The best stuff on Amazon:

My one (huge) meal a day philosophy —

This is how I break my fast:

Real thoughts:

The quadrillion dollar question:

How can I effectively monetize my passion for photography?

Real thoughts:

Some rich ideas:

Never forget– best to promote yourself (not others). You are the brand.

No need to ‘explain’ yourself. Just assert yourself and your own opinion!

The goal:

Master yourself.

An uber-simple way of approaching life:

Just do dope shit or create dope shit and share it with others.

Sharecropping was just Slavery 2.0 — a more sneaky form of slavery that a lot of people got suckered into.

In today’s world, we are currently slaves to social media. If you’ve ever felt happy, sad, upset or anxious when using FacebookGram, YouTube, Twitter or whatever… you’re a slave. This is why I deleted my Instagram, and now am highly highly suspicious of any of these ‘free’ social media services. The more robust path:

Own yourself. Own your own platform. Build your own blog and web-site.

You can no longer become slave; you must become the master!

ERIC

As long as Google runs society, we will always be slaves to data.

To quantify yourself is anti-human:

The biggest problem for us photographers:

We think our lives are boring and uninteresting and we *MUST* travel to some exotic place in order to make good photos (National Geographic Mindset)

But I say let us praise the everyday and mundane! I still think my definition of street photography is good:

“Capturing beauty in the mundane”.

My vision for society. A society in which we can all thrive to our personal maximum and beyond:

Photos of your kids — the most priceless photos. Some thoughts:

Away from notions of “equality”. Better to think about dynamic symmetry — a more flexible, robust and dynamic form of ethics and social behavior.

The problem in society — too much masculine or too much feminine. We need both to yin-yang augment ourselves to the max.

For example, as men we should not not do things because it is “feminine” (like dancing sexy). Also women should lift weights and augment their muscle mass. We shouldn’t separate both — both are essential.

When you were born, you were born an artist. All children are artists. Why have we “un-artistified” ourselves as adults?

A new fun approach:

What I’ve discovered while shooting photos and videos both with a shirt on, and without a shirt:

The footage with my top off is always more interesting

Why is this? My theories:

All cameras are good cameras. All photos you shoot irregardless of what you shoot with is good. Don’t concern yourself with visual consistency in your images — just keep shooting!

Life is all about progression. Perfection as anti-progress.

The fewer choices and options in your life, the better.

In praise of bricolage, trial-and-error, and constant self-iteration:

Less equipment, or limited equipment might be better to become more creative with your workouts!

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:

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:

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.

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:

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?

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.

The ocean is vast.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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:

“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:

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

You cannot fake substance:

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!

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:

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?

“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.

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.

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!

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

Also, WHY I cook:

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!

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:

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

Simple approach to photography:

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

Meat is life: