Is there a future for photographers in today’s brave new world?

My thoughts:

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The notion of “van life” and “tiny homes” are a trap. Why? It makes us think:

Once I just disconnect from technology, society, and go “off the grid” I can finally become happy and free.

Not true. Far better to be part of society, live in a city, and live in a tiny (“luxury”) apartment than to live sequestered from society …. cut off.

Minimalism is escapism. Escapism from the reality of our own lives. In other words:

Lifestyle ain’t the answer, our own approach and philosophy is.

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As long as you cleave your self esteem to others, you will be disappointed. The simple solution:

Extreme selfishness and extreme self esteem, and extreme self focus on yourself.

No dependence or reliance in others. No expectations in others. Only high expectations in yourself. To conserve your energy, and not waste it on others.

Jony Ive — apparently wanted to leave Apple after Steve Jobs died. Jony Ive was truly the last bastion of hope for Apple in terms of the artistic soul of Apple. But since Jony Ive has left, it seems Apple is going downhill. Too nerdy. It will become (or has already?) become the new Microsoft.

Then the thought:

Only trust Apple devices that were designed while Jony Ive was still at Apple. They are the last devices with a soul.

I’ve discovered in my life when I try to “help” others I’m always disappointed. Why? I expect them to become like me. But when they fail to do so, I feel disappointed. As a consequence, perhaps I feel low-key spite or malice towards them?

Solution: dispel this notion of trying to “help” others. Sometimes I might be doing more harm than good?

Or change my expectations. Help others as a consequence of my hyper-abundance and joy, but don’t expect anything from others. So keep helping others, and remove the expectation part from the equation.

My theory:

I like others to treat me how I treat them, but this almost never happens. Why? I expect everyone to treat me highly.

As a consequence, I treat everyone else highly. But is this reasonable?

And perhaps why I’m always disappointed in others is because I expect them to treat me how I treat myself, because I have such a high expectation of myself? And I feel disappointed because I don’t see others as high as me?

We only got this one life to live. No life or consciousness or spirit after death. The mortal soul— the soul which dies once your body dies. If this is the case, then why live life doing anything which bores you?

When you got nothing else to shoot, just shoot the sky!

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With working out, don’t do these boring static stretches which take waaaay too long with waaaay too many boring repetitions. Just do it quick, efficiently, and get on with it!

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In praise of just having fun in photography! Shoot with mirrors, shoot videos, and just have fun, keep experimenting and confusing the viewer with your (weird) perspectives!

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In today’s brave new COVID world … isn’t right now the best time to go out and shoot uber-interesting photos?

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As an artist, you’re always in a state of flux and evolving. No limits!

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The goal:

Associate with people who uplift and pump you up, not people who depress and hold you down.

Fear is the ultimate emotion we must conquer. The goal ain’t to live a “happier” life but a LESS FEARFUL life.

One of the worst ills of ‘Gen Z’ kids:

They cannot make eye contact, have poor social skills.

Even us ‘Millenials’. We cannot make eye contact. We always got our AirPods in. It is not considered ‘cool’ to talk to strangers. Worse yet, most people don’t got the guts (or social skills) to talk to strangers.

But what is the real problem here? Twofold:

1. Modern society doesn’t encourage talking to strangers or interacting with strangers (stranger danger)
2. Technology and our phones make us socially averse to other people.

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Simple tutorials:

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To weigh yourself, whether your scale-weight (how fat you are), weighing yourself in terms of your bank account balance, weighing yourself in your social media following numbers likes views etc is self-esteem suicide.

What is self-esteem suicide? Quantifying your self-worth and ‘progress’ through numbers.

Unquantify yourself.

Some pragmatic ideas:

1. Get rid of your scale at home or in your bathroom. Just give it away or throw it away. Better to just look at yourself naked in the bathroom mirror before you shower to judge your body composition.
2. Delete Instagram. The worst thing for your self-esteem as an artist. Start your own websiteblog instead.
3. Don’t look at your bank account balance. Make sure you got enough money to pay rent but beyond that… you are not your bank account balance. You are not “ones and zeros” and commas.

Less worries, less stress. Less stuff.

Fewer obligations, fewer things to manage. Less is best!

Simple ideas:

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Technology as a means to an end, not the end in itself.

Which means:

Be more interested in your personal end-game, rather than being interested in tech for tech’s sake.

In other words:

Don’t fetishize and lust after gadgets and new technology for the sake of it. Think deep. Philosophy. Ask yourself *WHY?* and keep asking yourself *WHY?* indefinitely until you gain a deeper truth *WHY* you want the tech in the first place and for what end-goal?

For example, we don’t want new cameras for the sake of it, we want new cameras because we are currently lacking inspiration and motivation to go out and shoot new photos.

There is no end-game to blogging. The goal:

Never run out inspiration, motivation or ideas and to keep posting indefinitely, until you die!

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No doubt about it … WordPress (the open source wordpress.org and the paid wordpress.com) is *THE* best platform for publishing, blogging, website-building, whatever. Why?

1. Ultimate flexibility and customization
2. Future-proof (they got a trillion dollars to support it)
3. Matt Mullenweg can be trusted.

How to get started

1. Go to bluehost.com and pay for the cheapest domain and website hosting. Then install WordPress.org
2. Once your website–blog is up and running, just start posting!

And what is the end-goal? Never stop posting.

ERIC

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No no no… the devil doesn’t exist. Whoever talks about the devil in a metaphorical sense or even worse… a *real* sense — don’t trust them.

A thought —

When we hear music, did the artist create the music out of their own depression and sickliness, or out of their over-abundance in health, joy, and liveliness?

Perhaps this is the judge on what “good” or “bad” music is.

Something I’ve been realizing in the context of philosophy, health and hygiene … cleanliness certainly is the closest thing to godliness (wasn’t this an advertisement somewhere?)

Photos of my everyday life:

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1. Featured image doesn’t need to be related to your post.
2. Blog from your phone or tablet/iPad.
3. Blog about anything in your life. No categories.
4. Bullet point lists like this are useful.
5. Better to post a “bad” post than no post at all.
6. Drink cold brew black coffee to get the creative juices flowing!
7. The best desk is no desk. The best office is no office. Take your phone or iPad or laptop to the park! Get some fresh air, see some green, hug a tree, and walk around. The best way to get creative ideas.

Design your blog, website, products and life just like air, the great outdoors. A breath of fresh air. Openness. Light, brightness. High ceilings. Floor to ceiling windows. The more air, light, and lightness the better!

Towards more on the philosophy of fresh air.

1. Don’t be afraid of overtraining. Work out everyday for fun and physiological thriving.
2. Intermittent fast during the day. Workout while fasted is better. More energy and motivation. Hunger motivates you to move and workout.
3. Black coffee (no cream, sugar or milk) before working out.
4. No music, phone or headphones while working out. More focus and strength.
5. Aim to eat 5-10 pounds of meat when you break your fast. Then you can will sleep well and not be hungry the next day until dinner.
6. Aim to increase your “one rep max“. Reps are boring. Keep your intensity and difficulty high, repetitions low.
7. Minimalist shoes. Water or kayak shoes on Amazon. No padding or foam sole.
8. Always wear same outfit to workout to ease cognitive load. Black merino wool Outlier.nyc shirt. Black merino wool leggings (Amazon). Black athletic shorts.

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Real ideas:

1. Ricoh gr III in program mode and JPEG. Either high contrast monochrome or cross process filter. Positive film color filter is good too.
2. Post photos to your own website blog, not social media.
3. Delete your Instagram.
4. Use Apple photos on your MacBook laptop instead of Lightroom. Apple Photos is much faster.
5. If you want to use Lightroom, use the new creative cloud Lightroom on your laptop instead of the classic version. The new mobile friendly version is much faster.

Social fear aversion therapy technique.

Pork is delicious, cheap, and easily accessible! The main reason why a lot of Jewish people don’t consume pork was back in the day, pork had a lot of diseases. Not so much anymore.

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Instead of seeking the ‘truth’, better to pursue just having the power to create art!

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I have high expectations of others. A big one:

One’s back-stage self should be the same as one’s front-stage self.

In other words:

Don’t talk a certain way behind the scenes and talk a different way in front of the camera.

Make it the same.

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We talk much now about physical hygiene (in today’s brave new COVID world), but how come we never talk about *mental hygiene* — in the context of mental health?

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How to be a hype-man:

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Practical thoughts:

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Wisdom: physiological and mental health to pursue what is best for you.

Knowing the truth about x y z is often a distraction. Who cares if all these strange conspiracy theories are true? How does it benefit you? It doesn’t.

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It is fun to showcase your progress, gains, and watching these videos (myself) is hugely interesting and self-entertaining!

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My critique on social media:

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Never forget… anything you do or post online, assume like it will be discovered down the line.

Note:

• archive.org
• The Way Back Machine (http://web.archive.org)

Do not post anything to Facebook, Instagram, Google whatever that you otherwise wouldn’t do in public.

Download the ‘Who Wrote That?’ Wikipedia plugin for Firefox, and find the fun —

Let us do some investigations into people who (probably) wrote their own Wikipedia bio, or people who have written (biased) information regarding their own collective, group, or thing.

Also shout-out to my friend Thomas Leuthard for making the trip possible. Also shout-out to Loryne Atoui and Mohammed Badr.

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My personal thought on ethics in America:

Just leave others alone and do as they please in private.

For example if people want to self-mutilate, let them do it. If they want to do bad things to their body, let them do it. However what we should *NOT* be tolerant of in America is when certain individuals become militant (assert, incite, or promote physical violence) against others.

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Sex is biological (were you born with testes or ovaries?). Gender is social — one can and perhaps *should* be allowed to self-assign their own desired gender.

The tricky thing:

In society, we get the two conflated (confused).

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I do not believe in superstition of any form. I am a pure empiricist.

What is superstition? It essentially means to believe in ‘meta-physics’, “energy” and all this other non-physics and non-biology based stuff. For example things I do *NOT* believe in:

1. I do not believe in life after death (I believe in a mortal soul— a soul which dies once your body also dies)
2. I do not believe in aliens, UFO’s
3. I do not believe in the ‘spirit world’
4. I do not believe in religion literally (I am Catholic, but I like it for the ethics and aesthetics and the ‘pomp and pageantry’ as Taleb calls it).

It is quite obvious we all descended somewhere in Africa (Lucy (Australopithecus), the original ancestor of Homo Sapiens). Thus what interests me is this:

Not about ‘race’, for we are all the “human race”. More interest in human migration patterns.

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As much as people tend to be very anti-American and the government, I am for it. Why? I suppose I am one of the few last liberals on the (now) intolerant left who believe in the American Dream, and has deep gratitude for what America, the government, all of my leaders and guides has done for me:

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Something I’ve realized —

So much of America and the world is antisemetic and anti Jewish.

My theory why this is:

They are envious and jealous of the success of Jewish people and want to scapegoat them.

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Not good.

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A look into my life:

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I have zero interest in going to mars, space, and beyond. I like ‘spaceship earth’ (Buckminster Fuller). What if the best life were here on earth … and how could we maximize our use and life here on this beautiful blue and green planet?

Ultimately we can boil down most people to one or the other:

Are your personal intentions rooted in love of humanity or hatred towards humanity?

If you pay for a service, buy an app, etc… there is more transparency. If an app, game or social media platform is “free”, then YOU’RE the product. Perhaps this is in favor of paywalls and paid news services (not free) in order to get truly more accurate or factual or honest news, compared to free news sites which monetize off Google Adsense. Or in other words:

Do not trust any free and open news agency as long as their money is derived from advertising, because the hidden implicit bias is to create the most bombastic news articles to scare or FOMO you into clicking the articles and clicking the advertisements.

I trust assholes (Kanye West, Steve Jobs) more than I do “nice guys” (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett). Why? Because if you’re an asshole in public and in the faces of others, you’re more authentic and real. The problem; a lot of “nice guys” are closet assholes and might be “nice guy evil” without even knowing it.

He or she who is the first mover shall move all.

First mover when it comes to creating a new culture, a new system of thinking, a new technological tool or platform, etc.

The park life is the best life:

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The only two things I need:

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The basic gist:

I get an idea of something I feel passionate or strongly about, and I just say a bunch of nonsense in my mind, and I try my best to rhyme and make it fun and interesting to myself!

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The general gist of fear marketing:

More effective to drive people towards certain decisions and behaviors based on fear, rather than praise-reward-encouragement.

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Fun chatting in the park:

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Avoid all ideologies and “-isms”; they all tend to be a trap.

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To think that limits exist is for suckers.

The thought:

The reason why a slate grey colored car is best is because it blends in with the environment.

Then what makes me think … perhaps the best design is invisible? The design you don’t even gotta think about? The best condom as the most invisible as Taleb says? Or the best shoes are no shoes, or close to barefoot as possible?

The upside of wearing all black clothes:

Blend in more with the environment.

And the best computer devices, phones etc —

The technology feels invisible and is brainless to use?

The concept of HAPTIC:

Re-introduce the sense of touch (HAPTIC feedback) into our everyday lives with beautiful tools which will last you a lifetime.

HAPTIC: brainchild of CINDY NGUYEN x ERIC KIM. To empower all photographers and visual artists.

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Outlier.nyc — the solution to fast fashion.

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Unfortunately, FOMO (fear of missing out) is real and very effective. Fear marketing 101.

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A company which profits off people’s insecurity and need for external affirmation … isn’t this evil? Truth be told to be addicted to cocaine seems like a better addiction than being addicted to social media and Instagram.

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