? I think in modern-day times, to ask people why is seen as a threat. Or like you’re being critical or judging them in a negative way.

However for me, I am simply curious. I’m curious why people engage in certain behaviors and activities, and it really isn’t from a space of judging, it is more my personal curiosity about human nature, society, sociology etc.

Even in Vietnamese, one thing I learned which was insightful was that the question, “Tại sao?“, (在牢?) is seen as an affront.

tại (“because of; for; to blame”) +‎ sao (“why; how”)

Therefore, when you ask somebody “Why?” You’re seeking someone to blame?

Also in Korean, the funny thing, when a parent calls upon their child, and the kid is slightly annoyed, they respond by saying, “왜?” Weh (왜) means “why?” or “what do you want?” When I was in college, and I would teach English to kids in Korea over the summer, I remember finding it so striking that when I will try to call the attention of a Korean kid, they would respond by saying, “Why?” Instead of the standard English, “What?”

Tai can also mean “…because”.

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Why is to exist?

I think sooner or later, a lot of people, once they retire, achieve all these accolades in life, etc., will often meditate on the meaning of their existence, why they exist, the purpose of their life, etc.

However, to meditate on the purpose of your life is simply a steppingstone. It is not the final goal. The final goal is to gain some sort of deeper clarity about the purpose and why of your life, and then, dedicating all of your strength, balls, chutzpah, audacity and courage to attain those goals.

“For the man who knows the why of his life, he will easily discover the how.” – Nietzsche

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Being disliked or hated?

The funny thing is in life, it seems that everyone desires to be liked. Yet, what if actually, the opposite word to be desired? To become more heated, fear, or disliked?

For example, I might be one of the most hated photographers, street photographers, or photography personalities on the internet. Why? People are befuddled by me. People ask me, “what is up with all of these flexing videos?”

The funny thing is people become indignant when you publish things which are not to their liking. However, this is a funny thing,

It is all free. Also, you have the power to unsubscribe, or just not click on it or look at it.

This is this bizarre sense of entitlement people have with the internet:

“How dare you do things which are against my own personal interests!”

The simple strategy is to stoutly proceed, and keep marching on, just imagine like juggernaut from the X-Men movie, busting through the walls.

Or, another visual is imagine the spartan 300, in the movie 300, pushing the Persians off the cliff.

Why is this all so critical?

A lot of people follow me and look up to me. A lot of creators look up to me. I feel like it is my duty, my mission, my missionary duty to empower other people and creators.

I was randomly musing this morning, currently I am 35 years old, born in 1988. When I started traveling the world and doing all this street photography stuff, back in 2010, 2011, I was only 21/22 years old. This means if I do the math, I’ve been in the game for almost 14 or 15 years. Soon this will be 20 years plus.

Also funny enough, I am lucky enough to see the Internet change and evolve. For example when I was just in high school, a sophomore junior in high school, it was all about Xanga in my space. Then I saw the rise and fall of Flickr, and now, The Fall of Facebook, and the overshadowing of TikTok over Instagram.

I was in the car with Cindy, and I was randomly thinking, besides Facebook and Instagram, where else can people share their photos?

arsbeta.com was my first grand mission—

Creating a proof of concept, a double blind experiment in the realm of photography, that is, if the poster of the photo is anonymous, and the commentator is also anonymous, what type of behavior will this facilitate?

What I discovered is that it actually promotes good behavior. Why? People are more genuine and honest.

For example ARS COIN, and ARS BETA RELEASE.

WHY BECOME A MISSIONARY?

One of the great ideas that I got from Peter Thiel from “zero to one” — this notion, missionary or mercenary?

A mercenary mean somebody who works, fights, or labors for some sort of market-determined price for labor. A missionary is somebody who is on a mission, it doesn’t have to be religious. And you don’t have to be some sort of Friar monk with a bald shaved head.

One of the things which is really inspiring of watching Sergey Nazarov when it comes to his lectures and interviews and presentations is he really doesn’t seem to care for money, he really does care to create something that will change the world for the better.

Compare Sergey with a lot of these other fake entrepreneurs, who simply want to cash out, buy a Lamborghini, and retire on some sort of desert island.

My mission?

Life goals I have had, and done did —

1. My curiosity ever since I was a teenage kid, not to “work for the man“, become “my own boss“, and earn $100 an hour… and just work a few hours a week (my desire as a 16 year old kid)
2. When I was around 20, 21 years old: would it even be possible for me to transform my passion, street photography, into a living?
3. Gain financial independence — FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE RETIRE EARLY, also, gain location independence, becoming a digital nomad. Traveling the world, becoming famous, having solo exhibitions and books etc. Purchasing your freedom. Life post-retirement?
4. Make money through bitcoin and crypto — three Lamborghinis in the bank.
5. Have a kid
6. Atlas lift 935 pounds — 9 plates and a 35 on each side, and rack pull 815 pounds — eight plates and two tens. For reference, I am certain within a short period of time I shall be able to atlas lift at least 10 plates. Can you imagine seeing somebody on the squat rack, getting ready to squat 10 plates on each side? Also, my mythical rack pool; can you imagine seeing somebody about to deadlift eight plates, and 210s on each side of the barbell? I am certain within a year, I will be able to successfully rock pull over nine plates.
7. Now what?

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ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS

WHAT CAN YOU BECOME?

1. DOWNTOWN LA — CONQUER YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY AND LIFE
2. CONQUER SAIGON VIETNAM
3. CONQUER STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN PHILLY

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Stoic training

1. For the next month, only take icy cold showers. The best way to do this is start off by taking a really really hot shower, until you get really really hot, and then finish cold. Slowly overtime adjust the duration and tempo, until you go only go cold full-time. I’ve been doing this religiously for the last seven or eight years, ever since the cold Michigan winters in East Lansing.
2. Whenever something bad happens to you in life or you gaining some sort of setback, just say to yourself, “Fuck it!”, then hit the gym, and churn out a new one rep max for your atlas lift or rack pull
3. For an entire month, whenever you randomly cross paths with somebody in the street or sidewalk, make eye contact, smile and just wave at them.
4. Don’t use headphones, AirPods, air buds for a month. This includes the gym.
5. Practice driving without any music, radio, podcast, on. Drive mute.
6. As a nighttime routine, don’t read nothing but stoic philosophy. Read the meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and also the letters of Seneca.

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Stoic Consulting?

Email eric [at] erickim.com

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EK PHOTO SUPPLY

1. HENRI NECK MARK IV: DOMINATE.
2. EK NECK STRAP MARK II: KILL IT
3. ERIC KIM WRIST STRAP MARK II: BECOME THE NEW RULER OF THE STREETS

Shop >

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Stoic Films?

1. The godfather
2. John Wick
3. The movie 300

Cinema >

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A stoic platform?

Perhaps my next enterprise.

In the meanwhile, Stoicism 101 >

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Thoughts, ideas, random stuff on my mind

1. What does it mean to gain more power? Is feeling more powerful the same as actually being more powerful?
2. How to deal with bullshit: just ignore?
3. The market is stupid. Otherwise, how does Pepsi sell Mountain Dew?
4. To improve your website, disable bullshit
5. An upgrade means having less
6. Don’t do anything to “benefit others“, rather, only do things to benefit yourself.
7. People want to murder out their cars, but instead, better to just murder out yourself.
8. Real masculinity versus fake masculinity?
9. Just do as you please, deal with the consequences later.
10. Just buy a cop car: for example, the Ford explorer ST?
11. A good reason to wear all black clothing; let’s distracting to yourself when you drive?
12. Visibility is critical in cars
13. Patience.
14. Always anticipate the worst case scenario traffic.

Always new thoughts on the EK BLOG >

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START HERE, BOOKS, SHOP, WORKSHOPS, NEWS

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ERIC KIM MIRRORS

1. www.Erickim.com
2. www.Erickimphilosophy.com

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Forward the power

Feeling a little bit more stoic and motivated? If so, feel free to forward this to a philosophical friend!

EK NEWS >

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Philosophy 101

ZEN OF ERIC PDF

1. Masters of philosophy
2. Stoicism
3. Zen

To learn more, start here >

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All I need is fast wifi, and I can do anything:

My goal?

Freedom is simply doing as you please, assuming you’re not breaking any laws, without having other people tell you not to do so.

I am still quite certain; any time spent having to drive somewhere, is time wasted.

No. Only lifting weights does that.

Perhaps the best way to review your photos is very very quickly.

Why? There are not enough hours in the day, and also, there is a difficult cadence between having time to review your photos, as well as just living your life.

It seems nowadays, it is more uncommon to see people without tattoos, than with.

A quick way to review your photos quicker, is when you’re looking at your photos on your iPad Pro, the 11 incher, expand the screen so the thumbnails are three images across. Then, click and hold the image to quickly favorite it.

This is a very good technique to quickly review your photos.

It seems that we Americans spend our money very foolishly. We spend insane amount of money on our car, for example, let us say a $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $100,000, $250,000 dollar car.

Let us say that a day pass at the gym is $20, this seems like a lot, but, that is 1,500 visits to the gym… the same price for $30,000… nowadays a “standard” car. That is 4 years straight, every single day, 365 days a year. Arguably going to the gym every single day, even assuming that you were spending $600 a month for a gym membership or multiple gym memberships, seems to be a better investment for your happiness and your well-being.

Even spending money on meat. We tend to think that meat is expensive, especially beef and lamb. However once again that is not the case. And assuming that you don’t spend more than $2500 on your car, you should have very very plush funds to experiment with.

Taking this even further, how much money we spend on homes, in California, whether Norcal or SoCal, it looks like a cheap house is $800,000, $900,000, or under the $1 million mark. Then after that, $1.1 million $1.2 million and $1.3 million.

Is the point of your life to simply pay off a mortgage? And even assuming that you paid off the mortgage in full, or even if you bought the house in 100% cash, property taxes can still range in the $1500 a month to $2000 a month range, that’s a lot. Even more than rent in some places. Let us not forget that when you’re in a home, random shit breaks, repairing a roof, replacing your water heater, fixing your toilet etc.

The more time you could spend on your iPad Pro, the more productive you shall become.

BRC-20 BITCOIN AND BEYOND

Embedded timestamps in your photos are a good thing.

This is especially useful when you have a big backlog of photos, and you’re sharing photos with family.

When I’m on my iPad Pro, outside, in the direct sun with no shirt on, pants rolled up, and maximum exposure to the sun, I feel my pace quicken.

Updated via EK NEWS

My goal?

When I’m out in the elements, not in the house, with good sun and UV exposure, I am more productive.

I really think that the true punishment of modern day times is being forced to be inside an indoors office.

Becoming “bored” is a learned behavior? Kids are naturally never bored!

Science Experiments

I dream of a free open access public gym— replete with weight lighting! With real equipment!

What do you need the world for?

For me, natural light and the sun is pure euphoria!

Photos shot from inside your car while stuck in traffic or at the red light:

Invulnerable?

The sun god.

Or another words, pride in being the outlier!

For example, it seems that the trend is movie Studios try to shoot to create films that can net at least $1 billion

For example, I really like the views at Newport Beach

At the end of the day, perhaps it is photography which is my Archimedes lever. I am just so insanely good at it, it is intuitive to me, and also, I am endlessly fascinated by it.

A random musing on my mind when I was just randomly driving, what is this:

It isn’t more money, more wealth that we desire, but more power.

For example, whenever you see somebody in some sort of really big SUV, the sports edition, let’s say a BMW X6M, what they are trying to really do is assert their power and dominance. However, does driving a powerful car make you more powerful? It might make you feel more powerful, but does it make you more powerful? No.

I think I got it figured out; the reason why Americans love cars so much is because they are democratic. A car is like your external avatar, and you could assume any sort of avatar you desire, as long as you’re willing to spend the money on it, whether it be purchasing it in all cash, financing it, leasing it, renting it, etc.

For example, when you see people in some sort of high end muscle car, what is it that they desire to assert? Their manliness, their dominance, etc. However, a fun activity I like to do is whenever I see some people driving a high end sports car, I’m always curious to see who the driver is. Typically, I see them trending to be kind of younger men, trying to look hard. Or sometimes old fat dudes.

The reason why I think cars are so cowardly is because typically, even if you drive a really really loud sports car, a hyper car, a Lamborghini, a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, some sort of high-end muscle car, it looks like the trend is that everyone tints their front windows so dark, almost to limo. Therefore you cannot even see who the driver is. And they also tend to drive with sunglasses on, and often a hat. So you really cannot determine their identity.

I asked my friend Don Dillon, whether we are more interested in the car or the driver, and he laughed and told me, “of course the car!”

Be hidden or be seen?

Thus the strange paradox:

We want to show off, be loud, assert ourselves and our ego and our dominance, yet, we want our identity to be anonymous? And we don’t want other people to look us directly into the eyes?

Murdered out Teslas?

Another trend I’ve seen a lot in Southern California is people buying black on black on black Teslas. It could be a “murdered out“ Tesla Model Y, 3, X, S, etc. also a new trend with the black license plate with a yellow lettering, and also the trend for people to apply a matte black wrap to their cars, making it look like some sort of stealth bomber.

The hilarity is whenever I see people step out of their Teslas. I’ve actually seen a lot of men with murdered our Tesla model Y’s, complete with the black license plate and yellow lettering, typically they tend to be skinny fat Asian American men, often with a baby or some kids. And also I think it was my friend Elsa Morgan who told me that in the bay area and in Silicon Valley, a Tesla model X is essentially a glorified minivan for men, who still want to feel masculine, without the stigma of driving a minivan.

My funny thought is better to just fully lean into it; if I buy a new car, it will just be a white Honda Odyssey.

Back to photo

Let’s take it back to photography. What is it that we desire in photography, and out of our photos?

The first I think is we want more power and potency in our photos. The photos we make is our artwork. And what is our artwork? Or artwork or almost like our children; they are some sort of external manifestation of ourselves.

Show me your photos, and I can see who you are.

The aesthetic of the photographer is often a reflection of themselves

For example, my aesthetic. I much love extremely high contrast, black-and-white photos, complete with a lot of grit and grit. Perhaps this is some sort of reflection of my own personal mentality of things.

Crush the blacks.

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Creating more potent photos?

Potency means potential. That is, a more potent photo is a photo which has a greater ability to emotionally or physiologically move the viewer, and also yourself.

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What makes a photo more potent?

In regards to potency, some thoughts:

1. To increase the potency of a photo, increase the contrast
2. To increase the potency of a photo, use black and white
3. Make the photos more personal, pertaining to yourself. I find that a lot of photographers hide behind their cameras, perhaps signaling some sort of cowardice.
4. To make a photo more potent, increase the potency of the composition. How do you do this? The simpler the better. For example, strong diagonal compositions, fewer distractions in the background. Also often hand gestures are good.

the impetus to photograph?

It seems that nowadays the trend is women want to make men more like women.

Question — does man want woman to become more like man?

To blame others is a signal of weakness.