All advice from others, is bad advice. From the last decade of asking others for advice, I have not yet received one piece of good advice, knowledge, wisdom which has really helped me.

Become free like a bird.

You never know your potential future usage. Better to have extreme (extra) buffer in this case!

Or another words, why it’s better to take the 101 instead of the 5 freeway.

Brutalist architecture, lots of concrete as very ugly and depressing. The more green, the more brick, the more warm elements, the better.

Think Andy Warhol and his repeating Marilyn Monroe heads. Also, diptychs, triptychs, etc:

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How I lift (MUSCLE 101):

No need to monetize:

Warmup Screenshots

SQUAT

Keep ruthlessly marching forward!

On being totally present.

Simple way to live life: only do things, and pursue things which you are insanely enthusiastic about.

Great! Some reasons:

First of all, my son Seneca loves it. At age 1 year, 3 months he already knows how to use it! Just click the top record red button on top, and it automatically turns on and starts recording.

Secondly, files look great. 1080p, 60fps (exporting it down to 720p, 60fps) looks great. Video files look waaaay better than iPhone Pro to me.

Third, more fun to shoot with a GoPro than an iPhone or any other phone camera. Video on GoPro is so much more fun because you don’t need to worry about focusing or anything. Also the uber-wide mode (‘super wide mode’) is very fun. Also the built-in image stabilization for GoPro 10 is insanely good.

Fourth, more playful. To just shoot random clips of whatever on a GoPro is far more fun and playful than a ‘serious’ video camera.

Fifth, because it is so robust, it can be easily banged around (literally by Seneca), and I have zero concern of it scratching, breaking, etc. Compare this to an iPhone or any smartphone — you are always concerned about scratching it.

Sixth, the Quik GoPro app is actually really good.

Seventh, price is super good!

Eighth, it is super small. I just keep it in my front left pocket.

For example in K-12 schools, especially for kids, perhaps 90% of the time should just be spent outdoors playing and being physical, and only 10% on studying.

“O my soul, Do not aspire to an immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible”- Pindar Pythian III

From intro of “The myth of sisyphus” (Albert Camus):

The upside of getting lost in a Barnes and Noble or bookshop in the philosophy section (the only section worth checking out).

Take a cheap Carnival cruise — I liked the 7 Day Panorama Mexico one. Some hacks:

1. Order 8 steaks at the sit down dining.
2. Go to the gym everyday (they have 100 pound dumbbells!) The hot sauna is also very good.
3. Stop by all the places early, and come back early.
4. Don’t use Wi-Fi onboard. Disconnect for a week.
5. Bring your laptop and make some ebooks or e-zines. iPhone is quite useless without Wi-Fi. Laptop is the GOAT when it comes to offline computing.
6. Guy Fieri burger bar very good. My record is 12 Patties (ask them to just give you burger Patties). Eat with mustard and pickled Jalepenos.
7. Bring a GoPro. Very fun! Shoot ultra wide (super wide), GoPro hero 10 (1080p, 60fps).
8. Shoot street photography on the cruise ship and off the cruise ship.
9. The Library room on the cruise ship is very zen.
10. When you go offshore and go to the beach and water, easiest to just swim in your boxer briefs (Exofficio boxer briefs).
11. Cabo, Mexico is actually super nice. The beach and water is even more beautiful than Hawaii!!
12. Don’t get suckered by excursions. Just get off the ship, walk or call an Uber somewhere (works well in Mexico).

More cruise thoughts

That’s why we love it so much!

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We all just want a more dynamic, interesting and exciting life. Not more money or more fancy cars or things.

Better than Leica M11, Leica Q2, any Fujifilm camera, any digital medium format camera, better than iPhone Pro, etc.

Best video camera (better than iPhone Pro) is GoPro hero 10.

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Mazatlan Mexico was good — gritty like a Cuba.

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Nobody cares for points. We just want to win. In STREET FIGHTER II, you get all these random “points”, but nobody cares for them. Winning is the goal.

Perhaps in life, money (cash, USD, $) is the point system. But in real life, we want to win. Don’t get distracted by the points.

Don’t just be stuck in a park, a skate park, a play park, or any place.

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“Haven’t you noticed that there are no interesting men in heaven?”

Nietzsche

All the new Apple products — my only critique is that they’re boring. No longer sexy, interesting or unique.

Even new Lamborghini stuff is boring.

Why crypto and Bitcoin is so great to me — it feels like money “off the grid”.

Our ideal.

This is our power law— not to always be on the road, and not always be at home. However, the optimal distribution between both.

The promise or hope of a brighter, better future.

To plan ahead, even with working out is fragile. Why? Impossible to know how you will feel tomorrow.

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If you’re curious about what Mazatlan, Mexico looks like (CRUISE Carnival destination, for the 7 day Panorama cruise):

Typically, the grittier and more ‘low key’ the city, the better it is for street photography:

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Desiring to monetize things (unnecessarily) is a sign of lack of self-confidence?

It is fine to monetize your passion, but for random stuff (like YouTube, social media, etc): you don’t need to monetize it.

CRUISE LIFE as better than the ‘van life’, etc:

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Make beautiful advertisements, which can just be timeless (‘evergreen’) art works? My aspiration for advertising my workshops.

A simple theory on photography:

All your photos are a stream of your own self-becoming.

What does this mean?

It ain’t about any individual single image … it is about the continuum of your photos– your stream of photos.

1. Don’t obstruct the flow.

All things considered, the best way it seems to get in the flow of photography is to put on some good noise cancelling headphones (either the BOSE ones, or the AirPods Pros) and listen to the same single album on repeat, to get yourself in the zone.

Use this zone to either review/flag/export/share your photos, or when you’re out shooting photos, don’t shoot with your iPhone (use RICOH GR III/IIIX instead), turn your phone off or to airplane mode, and focus on shooting. Even the 15 minute photography pomodoro technique works well.

2. The right tools

When I was in Vietnam I was probably in peak flow. No phone (I got rid of my phone/phone plan for nearly 2 years), no using emails (didn’t check my email for 2 years+), and my 13” MacBook Pro (maxed out, refurbished at the time, cost me $2000) was ideal. Now my laptop is starting to lag and slow down.

It seems to get the most powerful, maxed out MacBook Pro laptop (smallest size, and the most powerful for the size/weight) seems ideal. Nowadays even though I hate it, the 14” MacBook Pro seems ideal.

Essentially you don’t want your laptop or devices to slow you down.

3. No social media

Delete the gram. In today’s soft world and soft society, one of the very easy things you can do to exhibit courage is to figure out what to delete, get rid of (VIA NEGATIVA COURAGE).

Delete your Instagram, and build up your own blog instead.

How to start a blog >

How to build a blog >

4. Understand your photos as you publish and share them

To me, I don’t remember or have any personal meaning of my photos until I publish or share them.

This is what I say:

1. Use Apple photos to import your JPEG photos
2. Flag (select/favorite) your favorite ones
3. Export them to your laptop (Dropbox folder)
4. Upload them to your blog
5. Publish all your photos as a ‘Gallery’, and re-review your blog post to better analyze your own photos
6. Repeat

5. Insanely robust health

If you got insanely robust health (insanely great sleep, eat a shitload of beef/steak/beef ribs before sleeping) and you have a lot of great coffee in the morning (light roast, espresso, no sugar/cream/milk alternatives — straight black), put on some noise canceling headphones and got a laptop … what can’t you achieve?

6. Extreme self confidence in yourself and your photography

Once you delete instagram, social media, and no longer metricate your own photography (demetricate your photography, and demetricate yourself), then …

You will no longer fear how many likes/followers/lost followers will happen to you.

7. Keep publishing

Experiment using offline options. APPLE PAGES to design and export your book into a PDF ebook or e-zine.

Share them to your own website, blog, or just email them directly to friends and family.

8. Email newsletter

sendy.co (what I use for this email newsletter) is good for email newsletters. Setting it up is a pain, but good for the long-run.

Why? If you post a photo to Facebook or Instagram, let us say you have 60,000 followers. Perhaps only 5,000 of them might even see your post. Very low percentage. Compare this with email newsletters– nearly a 30-40% open rate (at least 100x better than social media). And with social media the algorithm is always favoring advertising (to ‘boost’ your post, you must pay money). Self hosted is the future [open source].

Like JAY Z SAYS:

Until you own yourself you can’t be free, until you own yourself you can’t be me.

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WKSHPS

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STRT / BOOKS // SHOP

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If this sparked any good creative ideas within you, feel free to share to a friend!

For example, self-hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), self hosted website/blog (WordPress.org).

My only goal in life:

To have insanely robust health, in order to think the most epic and lofty turbo thoughts, to share them with others, and to elevate myself to another level (becoming my own uber-man),

“Give them what they need, it may not be what they want” (KANYE WEST / YEEZUS ALBUM)