When other people at the gym suspect that you’re taking steroids, while saying,
“There are a lot of powerlifters who are on steroids, but they are.†(Insinuating that I might be on steroids, because I do not look super super steroided out, yet I have godly strength).
People are not sure what category to put me in. Why? They think I am a “powerlifter†because I do not do any silly repetitions, and only go for a really really heavy one rep max‘s. Yet, I don’t do any of the standard lifts like the deadlift, squat, benchpress, etc. I might have already been the first weightlifter to ever rack pull 815 pounds (eight 45-pound plates, two 10-pounders, plus the 55 pound Texas squat power bar) at the gym, and the first I’ve witnessed doing an atlas lift of 935 pounds!
For example, the secret: you can actually lift more, and focus more, if you fast before weightlifting. Fasting before one rep maxing!
Also another secret I discovered; it isn’t protein, but cholesterol. The more cholesterol you consume, the more you will stimulate your muscular growth and strength and testosterone. Not “proteinâ€.
If you steep Hadong green tea, really strong (loose leaf) in a clever dripper strainer … it actually feels far more potent and caffeinated than even coffee!
To gain deeper personal truths about why you do anything, or why you feel a certain way … the Zen of Eric Facebook Chat bot isn’t intelligent. It is not AI. It is rather a sounding board for your own thoughts. It won’t tell you anything you don’t already know in your own heart. ZEN OF ERIC (“Why App”) is a chance for you to ask yourself the big ‘why?’ questions in life, to discover a deeper truth for yourself.
You start chatting with it and saying hello, then you can have the chance to introspect and think about certain things in life.
Once you start chatting, the ZEN OF ERIC chatbot will keep asking you “Why?” until you type: “stop“.
Why did we build this on Facebook messenger?
My friend Stoytcho built this on Facebook Messenger for the practical purpose that the Facebook Messenger app is a robust platform for chat bots and chat applications. Also, you can use it on your laptop, desktop, phone, or tablet. You can interact with it wherever, whenever.
No. Just play around with it. No need to use it if you don’t want to. Rather, see ZEN OF ERIC as a personal mirror or sounding board for yourself, if you just want to flesh out your own thoughts, and to type out and explicate your thoughts.
When you’re bored at home, shoot a message to ZEN OF ERIC CHAT BOT to just say hello, to get your creative juices flowing.
When you’re stuck on the toilet, instead of checking Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/News/Snapchat, start an introspection session with Zen of Eric.
If you’re stuck in line at the grocery store, open up Facebook Messenger and say hello to Zen of Eric.
When you wake up and feel unmotivated, instead of scrolling through email, shoot a message to Zen of Eric
When you read the news and you feel really disappointed and afraid, send a message to Zen of Eric.
Use Zen of Eric when you’re happy, bored, sad, depressed, anxious, or anything else!
Privacy concerns
Truth be told, we cannot put 100% faith in Facebook, or Facebook Messenger. It is quite unfortunate we had to build it on Facebook Messenger, but there is really no other better alternative (for now).
I (ERIC KIM) and my friend Stoytcho did not build this to extract any of your dirty secrets for ourselves. It is simply a tool I asked Stoytcho to build for me, for my personal reasons. Even I use it for myself and my sister Annette used it to discover deeper meaning in her life.
So my simple suggestion:
Don’t tell ZEN OF ERIC anything hyper-personal. We don’t really know what Facebook does with all our data.
All the conversations are not saved to a database. In other words, we (Eric, Cindy, and Stoytcho) can’t see what you write. Only you see your conversations with the Zen of Eric.
Also note:
Zen of ERIC is NOT Eric Kim! It is just a soul-less Facebook messenger chat bot, which is programmed to ruthlessly bombard you with “why?’s” to give you deeper philosophical truths about your own personal life.
It is one of the first words we learn as a kid, yet is beaten out of us when we are young.
To be honest, when a kid always asks you, “Why?†it can get a bit annoying.
But that is where all of our creative energy, insight, and curiosity comes from.
To never be satisfied with answers, and to always keep asking:
Why?
How vs Why
Photo by Luis Donoso
I am a “how†person. I want practical skills, on how to do more stuff, to be more productive, how to be more rich, etc.
But more robust is the “Why?†question.
For example, don’t ask yourself how to make more money, but why make more money.
For me, I ask myself that all the time.
Why do you want to make more money, Eric?
Because I think if I have more money, I can help more people. I can help support my sister, my mom, myself, Cindy, and eventually have enough money to help my friends and local community in need.
Why do you want to help your family, friends, and others?
Because I believe they have so much untapped creative potential, yet their wages and dependence on money is holding them back.
Lesson: I want to empower everyone. To do the best creative work possible. To ultimately, empower all of humanity.
Blessings on blessings on blessings.
Berkeley, 2015 #cindyproject
I’m lucky enough that I have enough. Enough– I have the one all black outfit I wear everyday that I am satisfied with, that I think makes me look cool.
I don’t currently write on a laptop; all is done on an iPad on IA WRITER– it helps my carpal tunnel in my right thumb, from typing too much. I also prefer the 1 pound weight, even compared to the lightest laptops. I returned my 12-inch MacBook laptop recently, because I thought it was a waste of money for $1800. If I need to process photos or use Lightroom, I just borrow Cindy’s laptop. Or I might try to figure out how to use Lightroom on the iPad.
I don’t have a car, nor do I want a car. I don’t want to do stupid DMV payments, pay for insurance, fix and maintain the car, change the tires, change the oil, or have it take space. I prefer renting a car, or riding Uber.
I have a Ricoh GR II camera: the best digital camera ever made, for $600. If I lose or break it, I can easily buy another. I frankly think it’s a better camera, even compared to $7,000 digital Leica’s.
If I’m bored of photography, I have my film Leica. And ultimately, film will always look better, and be cooler than digital photography.
I don’t like owning a phone. So no more lusting after a new iPhone or android phone. Thousands of dollars, and stress saved.
I don’t need anything else
I like having bundles of cash sitting in the bank, doing nothing. Giving me some financial cushion, to sleep at night. I like not wasting money in stupid restaurants, with confusing names, and I always end up leaving hungry. I prefer eating cheap Vietnamese food anyways, and I can always eat my 5-6 egg snacks in the evening to assuage my hunger.
I have access to all the books of history via project Gutenberg, and I can read them for free as .epub files, or PDF, or text. No more books I need to buy.
Tokyo, 2016
I like living in a small studio apartment, or cheap hotel. I don’t like owning furniture, too much stress. I don’t really wanna own a home: too much taxes, stress of fixing broken toilets, and shit falling apart.
I don’t want to own an office space. Less freedom to travel to coffee shops and do creative work.
Dalat, Vietnam 2016 / Photo by Cindy
I used to want to live in a fancy city like SF, NYC, or Tokyo– but I don’t like paying a lot of money for rent. I prefer to live in LA, Saigon, or any city with a lower cost of living. Less stress about rent, more freedom to buy more espresso, and play.
I don’t want to have a lot of responsibilities or burdens in life. I just want maximum freedom to write, read, think, philosophize, share, teach, and explore. I want to be a child, forever.
I’ll always desire more.
Dalat, 2016
Obviously, I am still a sucker for technology, materialism, consumerism, and shit I don’t need. It’s in my American DNA.
But whenever I feel stressed about money, worried about the future, or concerned– I always ask myself the question:
Why?
I feel that so much of us would be a lot more happy if we just asked ourselves “Why?†more often.
For myself, I always desire to buy more shit I don’t need, or feel anxiety, because of the following reasons:
Desire to impress others
Fear of homelessness, bankruptcy, death.
Fear of living a life not to the maximum
Fear of looking dumb in front of others
Fear of regret dying with unfulfilled dreams
But honestly, I got everything I need. I got Cindy, my family, friends, internet, coffee, and my camera. I got this blog, and a mind that can create things from nothing. I got inspiration from living life on planet earth, and I’m alive.
What greater blessing is there than being alive, and being grateful of being alive?
For me, it is to create more. To me, affirming life is to create poetry, photos, art, words, ideas, thoughts, and products that can uplift you and others.
So friend, when in doubt in life, always ask yourself:
Green tea *AND* coffee: Lately as a fun experiment, I’ve been consuming Hadong South Korea looseleaf green tea, steeping it in my clever dripper with a filter, brewing it strong, and drinking black coffee espresso. The funny thing is that it looks like a lot of people try to quit coffee and replace it with green tea. Why not just have both?
Funny thought: if you watch porn, but don’t rub one out, is it still porn? I think from a strength health perspective, ironically enough trying to conserve your spunk is a good idea. Avoid “energy suicideâ€. Save your spunk for your partner, girlfriend, wife, etc.
Quit Reddit: bad for your brain, health and wisdom.
Hot sauna: it could either be dry or wet. I think there is something extremely restorative about doing a hot sauna, especially when the weather outside is really cold or damp or wet humid cold. You don’t need to build it at your own house, just go to any local commercial gym which offers it. Also, a good place to just lay down, take a nap. Also funny enough, it might be one of the best ways to get off of your phone, as your phone will often overheat when in the sauna and turn off. Also, I found a sauna a good place to meet other men, and just shoot the shit.
Yoga: a funny thing about yoga is that I don’t really think it is for “working out“. The big upside I’ve discovered about going to yoga is it is a good place to people watch, and often the room is hot and humid, heated and sometimes the add humidity, which feels like a hot sauna. Also the physical space of yoga studios tend to be pretty calm and relaxing, and a good place to escape the monotony of your own home or office. I had a chat with a random guy in the yoga locker room, a slightly older guy but fit, and he said that he also liked going to yoga because it was a good chance for him to relieve his stress from work, and also the upside of all the attractive women in the yoga studio. Funny thought — instead of watching porn, better to just sign up for a local yoga membership, and start to talk to all the pretty ladies. Also after doing yoga, taking a nice shower, after getting all sweaty, it is insanely relaxing. Even more restorative than getting a nice massage. Doing yoga seems like an active massage.
The upside of doing yoga, learning a lot of these yoga poses is that it will benefit your weight lifting. For example, in the past, I’ve had all these injuries from weightlifting, like doing bench press, damaging and tearing my rotator cuff, etc. However, after learning a lot of his yoga poses and doing them quite religiously, this is the strongest I have ever been in my life, at the age of 35, and I am even able to lift 935 pounds on my back, no problem. The simple approach to doing yoga-like things is not following any sort of routine. Rather, just learn the poses which feel good to you, and before you lift weights at the gym, just do a single repetition of each. No need to hold the poses for any random duration of time, or going through any random number of cycles. My warmup routine >
Quit sugar, all starches, vegetables, fruit, fake or “real†sweeteners, “zero calorie†silly monkfruit sweeteners etc. And there is no need for us new Spartans to consume anything sweet. Also quit smoking weed, quit drinking alcohol. These things all weaken us.
Just grilled up a tomahawk steak, and two t-bone steaks with the cast iron, both on max heat on the frying pan (to make it crispy), and at 475 degrees in the oven to cook it!
