Hindsight is always 20-20. I am very grateful I studied sociology (purely on a whim). Shout-out to Terri Anderson and Mark Jepson, and all my great sociology professors at UCLA. I learned soooooo much from sociology, and I am starting to truly reap the rewards now (I am born in 1988) almost a decade later:

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The basic tenent of social aversion therapy. Ironically this might also be the best way to build trust, build clout, become more interesting and become more successful.

The science and philosophy of ethics in society; applied. This is the task of us new sociologists!

A new mindset and approach:

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If we’re always in a state of becoming, then perhaps we are always in beta mode. Perhaps then a beta-forward mindset is a good mindset to approaching life! No finality! Constant iteration.

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All beta everything!

In our Brave New COVID world, we cannot plan anymore. So what are we to do? My thought:

Live as if everyday were your last.

What’s the hardest thing to do? To decide. To make a decision. Here are some of my pragmatic heuristics to decide:

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As a blogger, photographer, and creator you’re a media-creator. Media as general — audio, visual, text, whatever that can show up on a screen!

Rather than seeking to get “signed” or “discovered” by another platform or media empire, why not strive to build your own?

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Durability issues aside, RICOH GR III is a perfect camera for photography. The uber-heavyweight camera in terms of bang for the buck, and the strongest power-to-weight ratio.

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The ocean is vast.

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Let us think beyond just being good — let us strive for great and beyond.

My passion in life and my purpose in life — empower myself and others to their personal maximum and beyond.

Try out ZEN OF ERIC on Facebook Messenger.

• Facebook messenger link
• Facebook page link
• https://www.messenger.com/t/ZenOfEric

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Consult yourself, your own conscience, your own opinion before consulting others for THEIR thoughts, opinion, and conscience.

Develop everything of you: your body, mind, soul, intelligence, wisdom, art and innovation. It is all connected; don’t just do one. Do it all!

The difference: if you focus on “self improvement”, it infers you are already somehow inept, deficient, or need improving. Self development: you’re already great, and the goal is to become greater.

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We think we want more money, cars, property, etc… but the real goal is this: augment your personal wisdom to the maximum, and share your wisdom with others.

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As a Bay Area (born and raised) liberal (former) Democrat, I really don’t like left politics anymore. Why? In some ways, the left is becoming even MORE intolerant than the “backwards” right.

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A noble and interesting life goal: master your metabolism. Uber-high and uber-hyper energy and vigor throughout the day to write, think, walk, workout and make art!

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Sooner or later your RICOH GR II or Ricoh GR III is gonna break. They’re not reliable cameras, although they are very good cameras. Ricoh has one of the worst durability of cameras in terms of longevity. They all sooner or later break. My RICOH GR II called it quits after around 3-4 years, and this new RICOH GR III is already giving me lens problems after 2 years.

Takeaway: RICOH GR camera as the best everyday shooter, but don’t take (only) one on some epic world wide journey. Or if you’re gonna shoot something super important and reliability is essential, don’t use RICOH GR for it.

More faith in powerlifting, weight lifting and human physiology over ‘mental‘ things.

Simple ideas:

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“All is gut!” (German)

Good exists, evil doesn’t. Thus instead of calling something bad or evil, let us just say “not good”.

Good, “gut” (German) means God, or godlike.

Why I powerlift: for me, mental and bodily zen mental training:

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If you never shared your opinion, humanity and society could never progress.

You cannot fake substance:

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If you live long enough, sooner or later you’re going to contradict yourself. Thus, don’t get too caught up on being consistent and predictable. Better to just follow your own gut and go with the flow!

Not content, substance is king!

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Let us be very very very wary of notions of ‘minimalism’. Simplicity is good, minimalism is bad. Minimalism as capitalism or consumerism 2.0, for us ‘Millennial’ generation (we are rich, and apparently more ‘woke’ than our “hoarder” parents), but we are just getting suckered into buying a FEW really really really expensive stuff (this is just consumerism, but made more sexy and interesting).

Or how minimalism is bad. Or don’t be too quick to give away your stuff or lend it out. Or towards an anti “Marie Kando” approach:

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Roger Williams (founder of Providence Rhode Island) first got me into the notion of the ‘rape of the soul’. Interestingly enough, Roger Williams came nearly 100 years BEFORE Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson’s “We the People” notion was inspired by Roger Williams). But anyways this got me thinking:

We talk about physical (sexual rape) much, but how come we never talk bout mental or spiritual or soul-rape?

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“Class bending”.

For example:

1. Eat “poor people” food — like cheap meats, at the “ghetto” grocery stores. In praise of canned foods and frozen greens.
2. Drive a shittier car or own a shittier phone.
3. With clothes, buy uber-expensive stuff like black merino wool Outllier.NYC $110 t shirts and wear it everyday, and pride yourself in the holes and fade. Look like a homeless person.

When I blog, I think better. I improve my thinking and thoughts. As I blog, I flesh out my ideas.

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Instead, ask what they do. Ask what stocks they currently own or what they’re personally invested in. Ask them what they’ve purchased or done with their own money. This will reveal their “true preferences”— action is always more truthful than just basic “words”.

Simple approach to life, and simple heuristic:

Be very very very skeptical when others (especially strangers) tell you to do this or don’t do that.. because it is ‘bad’ for you.

What is often ‘bad’ for you is what is best for you. And when others say that is ‘good’ for you, it is often good for THEM and THEIR self-esteem and THEIR ego, but not good for you.

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Some people like to watch Netflix or shows or whatever… I prefer to watch my own videos; to see my own personal real reality videos!

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There ain’t a right or wrong way to blog. This is how I do it:

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Also, WHY I cook:

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I am very very grateful I never went to art school, nor did I go to ‘video school’ or ‘photo school’. I am glad I am all self-taught. Why? I am far more practical and I got more freedom.

For example with video … why do we think we need a massive budget, and all these extra camera people? Seems silly. Just shoot yourself — the beauty of GoPro, or even these new vlogging cameras (tilt screen towards yourself) like Lumix G9.

The best view is your view. Your own POV!

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Lumix-Panasonic powers (much) or inspires much for Leica digital cameras. For example, the Leica SL-line seems just like a variant of Lumix SR-series cameras.

Ricoh-Pentax is superior to Canon, Nikon, and Fujifilm. Ricoh GR III as the ultimate compact camera (10x better than even iPhone Pro). Lumix as making the best vlogging or video cameras. Pentax 645z digital medium format as the supreme DSLR camera. Lumix G9 as best compact video or vlogging camera.

In terms of phone cameras, Google Pixel as superior to iPhone for photography. Why? Google has the best computer vision AI people, which means the Pixel night vision seems 10x more robust than the iPhone night vision.

One of the most effective ways to learn, inspire yourself, and self educate yourself on art and great design:

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In praise of macro photography, or just looking deeply into things:

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Simple approach to photography:

Focus on loving life first, to the maximum. Then the photos will come easy!

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Meat is life:

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How do we get “gains”, or how do we grow, become more, and grow bigger with bigger and stronger muscles?

Simple — we must increase our nutrition and we must expand.

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A lot of guys don’t like to stretch, or do yoga, or become flexible because it seems like a ‘waste of time’, or it is only something that women do.

But facts:

Once upon a time, only men were allowed to do Yoga in India.

Also:

Once I started doing yoga-esque warmups before deadlift, my one rep max for my deadlift went up 50 pounds (from 405, to 455!)

Which makes me think:

Perhaps we should think about flexibility as ‘micro strength’, rather than this “sissy” superfluous thing.

ERIC

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A realization:

Our lives are photography.

Let me explain:

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YouTube as a platform to share your face and build trust, not to monetize.

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Ignore people who tell you what ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ form is.

Better to think about efficient form and inefficient form.

For example in deadlift, sumo is more efficient. That is why it is easier to lift more weight — the movement is more efficient!

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Simple idea:

In life, strive to achieve your ‘one rep max‘ in business, entrepreneurship, powerlifting, and life.

For example:

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If you want to become happier, more productive, more muscular, more lean (less body fat), and more artistically/creatively motivated-inspired-productive, then intermittent fasting is for you:

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Simple idea–

If you want to live a better life, don’t baby your gear.

No. Actually– pride yourself in using and ABUSING your gear!

For example:

1. Bang up your camera, phone, laptop, tablet, whatever. Have pride in the scratches, dents, marks, and cracks.
2. Patina: Wear and tear … wabi-sabi notions.
3. Either buy really cheap gear you don’t mind banging around, or just buy the expensive gear, and pride yourself in abusing your (expensive) gear! If your expensive stuff is scratched and banged up (imagine a scratched up Rolex), treat it as a matter of pride!

To baby your stuff (or even your children) or yourself is bad.

ERIC

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Money as subtractive … to use money to REMOVE bullshit, stress, care and worry from your life. Not money as a means to “add” happiness, joy, and excitement to your life.

New sports cars … hyper cars — they add horsepower, muscle, elegance and form. Faster speeds. Stronger. Reduced weight and technological advancements.

But why not apply this notion to our own human body? To build a hyper body? More muscle, power, agility, speed. To REDUCE weight and fat!

Hyper body is the goal and future.

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Instead of striving to buy a Lamborghini, Tesla, Porsche or whatever hyper car … isn’t it better to build it yourself? To take a skeleton frame from scratch and build your own hyper car, in your own ideal image?

Or better yet — better to design a hyper body, than to buy a hyper car.

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I see life super-simple:

Just pursue your passion, and everything else will fall into place.

Einstein’s (alleged) quote. The gist:

Make things as simple as possible, but don’t make them SO simple that they actually lose functionality and practical use (the problem with people who take minimalism far too seriously).

1. Adopt a more spartan, simple, ascetic lifestyle.
2. Live like a poor person (simulated poverty), but in an elite and strong way
3. Don’t own any expensive possessions. Even for me, I’ve found having an expensive phone causes unnecessary anxiety to my life (fear of dropping it, breaking it, having it stolen, or the annoyance of baying it). Better to have a beater phone you can just throw around everywhere, and no fear of getting it scratched or fucked up, because it is already scratched, fucked up, and old/outdated!

A fun techno-zen approach to life:

Every day, uninstall one superfluous app from your life.

Both literal (from your phone) and also metaphorical (uninstall negative people folks or things from your life).

Not social media. Your own self hosted blog via wordpress.org

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It isn’t a matter of “right” vs “wrong”, or “smart” vs “dumb”— it is a matter of you sharing your own opinion without fear, without censoring yourself, and without diluting yourself or your message.

If you don’t outpress your art, then you get creative constipation, and who likes constipation?

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New thing I’ve been having a ton of fun doing:

Shooting high contrast black and white video.

Why? It is like my joy of shooting high contrast black and white monochrome, but applied to moving images. I’ve enjoyed doing it on my Lumix G9 at 4K at 60FPS, and also on RICOH GR III on 1080p at 60fps.

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Contrary to popular belief, I don’t eat meat because it “tastes good”. No. For me, it is because I believe it will give me maximal physical power, vigor, augment my muscular growth, and minimize my fat gain.

It doesn’t matter how good or bad your bodily physiology theory is, we know … our theories are fragile, biology is king.

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A simple look:

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Yes, human grandeur is possible. Better question:

How bad do you care?

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Care, courage — same word (‘cor‘ which is Latin for “heart”). Proto-Indo-European ‘*ker‘ — the root of everything, your heart.

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Every person, being and thing desires dominance. If we disregard this fact, we are seriously deluding ourselves.