In praise of stainless steel, and other materials with extreme durability.
Perhaps what this means is find a design that you’re 80% happy with, and no matter how good the design is, sooner or later you will bore of it. But that’s OK. That’s part of the game. Then strive to hold onto it as long as humanly possible.
Currently here Mexico City, and I love it. Great street life, great street food, great restaurant, bread cafés, and very conducive to thinking.
I’ve noticed that my thinking here is much more prolific than it is back home. Why is that? My theory is that if there is an ideal amount of street life, people, and café action, it stimulates your mind.
Something I’ve learned and realized about myself: I don’t really care about price that much. Rather, I just desire the best possible thing.
Mexico City— still one of my favorite cities in the world, especially for travel and street photography:
(more…)
Dear friends,
One of our greatest challenges: staying motivated in our photography.
How does one have infinite motivation in their photography? I think I got it figured out:
(more…)
What is the greatest stumbling block for photographers? Motivation. The question:
(more…)How does one stay productive, motivated and encouraged throughout their photographic life?
Better be a stoic in an ugly harsh world, then epicurean in a beautiful closed world.
How does one gain in their photography? By expanding your perspective, figuratively and literally.
Expand your perspective in terms of a photographic subject matter, expand your perspective in terms of your focal length and lens, and expand your perspective in terms of how to share and publish your work.
(more…)
The ethos of the innovator: becoming more unreasonable. What is reason anyways? The status quo. The innovator is extremely dissatisfied with the way things are, and desires to create a novel new solution which satisfies his or her needs.
Just make it into a PDF
A new innovation for publishing for photographers: just turn it into a PDF.
Why? PDF as the most efficient way to compact your photos. Easy to download, share and store. PDF as very open source friendly.
Pro tip: if you want to make a bunch of photos into a quick and easy PDF e-book, just select all your images in MacBook finder, and then click the button create into PDF. Afterwards, use PDF squeezer, to downsize the image to 75 dpi.
Think PDF.
Something I’ve noticed: the higher you go up in society, and the more elite and bougie people become, their clothing becomes more simple and basic, gets more expensive, exclusive, and obscure. With elite brands, the average person doesn’t know it.
If you know you know.
Super nice. Great weather, just T-shirt weather all day. Good wind, super friendly folks, restaurants are great. Feels like pre-pandemic, all nice places require temperature check upon entering, and they also make you sanitize your hands before entering.
On the street, mask compliance is quite high. I would say about 70% of people in the streets wear facemasks. Funny enough, there seems to be more Covid and sanitation precautions here Mexico City, then even back in the states.
(more…)A philosophy with purchasing things.
Optimus, optimal means ‘best’. And it seems nowadays we like the notion of ‘optimization’. But the question:
(more…)How do we apply this notion to photography?
A personal lesson: never be obedient. Especially to your parents. Rather, always do what is best for you, given your own personal instinct and gut.
Obedience to others is a vice, a sign of weakness. never let morals, and books of ethics determine and dictate your behavior, only trust your gut.
An ethical thought: I never want any man to feel guilty towards me. For example, I don’t care when other people are late for my appointment, as I just use that time to read a book on my phone. Yet a lot of people when they show up late to my appointment, they feel really bad and guilty, and I want them not to feel guilty.
Therefore maybe an idea is this: treat others almost like myself. that is, I should not feel guilty, as I don’t want others to feel guilty about me.
I’ve always been a big fan of all you can eat Korean barbecue, and more recently all you can eat shabu shabu. And every birthday I go to Fogo de Chão for unlimited Brazilian all you can eat barbecue.
But a recent realization: every time you go to all you can eat places, I typically have a stomach ache a little bit of indigestion or I’ve ate too much, or feel like I’ve eaten too little. it’s very difficult when you go to a buffet to eat just the right amount.
Applied further, perhaps we should apply this to life, and things in general?
(more…)
Then just focus on philosophical introspection, arts creation, writing, and thinking.
(more…)
In life, don’t optimize for comfort. In fact, perhaps a level of pain and discomfort is actually more motivational.
(more…)
Typically we are taught the impulses are bad. To be impulsive is seen as a lack of willpower, which is considered a bad trait.
But what if the opposite were true? That our natural impulses were actually our wisest and best source of motivation and inspiration?
(more…)
I’m about to go to Mexico City for two weeks, with Cindy and Seneca, and always the thing is trying to create the best and most optimal packing set up.
But how does one do this? I’ve traveled extensively and lived nomadically the last 10 years, and still, I’m learning as I’m going, and always trying to create things more optimal.
Some personal thoughts:
(more…)
Now that I have a kid, I don’t really have the opportunity, nor the strong desire to go to a gym anymore. I would always prefer to be close to Seneca. But as somebody who is addicted to fitness and staying buff, what am I to do?
I have this notion of minimal viable work out. That is, what is the maximum bang for the buck you can get physiologically, with the least amount of time and effort.
(more…)
It seems that a modern desire we have is to ‘optimize’ things, that is to make things better, more efficient, etc.
But the question:
Once you have achieved the summit of optimal, … then is the goal to strive towards *MORE OPTIMAL* for the sake of it?
Perhaps this is so. Once again, 100 years ago we never thought we would need automobiles. And after automobiles, we never thought we needed electric cars.
(more…)
A photography lifestyle concept: rather than forcing ourselves to make photos, just live your life and have your photography accompany it. Photography should be a stimulus to your life and every day living, rather than the sole focus.
Or another words, your real life child is actually more important than the photos you shoot of it.
(more…)
A design thought: when it comes to clothes, tools, cars accessories and things, avoid the middle. Either get something that is small, or large. Avoid the middle size.
(more…)
A good friend of mine, Takeshi told me this pro tip: when it is colder, or you’re traveling, and you want to be as light as possible, just wear two merino wool T-shirts, on top of one another (layered). This is more effective than wearing a vest. and because you’re wearing merino wool, you stay warm when it is cold, and cool when it is warm.
Some thing I have discovered: almost everything in life, and even most design objects are far more similar than dissimilar. Many of the differences are superficial at best.
(more…)
We new photographers of the future. What is our new ethos, our goal, and our future?
(more…)
Some thing I’m really into is trying to find the perfect wallpaper for my iPhone. Same goes with my laptop wallpaper.
Ultimately what I discovered is this: best to design your own wallpaper for yourself. For example, nowadays I’m just making my own wallpapers using the Procreate app on the iPhone. And the reason I like this is that it is a double whammy: first I do something creative by designing and creating some thing, and then I also have the pride in using my own design for my own wallpaper.
Then I thought perhaps we could extend this notion to all domains.
What is the best design? The design which invigorates you. Design which pumps you up, and get you going. Perhaps this is why we also love red cars, as the color red invigorates us. This is why we also are attracted to women and red dresses, as it sparks our erotic invigoration. Apparently even men who were the color red or seen as more attractive by women.
Therefore when it comes to design, or aesthetics, Focus on what invigorates, and excites you, rather than design which is stale, boring, or depresses you.
Also with music, literature, and films, only intake and consume that which invigorates you.
What are the best shoes? The shoes which are most barefoot. Who is this I have all these L run shark shoes slippers, which are actually water shoes. They are great because they practically weigh nothing, and I could walk dozens of Miles and them without any fatigue
I think you could live a happy life anywhere you are. Yet, it seems that in order to become happier, more productive and more photographic, the more you walk the better.
Therefore I think that if you want to extract the maximum out of life, optimize for walking. Optimize your clothes, lifestyle, and occupation for walking.
(more…)
Nowadays, I find the masculine aesthetic or concept as very bizarre. for example, on one hand you have the steroid obsessed, bodybuilder look, and on the other hand you have the emasculated skinny-fat artist look.
(more…)Why it is good to be polarizing
I think it is perhaps Christian morality that says, make everybody like you, be an enemy to nobody, and do not polarize. But what if the best secret was to polarize? That the road to success and victory is through polarization, not having everyone like you?
(more…)
Hey friends a thought: when you think about buying something new, just ask yourself, do you think it is 1000 times better than what you already got, or will it improve your life by 1000 times?
(more…)
A thought when it comes to black and white, and monochrome aesthetics in photography:
When you make photos as dark as possible, and crush the blacks, and make the contrast the maximum, what we are doing is applying more black ink to our photos.
Like calligraphy, we love the black ink!
Thus when you’re composing and framing a photo, don’t include the bright — optimize for the dark.
Once again, do not include anything that which is bright in your frame, especially in the corners of the frame when composing. Just get closer. Stick with your wide-angle prime lens, and just use your ‘foot zoom’ to get closer to your subject-matter, and fill the frame with that which you find interesting.
Fill the frame with black. Our disdain for that which is *NOT* black.
(more…)
The privilege of being able to live without a car supersedes the privilege of having the most expensive car.
In other words, it is a bigger and stronger flexed to tell other people that you don’t own a car, rather than you owning a car. “Via negativa success†is what I call it. Similarly speaking, the ability to live without a smart phone is actually much more impressive than owning the newest iPhone Pro.
Therefore, the best way to distinguish yourself is not by owning the most expensive and obscure things, but rather, distinguishing yourself on what you don’t have, even though you can afford it.
The purpose of life isn’t to maximize your happiness. But to maximize your power influence, and impact.
Thus, with living matters, optimize and invest in anything that will help you become more influential, powerful, and will leverage archimedes lever to make a stronger and greater impact on society, the world, and humanity.
You become the prime mover, that is, you are the first one to start things. don’t wait for things to happen to you, have yourself happen to things.
In order to get more out of life, rather than wishing things were different, better to best harness what you already got, and to exploit it to the maximum.
For example with photography, rather than desiring to live in interesting place, best to just exploit your current city to the maximum. Better to be the first person to photograph your own boring town, than be one of the billion photographers who already photographed New York City to death.
Or consider all of the great philosophers who decided to intentionally not live in Greece, even though Greece was the epicenter of all philosophical activities.
Or in other words, better to transform your boring city or town into a great place, instead of moving to a great place and thinking that the place will form you. Rather than seeking to move to New York City in order to “find yourself“, best to stay home and figure out how to transform it into an interesting place. And you become the prime mover.
When you ask others for life advice, best to ask them for via Negativa advice or anti-advice: that is, asking them what not to do in order to achieve your desired outcome.
For example, when you look at rich and successful people, figure out what they don’t do in their daily lives rather than what they do do. Or rather than figure out how to become rich, best to figure out how to not waste money.
This is the irony of being rich or being a millionaire, that is in order to become a millionaire you must not spend $1 million. When people aspire to become millionaires, they think it means that they could go out and spend $1 million. But the real millionaire is the one who is insanely thrifty with their money, not the one who flexes the hardest with the most expensive things. Or in other words, the real rich person is probably the one who drives up the beat up Prius, rather than the one who buys a brand new Tesla.
In order to get more out of life, in order to be less distracted more focused and productive, perhaps being anti-optimal is a good idea.
This is called “satisficingâ€â€” A combination of the word satisfy and suffice. Also known in the same realm is the notion of heuristics, seeking a productive and good enough solution, rather than the “bestâ€.
(more…)Figuring out how to decipher the two takes great wisdom, experience, and real life experimentation.
Thinking about the 24 hours of Le Mans. Can we apply this notion to life?
No amount of money will purchase your freedom. There is also no product or lifestyle that will also give you your freedom.
True freedom is a mindset. As wealth is a mindset.
Even though I’m pretty anti-video games, I think that studying video games is actually a very fascinating way to understand humanity. For example, when you think about the initial grand theft auto and World of Warcraft, what is it that people love the most? The open world concept. That you could go anywhere, do anything, and unlock any and every single door.
And what is it that we want from crypto technologies? We also like the idea of getting rid of borders, and restrictions. Even notions of “decentralized finance“, is more about having open borders when it comes to the movement of money or resources.
So the trillion dollar question is this: is embodied reality, what we often refer as “the real world“, truly open world?
(more…)
What is it that we desire? Popular acclaim. It seems the common prejudice is the more, the better. for example, if you have an event, it is deemed more successful as the more people who attended it. Also the popularity of a video, in terms of how many views he gets, is considered the ultimate badge of worth.
But is this true? I think not. if we think that popularity, the numbers were the Apex importance, then McDonald’s would be the worlds best “restaurant“, that Starbucks would be the worlds best coffee, and whatever product has the most five star reviews on Amazon would be the best product (often not the case). Or whatever pop song is trending right now is the best music.
The rare for the rare. The more rare the better. For example, better to be the one guy who owns the Porsche GT 3 than be the same guy who has a Tesla model 3. And certainly better to think differently from the masses, and to own your own table of values, than follow the common prejudice that the more money you have, the more successful you are.
In the past, travel almost became too easy. When I was in college, traveling abroad was really difficult, especially before smart phones.
Now with the global pandemic, and the never ending stream of Covid variant, it seems that the future is going to be more difficult for travel, than easier.
What does this mean for us travelers and adventurers? It means that travel will truly become a privilege for the brave.
Whenever I think about my personal happiness, health and well-being, it seems that the more time I spend outdoors, that is simply time outside the house, the better.
Why is this? I have some theories. One theory is that to be human is to walk. The more we walk, the more human we are. Even though Silicon Valley mentality now is the most virtuous human is the most productive human, that spends most of their time in front of the laptop.
Why do we have eyes? Why do we have two eyes? Why do we have depth perception? Why are we bipeds? It seems that all of this is in order to transverse difficult terrain, walking much, and seeing far.
Thus a human being which does not fulfill their natural faculties, seems to fall into physiological degeneracy. Very much like when dogs are no longer able to hunt, they become passive inferior versions of themselves.
Why is it that we love movies films and TV shows? My theory is that it is because most of modern living is very boring. Our environments are static, and don’t change much. Whereas if you think about epic movies or films, the protagonist and hero often goes on insane and interesting journeys, something that we modern humans desire to do.
Having the ability to study philosophy, think about philosophy, and any philosophical matters is a true luxury. When you no longer need to worry about basic financial things, let us think about Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs. The top is self actualization, and then beyond self actualization is going beyond the self, thinking of yourself as a philosophical tool in instrument, no longer concerned with your self-preservation or ego.
Human, all too human once said Nietzsche.
A thought: in life, why does everyone want to become more human, that is become more like everyone else, the masses? Perhaps it is better to become more inhumane, or less human?
(more…)
