Don’t be a wimp

NEVER SIT

What is the weirdest and most bizarre thing in modern-day life? Enclosed spaces, sitting?

Achilles

One visual I really like from the movie Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles, is when he’s in his little hut, sleeping with his beautiful babes, and he’s woken up by the kid who tells him that he needs to fight this really steroided-out barbarian fighter.

The first thought… I think the reason why people love camping so much is that it is far more natural and naturalistic; essentially, all day, you’re outside, and even in the evening, you’re al fresco by the fire… hanging out!

And this is the bizarre thing… what is modernity? The preference to be indoors, with weakening air conditioning, or the preference to sit, instead of the preference to be out and about, traversing the outdoor terrain?

Ideas

I’ll give you examples: the enclosed modern-day gymnasium. Now, about a year without a gym membership… I’ve discovered how bizarre it is.

First, if you think about the naturalistic gymnasium of the ancient Greeks, it was an open-air gymnasium. Pretty much like a huge massive plot of dirt or sand, and a bunch of naked dudes working out, doing bodily combat exercises, training, hanging out talking shop, etc.

I think the problem in today’s world is that we have commoditized everything. We’ve even commoditized the human body, and we have applied both capitalistic and consumerist notions to the body.

For example, weight. Weight, like calories, is the most insanely foolish idea.

For example, let’s say that you are 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. Now this is different if you are 80% body fat, a morbidly obese man, or if you are 5% body fat, and you look like a demigod. Imagine someone like Ronnie Coleman without the steroids.

This is very pernicious with women; I think this is the bizarre contradiction: men are always trying to gain weight, while women are trying to lose weight.

If we think about this from a modern-day capitalistic productivity perspective… with money, we are always trying to gain it, never lose it. But if we thought about money like weight, the analogy starts to change a bit.

There is nobody on the planet who likes to lose money. Nobody. Also, almost universally… Everyone likes to gain money.

Also… it seems that people also like to spend money.

But the bizarre irony is that the moment you spend money, you lose money. Then the thought is, that is OK… I’ll just keep working harder, in order to earn more money, in order to spend it more.

White people make money don’t spend it

I almost feel like Kanye West almost figured everything out. Of course, not everything, but a lot.

Here are examples: to me, the notion of golf is insanely bizarre. I never really understood the appeal. But then again, after talking to my friend who is a contractor named Donnie… He told me that the reason why he loved golf so much was that it was the ultimate stress reliever. Makes sense. Being out in the open, alfresco… And I think most people when they’re playing golf don’t do it with headphones on. They also like to be around the serene grass, and to just focus. I also suppose golf is good because you do it standing, not sitting.

Even nowadays… The reason why Pickleball has become so insanely popular is that it involves standing up, running around, hitting something, making loud noises, and also the funny nuance… being able to hit it really hard and feeling really tough, and the rally goes on!

I think this is what people don’t understand about Pickleball, especially tennis players… Note, I played varsity doubles in high school, number one.

The number one most difficult thing in tennis is to keep a rally going if you’re wanting to play for fun. Assuming that you’re trying to win, obviously you don’t want the rally to go on; you just want to win!

Also, this is why tennis is such a great sport, because once again, you’re not sitting on your butt!

Why almost every modern-day job is bad

All modern-day technology jobs are bad. Why? They all promote sedentary sitting behavior or non-moving behavior.

For example, if I were a major tech CEO or whatever… or some sort of Director or C-level executive… I would almost make it a mandate that all meetings must be done outside, while walking! Even at the new Apple spaceship campus, there is this wonderful Zen garden pond in the center, in the spirit of Steve Jobs. And let us remember, Steve Jobs was all about walking. He did all of his meetings while walking.

Apparently, when little kids want to talk to their parents about serious stuff, the codeword is, “Mom… Do you want to go on a walk?”

The reason why I think this is so important and significant is that walking has become seen as a positively bad, unconstructive waste of time. Instead, it seems that people are more about “running,” or “going on a run.” Running might be the worst modern-day insanely brain-dead invention of all time. First, I think people do it in order to “exercise.” Secondly, in theory, it should be the most egalitarian open thing… you don’t require any excessive equipment for it, in theory as long as you have bare feet, you should be able to do it.

But now the problem is, essentially, there is this running industrial complex that happens from the loser Nike corporation, which tries to eventually get you to purchase their foolish loser $300 sneakers.

Think about the ancient Greek. Think about Achilles versus Hector. I think the whole time, they just wore sandals. Like the ultra-ultra-minimalistic sandals that I think the company “Xero” sells — literally just a flat thing on the bottom, and just some sort of laces to tie it to your feet.

My personal theory is that back then, if you were fighting in ancient Greece, in the summertime, and it is insanely hot and humid, you don’t want to be like a medieval knight, all armored up. Apparently, back then… there was a notion of a Linothorax — imagine just armor or body armor made out of 100-fold linen, which could actually stop the penetration of an arrow or a spear. I can personally attest, when you’re in a hot and humid climate, linen is amazing.

Remote work

The ideal is to just have an iPhone Pro, the small one, no case, have Verizon 5G, and whenever you need to do any sort of phone call or meeting… doing it audio-only with your AirPods Pros on.

I’ve actually seen people do this… Do walking meetings at the beach, or while hiking in the hills or the mountains, etc.

The reason why this is so beneficial is that it would actually increase the quality of your ideas and, in some ways, be beneficial from a productivity and innovation perspective.

So… if you really want to make your company great again, release your employees from their little beautiful glass cube cages!

Freedom?

Reading some marketing for the Porsche 911 car, essentially the funny idea is that you want to purchase a car that symbolizes freedom. But does it actually give you freedom? No!

Let us think about how bizarre this idea is: you work yourself to death, you grind your nose against the grinder, and you keep your head against the pavement floor, in order to extract maximum productivity and maximally increase your income-earning potential.

Then, the idea is to earn and save enough money to buy a Porsche 911 Turbo S. Or a 911 GT3 RS. Let us assume it is $100,000, or $250,000.

You fools… Don’t you know you get a bomb-ass apartment in Phnom Penh for only $500 USD a month?

Then do the math: even with $100,000, how many months of rent can you live? And there, food is so cheap… Practically free.

So let us say that a solo individual person wants to retire to Vietnam, Cambodia, or Thailand, and your whole living expenses might only be about $1000 USD a month. And you live life like a baller. You never have to work again, never have to check your email, never have to do boring-ass meetings, and you could essentially just hang out and live your best life all day every single day, always eat out, pursue your athletic and mental pursuits, etc. Isn’t this the dream?

So what is holding most people back? I wonder if some of it is just lack of knowledge, like nobody ever told them that this was an option, or maybe some sort of hesitation because the person has never left the country, doesn’t have a passport, etc. My personal suggestion is to just troll Kayak and Google Flights, looking for cheap direct flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia or even more locally in other parts of the world, like Mexico, Central America, or even Cuba.

I think the reason why the modern-day American is so miserable is, truth be told… The fact that we have the most productivity and the greatest productive nation on the planet comes with a price. For example, what the typical German or European or French person doesn’t understand is that for the most part, the structures do not even allow us to travel. For example, the culture in America is very anti-vacation; the ideal for the typical hard-working tech individual is to never take a holiday, in order to get that raise or promotion or whatever. If you take a week or two, it is seen with chagrin, everyone is secretly jealous or envious of you. And therefore the whole structure is “No, you are not allowed

to take a holiday because we are all miserable and suffering here; I refuse to see you happy.”

I joke about this. I was only employed for 10 months of my life, and it took me almost 10 years to unlearn this behavior.

Am I the only person who checks my email every six months? Or never checks it? Am I the only one I know that doesn’t have Gmail or Apple email? Am I the only one I know that has no notifications besides FaceTime enabled?

The cold is evil

I think the reason why I loved living in Vietnam and Cambodia so much was that the weather was always perfect. Never cold.

The downside about the cold is that it prevents you from wanting to go outside. You would prefer to be indoors, with your heater on, but the point of life is to be outside, in the real world. In the elements.

People often complain about the heat, but this is because they have too much body fat on them; they are overfat. They run hotter. This is why I feel the cold so intensely; at around 5% body fat, I have no natural insulation. And yes, I prefer having my six-pack!

We must go further

As a simple exercise, I think the last year has been a bit tricky… Always starting a new beginning is difficult.

For example, not having a gym membership and my typical hypelifting environment. I literally toured all the gyms in LA, and all of them suck, including Equinox. Even the really bad thing about Equinox, they have terrible $10 made-in-China barbells! Suggestion to Equinox: buy some Texas power bars!

Anyways, my new activity is for me to just wear my 60-pound weight vest and go on a long walk. I think it might be the single best, most portable, most effective, and efficient form of exercise possible.

First, it improves my posture. Before doing this, I always found myself hunched over. Now, I’m very good at standing up straight, chest up, shoulders back.

Second, it gives me more time to flush thoughts out on my iPad Pro. 100% of my writing is all done by voice dictation on my iPad Pro, and I think while I get a bunch of typos, the upside is that the quality of my thoughts, or the type of my thoughts, are far more interesting.

Isn’t that the point of philosophy, thinking, and life: to gain interesting, unique, substantive ideas?

Now that we have ChatGPT, the game isn’t about how many words you can turn out. That whole 10,000 words a day idea is patently foolish now.

And this is where I think that the future will be less grammatical, more random, less proper.

For example, I built my blogging empire, and I think I got a B in English in high school?

Also note, all the truly great entrepreneurs never went to business school. Can you imagine Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos going to business school? No!

We must go further!

Distance and range — that is the new game of electric vehicles, and it seems for the most part, the more range a car has, the better.

Even now, I think the best car to get is a Prius Prime, what… I think you get 600 miles with a full charge and tank of gas?

In fact, if you really want the ultimate road trip car, range is the number one thing to optimize for. Why? If you’re in a good driving flow, you don’t want to stop for gas or wait 15 minutes for your Tesla to recharge to 80%, or have to wait in line.

But then once again, the ideal is to never sit, never be stuck in a car.

The uber-successful way to live life is simple: to always be walking, to always be moving!

Don’t hire employees, just use ChatGPT?

Assuming you have an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, and the paid premium version of ChatGPT-4 — do you really need employees anymore?

Let us consider: ChatGPT is 100% responsive, 100% reliable, never needs motivation.

And also, I think this is so innovative because you can truly become a 100% solo entrepreneur, without having to rely on anybody else.

The ideal is, never have any employees, never have any staff, and never have any obligations in the physical realm; everything is digital, weightless, frictionless, never requiring you to be anywhere at any time!

Location, location, location, location, location!

The number one reason why living in Culver City is the best is that you could literally spend 100% of your day, your life, while just walking!

In fact, nowadays I ask people how many steps they do a day. The really, really successful ones do over 30,000 steps a day!

Just met a guy named Matt, who runs a tech food truck logistics company, and apparently, he does what I just proposed!

Just move it

Another funny thing… For kids, nobody measures their step count! As a funny thought, imagine if you gave your kid an Apple Watch or something and it tracked how much they walked a day?

The ideal is for them to literally spend every single waking moment outside, outdoors, in the elements, walking around.

Walk school

Can this be a thing?

Go long!

Extend your range — both your real and metaphorical range.

I think tracking your steps is not super useful, but maybe make it a flow or workflow thing, an idea to just always be outside every single moment, and only be at home if you need to sleep.

Cindy even had an idea for me, that maybe meals should just be eaten outside! That means, just cook a bunch of food at home, put it in a bunch of Tupperware, and just go on a walk or go to the park or to the downtown area and feast that way!

It’s OK to go to the same place twice

Also, it seems like one of our downsides is this unusual need for infinite novelty. I don’t always find this very useful.

Oftentimes, novelty and seeking novelty can be a huge distraction. For example, if you were the ancient Spartans, was your life goal to travel for the rest of your life? No! You knew that Sparta was the best; you kept your feet planted, and your whole telos of your life was to train for glory in order to defend Sparta!

I still believe that traveling, living abroad, and being a nomad are good things. Yet I think the problem happens when the whole purpose of our life is in order to travel.

No. The purpose of our life is to have kids, produce ideas and artwork, and any place that could allow you to do this best is best.

Everyone is on your team

I think there is also this funny thing that people are unnecessarily antagonistic toward other people. We always see them as a challenge to ourselves.

But what if they, in fact, were on your team, they were your Spartan hoplites, and would defend you, your kid, your wife, your family if shit hit the fan? Certainly, you would have a different opinion about them.

Local

The only useful politics or news is local, like your own city and neighborhood. Not national or international issues.

The problem with news is that it is almost like pornography for our minds; it breaks the tedium of everyday office work, and the novelty is certainly a hit of dopamine to our brains.

Also, we tend to think of, fear of missing out… or this weird ethical notion that it is our duty to be informed about all of these different things.

I would say, more important to be concerned about your upstairs, downstairs, or across-the-street neighbor, to get them free snacks from Trader Joe’s, be kind and courteous to them, always greet them kindly, and always acknowledge their existence rather than to be the typical antisocial millennial, who seeks salvation through some sort of foreign cause?

It never hurts to wave, smile, and say hello

As a very, very simple experiment… Stop driving, start walking. Whenever you see somebody even a quarter mile away from you, throw up the peace sign, or just do a simple hand wave or head gesture towards them. Just acknowledge their existence! I think the greatest tragedy of modern-day life is that we prefer cyber beings, digital people, over flesh humans.

Once again, for anybody who is antisocial but still watches TV shows, HBO Max, sports, baseball, certainly they love humans!

Better to attempt to be friendly, kind, courteous, and cheerful towards your neighbor, and get the cold shoulder rather than not to attempt it at all.

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Something super interesting I learned: the general idea is that sports, means to turn you away, to divert you, essentially a diversion!

The reason why this is such an interesting idea to me is that if you think about it… Anything we consider entertainment is typically a diversion.

For example, the truth is 99% of the working population is tired, stressed, overworked, hasn’t had a good nights sleep in… Forever?

As a consequence, what they do is try to divert themselves away from their misery. How did they do this? They do this through doing taking things or consuming things, watching or listening to things which helps divert themselves from their own personal ennui, or misery.

For example, alcohol. Everybody knows, getting a little bit drunk or buzzed… Will get your mind off of things, and divert your attention a bit, giving you a more “fun” uninhibited time.

Or marijuana, maybe the most safe painkilling substance or drug out there; to the individuals who think that marijuana doesn’t have any side effects, I find this is foolish… In theory, assuming your smoking 100% pure tobacco, not a cigarette but just 100% natural tobacco, growing in the fields of Alabama or the south… Technically natural tobacco should be about the same as 100% pure cannabis.

Anyways, both tobacco, cannabis… They are all diversions.

For example, it is actually quite common place I meet people… They light up a joint, or smoke some THC or whatever, to help them sleep at night. Why? Prejudice, racism, bad things that happens to them etc. 

It happens a lot of rappers; it seems like almost all of them are on some sort of painkiller, anti-anxiety drug, etc. Have you ever met a 100% sober rapper? I think not. Maybe besides chance the rapper? Or maybe even Kendrick Lamar?

Now even a Xanny bar can’t help fight the anxiety (Jay electronica) 

Certainly the most natural way to fight anxiety is stoicism, this is why I am a big proponent.

Even back then an inch and Roman times… I’m sure sure even the ancient Greeks had anxiety and fear.

What didn’t seem to exist was depression, melancholy or ennui– my personal thought is that if you were a man, living in ancient Greek times, it was a simple calculus; kill or be killed.

For example, when we think and we consider the Iliad, I am currently reading the Emily Wilson new translation, it was pretty simple. You suit up, go to the battlefield, and do your stuff. And I think emotions back them were more simple; obviously, if Achilles is running at full speed, this would strike fear in you, and you would probably run the opposite direction. Even Hector, murderous Hector, who was the most dominant mortal man alive, the most “all natty” hero in the Iliad… Even he knew that he was no match against Achilles, face-to-face.

 anyways, I was thinking about it other night… A feel so bad for all my friends who work in tech, who probably have all of their notifications always enable… If Mark Zuckerberg pings you at 2 AM via text message and tells you that tomorrow you’re going to Switzerland, obviously you’re going to pack your bags, and take an Uber to the closest airport. as a consequence, I doubt you will ever have 100% restful night ever again, because we are sensitive; if you know that your boss might be able to ping you at random times in the middle of the night, you’re always going to be on edge. anxiety is real.

How does one overcome or conquer this? I think it is structural issues.

A very simple one is first disable all notifications on your phone, besides FaceTime.  at this .100% of phone calls, are all spam. So in the iPhone settings, you could probably silence unknown colors with no downside.

The only ever call you might ever have to get is your mom in the hospital or whatever… But once again, if that really happened you’d probably find out some other way.

But if you’re a typical millennial, single, maybe married, maybe an a partnership maybe not… It doesn’t really matter that much.

Not yet, but… Maybe we have to reprogram ourselves to think about the good old days… You drop your kid off at school and you pick them up at a certain time, and if once in a while you forget or show up late it is OK; the kid will be fine.

How technology trains us

Like the experiment in which Pavlov train the dogs to anticipate food with the sound of a bell, causing the dogs to start to slobber, get their digestive hormones ready to consume… I think the iPhone notifications text messages whatever is happening to human beings.

Fortunately apple knows this;  most people were friends I know who actually work at Apple, are always in 100% do not disturb mode. And I’m also sure that the next generation of Apple Intelligence will simply be more of a mental protection things; to prevent you from being distracted, unless once again, you get a message about your mom being in the hospital or whatever. But then again I don’t think that should come via text message.

We are currently living in a very very brave new time 

Currently speaking… We are living in a very very brave new time. Things are becoming weirder and weirder and weirder, more bizarre.

First, I think YouTube, Netflix, HBO Max Disney and the like is to blame. I don’t think the iPhone or the iPad is the real issue here; it is weird, conspiracy theories you see on TikTok, Instagram stories, Twitter and the like. And also, Google… If you Google something long enough, you’ll find some sort of weird conspiracy theory on Wikipedia. And don’t forget that Wikipedia is typically written by a bunch of Karl Marx dick loving anarchists. And I’m also quite certain that almost 100% of these Wikipedia articles are written by weird celibate men, Who never leave their apartments, and become very very strange.

The simple solution is to just go outside! Go in public, get rid of your loser AirPods, leave your iPhone at home whatever. If you need your iPhone for directions, when you get to your destination just lock it up in your glove compartment. Even a better step is just get an Apple Watch, with cellular data… And just leave your phone behind! I don’t think the Apple Watch was cellular and data is the best solution, but maybe it is a step in the right way.

The less you use your iPhone, the happier you will be.

Is there such a thing as a good stigma?

Escape reality?

Ecstasy, cocaine?

Rather be dead than average?

Get “bigger”– but why?

Want to get kids… Everything changes?

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Dreams?

The trying to break records is toxic?

Sports, motor sport — all distractions and diversions?

Jose conceco — juiced

“Un-American”?

Rocky IV — communists takes steroids? 

1950s

Miracle drug

Embellishment?

Medical ethics?

 I suppose with medical ethics… If it could help somebody from killing themselves, committing suicide, or literally dying from some sort of incurable disease, take unlimited of it! However, if it is just done recreationally, for Phung, for Schitt and giggles, it is patently bad.

For example, if somebody is recovering from cancer, whatever… And marijuana THC or cannabis can use the pain… Obviously it is very good! I would not wish a root canal on my worst enemy without pain killing drugs. 

I suppose the issue here then is more of the nuances; like for example going to Vegas, going to a festival, trying to be cool with your friends, popping a bunch of stuff in order to “have fun?”

Flawless?

Perhaps perfect design or perfect things is when you critically think it says something, and there is really no visible flaw? Nothing that bothers you?

Perfect design; once you are at the point that there’s nothing that bothers you? Then after that point, just stick with it?

Sue God?

No safe drugs; always a benefit to risk ratio

All media is bad

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The ethics of steroids  

Maybe the best way to approach it is just let everybody do steroids, 100%, in all sports, and just simply assume that everyone is doing it?

We could apply this to pro sports, Olympics, everything.

And then what happens is we gain a reality clarity behind things :

1. First, anybody who is a professional athlete, Olympian, professional wrestler, Hollywood star, is on it.
2. You start to separate these guys as the weirdos, and you put a metaphorical red flag on them.
3. And then… At least now that we have the reality of what is really going on, there could be a proper arms race for all sides to develop whatever steroids or whatever, to improve their athletes, or the actors on stage.

Yes make it all 100% legal, but the new ones is maybe there needs to be some sort of age limit? Like you can’t buy them off the shelf, unless you have a prescription, or you’re 18 years old or over? 

And then… Obviously, you’re going to have kids teenagers, high school students peddling this stuff like they do Adderall; And this is terrible, because a lot of kids in these elite schools take these drugs in order to stay up, cram for the test, get good grades etc.

As a parent what we do is simple; just don’t put them in any sports, it is all a commoditized sham anyways. And also, not setting some sort of arbitrary benchmarks to their academic performance, which once again leads to depression anxiety, unhealthy behaviors, drug use etc.

The best way to change the world: have kids, and impute your own values into your kids.

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Cosmetic issues

Red meat

“I like being big … I have “small man complex”

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Small man complex,

Attention?

The funny irony… We like to get attention? From other men?

It seems that the truth of the matter is prefer to get attention from other men, not women?

Obviously, every man seeks a beautiful mate to produce beautiful children. However, beyond that, why?

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Go ahead, stare? 

A thought experiment… How big can you naturally get your biceps?

But then again why does this matter?

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Bad role models?

Be the barracuda?

Strong male figure?

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When you go to work, you go to kill, not be killed

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Your morals are your morals, why should I judge you, why should you judge me?

Gene doping?

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Become the role model to your kid!

Still cheating yet… But like everybody else, taking weird drugs that are not banned?

Don’t trust any bodybuilder who takes supplements or even protein powder?

Am I the first and the only weightlifter that I know that doesn’t even consume protein powder?

This is my funny thought… Obviously there are some people who take protein powder or obviously not on steroids. But I could almost universally tell you that anybody on steroids is definitely taking protein powder.

Then… If you have somebody like me, who doesn’t even take protein powder, typically this is a signal that you’re almost 100% not taking steroids.

Why? The issue here is that anybody who is taking protein powder, drugs steroids or whatever… They’re trying to get an edge, they’re trying to maximize an optimize, they suffer from FOMO of the gains.

It happened to me when I was younger, after a lifting session, I felt this frentic need to consume way protein powder immediately after my workout, or else I would not get the gains! Or even the worst fear; that I would become smaller? 

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Smile, not smile? If you know you’re cheating you know?

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Follow the money!

“ Inadvertent use”

Don’t move — let others move around you! 

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You vote with your money

Think about the kids?

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Not feeling it

More than one is vain

Zergling or Archon?

Push!

Today no Spartan dies!

All you gotta do is nudge it

Video Podcast

Good diversion, bad diversion?

Audio: Sports?

Freedom is the true goal:

NEVER SIT

What is the weirdest and most bizarre thing in modern-day life? Enclosed spaces, sitting?

Achilles

One visual I really like from the movie Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles, is when he’s in his little hut, sleeping with his beautiful babes, and he’s woken up by the kid who tells him that he needs to fight this really steroided-out barbarian fighter.

The first thought… I think the reason why people love camping so much is that it is far more natural and naturalistic; essentially, all day, you’re outside, and even in the evening, you’re al fresco by the fire… hanging out!

And this is the bizarre thing… what is modernity? The preference to be indoors, with weakening air conditioning, or the preference to sit, instead of the preference to be out and about, traversing the outdoor terrain?

Ideas

I’ll give you examples: the enclosed modern-day gymnasium. Now, about a year without a gym membership… I’ve discovered how bizarre it is.

First, if you think about the naturalistic gymnasium of the ancient Greeks, it was an open-air gymnasium. Pretty much like a huge massive plot of dirt or sand, and a bunch of naked dudes working out, doing bodily combat exercises, training, hanging out talking shop, etc.

I think the problem in today’s world is that we have commoditized everything. We’ve even commoditized the human body, and we have applied both capitalistic and consumerist notions to the body.

For example, weight. Weight, like calories, is the most insanely foolish idea.

For example, let’s say that you are 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. Now this is different if you are 80% body fat, a morbidly obese man, or if you are 5% body fat, and you look like a demigod. Imagine someone like Ronnie Coleman without the steroids.

This is very pernicious with women; I think this is the bizarre contradiction: men are always trying to gain weight, while women are trying to lose weight.

If we think about this from a modern-day capitalistic productivity perspective… with money, we are always trying to gain it, never lose it. But if we thought about money like weight, the analogy starts to change a bit.

There is nobody on the planet who likes to lose money. Nobody. Also, almost universally… Everyone likes to gain money.

Also… it seems that people also like to spend money.

But the bizarre irony is that the moment you spend money, you lose money. Then the thought is, that is OK… I’ll just keep working harder, in order to earn more money, in order to spend it more.

White people make money don’t spend it

I almost feel like Kanye West almost figured everything out. Of course, not everything, but a lot.

Here are examples: to me, the notion of golf is insanely bizarre. I never really understood the appeal. But then again, after talking to my friend who is a contractor named Donnie… He told me that the reason why he loved golf so much was that it was the ultimate stress reliever. Makes sense. Being out in the open, alfresco… And I think most people when they’re playing golf don’t do it with headphones on. They also like to be around the serene grass, and to just focus. I also suppose golf is good because you do it standing, not sitting.

Even nowadays… The reason why Pickleball has become so insanely popular is that it involves standing up, running around, hitting something, making loud noises, and also the funny nuance… being able to hit it really hard and feeling really tough, and the rally goes on!

I think this is what people don’t understand about Pickleball, especially tennis players… Note, I played varsity doubles in high school, number one.

The number one most difficult thing in tennis is to keep a rally going if you’re wanting to play for fun. Assuming that you’re trying to win, obviously you don’t want the rally to go on; you just want to win!

Also, this is why tennis is such a great sport, because once again, you’re not sitting on your butt!

Why almost every modern-day job is bad

All modern-day technology jobs are bad. Why? They all promote sedentary sitting behavior or non-moving behavior.

For example, if I were a major tech CEO or whatever… or some sort of Director or C-level executive… I would almost make it a mandate that all meetings must be done outside, while walking! Even at the new Apple spaceship campus, there is this wonderful Zen garden pond in the center, in the spirit of Steve Jobs. And let us remember, Steve Jobs was all about walking. He did all of his meetings while walking.

Apparently, when little kids want to talk to their parents about serious stuff, the codeword is, “Mom… Do you want to go on a walk?”

The reason why I think this is so important and significant is that walking has become seen as a positively bad, unconstructive waste of time. Instead, it seems that people are more about “running,” or “going on a run.” Running might be the worst modern-day insanely brain-dead invention of all time. First, I think people do it in order to “exercise.” Secondly, in theory, it should be the most egalitarian open thing… you don’t require any excessive equipment for it, in theory as long as you have bare feet, you should be able to do it.

But now the problem is, essentially, there is this running industrial complex that happens from the loser Nike corporation, which tries to eventually get you to purchase their foolish loser $300 sneakers.

Think about the ancient Greek. Think about Achilles versus Hector. I think the whole time, they just wore sandals. Like the ultra-ultra-minimalistic sandals that I think the company “Xero” sells — literally just a flat thing on the bottom, and just some sort of laces to tie it to your feet.

My personal theory is that back then, if you were fighting in ancient Greece, in the summertime, and it is insanely hot and humid, you don’t want to be like a medieval knight, all armored up. Apparently, back then… there was a notion of a Linothorax — imagine just armor or body armor made out of 100-fold linen, which could actually stop the penetration of an arrow or a spear. I can personally attest, when you’re in a hot and humid climate, linen is amazing.

Remote work

The ideal is to just have an iPhone Pro, the small one, no case, have Verizon 5G, and whenever you need to do any sort of phone call or meeting… doing it audio-only with your AirPods Pros on.

I’ve actually seen people do this… Do walking meetings at the beach, or while hiking in the hills or the mountains, etc.

The reason why this is so beneficial is that it would actually increase the quality of your ideas and, in some ways, be beneficial from a productivity and innovation perspective.

So… if you really want to make your company great again, release your employees from their little beautiful glass cube cages!

Freedom?

Reading some marketing for the Porsche 911 car, essentially the funny idea is that you want to purchase a car that symbolizes freedom. But does it actually give you freedom? No!

Let us think about how bizarre this idea is: you work yourself to death, you grind your nose against the grinder, and you keep your head against the pavement floor, in order to extract maximum productivity and maximally increase your income-earning potential.

Then, the idea is to earn and save enough money to buy a Porsche 911 Turbo S. Or a 911 GT3 RS. Let us assume it is $100,000, or $250,000.

You fools… Don’t you know you get a bomb-ass apartment in Phnom Penh for only $500 USD a month?

Then do the math: even with $100,000, how many months of rent can you live? And there, food is so cheap… Practically free.

So let us say that a solo individual person wants to retire to Vietnam, Cambodia, or Thailand, and your whole living expenses might only be about $1000 USD a month. And you live life like a baller. You never have to work again, never have to check your email, never have to do boring-ass meetings, and you could essentially just hang out and live your best life all day every single day, always eat out, pursue your athletic and mental pursuits, etc. Isn’t this the dream?

So what is holding most people back? I wonder if some of it is just lack of knowledge, like nobody ever told them that this was an option, or maybe some sort of hesitation because the person has never left the country, doesn’t have a passport, etc. My personal suggestion is to just troll Kayak and Google Flights, looking for cheap direct flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia or even more locally in other parts of the world, like Mexico, Central America, or even Cuba.

I think the reason why the modern-day American is so miserable is, truth be told… The fact that we have the most productivity and the greatest productive nation on the planet comes with a price. For example, what the typical German or European or French person doesn’t understand is that for the most part, the structures do not even allow us to travel. For example, the culture in America is very anti-vacation; the ideal for the typical hard-working tech individual is to never take a holiday, in order to get that raise or promotion or whatever. If you take a week or two, it is seen with chagrin, everyone is secretly jealous or envious of you. And therefore the whole structure is “No, you are not allowed

to take a holiday because we are all miserable and suffering here; I refuse to see you happy.”

I joke about this. I was only employed for 10 months of my life, and it took me almost 10 years to unlearn this behavior.

Am I the only person who checks my email every six months? Or never checks it? Am I the only one I know that doesn’t have Gmail or Apple email? Am I the only one I know that has no notifications besides FaceTime enabled?

The cold is evil

I think the reason why I loved living in Vietnam and Cambodia so much was that the weather was always perfect. Never cold.

The downside about the cold is that it prevents you from wanting to go outside. You would prefer to be indoors, with your heater on, but the point of life is to be outside, in the real world. In the elements.

People often complain about the heat, but this is because they have too much body fat on them; they are overfat. They run hotter. This is why I feel the cold so intensely; at around 5% body fat, I have no natural insulation. And yes, I prefer having my six-pack!

We must go further

As a simple exercise, I think the last year has been a bit tricky… Always starting a new beginning is difficult.

For example, not having a gym membership and my typical hypelifting environment. I literally toured all the gyms in LA, and all of them suck, including Equinox. Even the really bad thing about Equinox, they have terrible $10 made-in-China barbells! Suggestion to Equinox: buy some Texas power bars!

Anyways, my new activity is for me to just wear my 60-pound weight vest and go on a long walk. I think it might be the single best, most portable, most effective, and efficient form of exercise possible.

First, it improves my posture. Before doing this, I always found myself hunched over. Now, I’m very good at standing up straight, chest up, shoulders back.

Second, it gives me more time to flush thoughts out on my iPad Pro. 100% of my writing is all done by voice dictation on my iPad Pro, and I think while I get a bunch of typos, the upside is that the quality of my thoughts, or the type of my thoughts, are far more interesting.

Isn’t that the point of philosophy, thinking, and life: to gain interesting, unique, substantive ideas?

Now that we have ChatGPT, the game isn’t about how many words you can turn out. That whole 10,000 words a day idea is patently foolish now.

And this is where I think that the future will be less grammatical, more random, less proper.

For example, I built my blogging empire, and I think I got a B in English in high school?

Also note, all the truly great entrepreneurs never went to business school. Can you imagine Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos going to business school? No!

We must go further!

Distance and range — that is the new game of electric vehicles, and it seems for the most part, the more range a car has, the better.

Even now, I think the best car to get is a Prius Prime, what… I think you get 600 miles with a full charge and tank of gas?

In fact, if you really want the ultimate road trip car, range is the number one thing to optimize for. Why? If you’re in a good driving flow, you don’t want to stop for gas or wait 15 minutes for your Tesla to recharge to 80%, or have to wait in line.

But then once again, the ideal is to never sit, never be stuck in a car.

The uber-successful way to live life is simple: to always be walking, to always be moving!

Don’t hire employees, just use ChatGPT?

Assuming you have an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, and the paid premium version of ChatGPT-4 — do you really need employees anymore?

Let us consider: ChatGPT is 100% responsive, 100% reliable, never needs motivation.

And also, I think this is so innovative because you can truly become a 100% solo entrepreneur, without having to rely on anybody else.

The ideal is, never have any employees, never have any staff, and never have any obligations in the physical realm; everything is digital, weightless, frictionless, never requiring you to be anywhere at any time!

Location, location, location, location, location!

The number one reason why living in Culver City is the best is that you could literally spend 100% of your day, your life, while just walking!

In fact, nowadays I ask people how many steps they do a day. The really, really successful ones do over 30,000 steps a day!

Just met a guy named Matt, who runs a tech food truck logistics company, and apparently, he does what I just proposed!

Just move it

Another funny thing… For kids, nobody measures their step count! As a funny thought, imagine if you gave your kid an Apple Watch or something and it tracked how much they walked a day?

The ideal is for them to literally spend every single waking moment outside, outdoors, in the elements, walking around.

Walk school

Can this be a thing?

Go long!

Extend your range — both your real and metaphorical range.

I think tracking your steps is not super useful, but maybe make it a flow or workflow thing, an idea to just always be outside every single moment, and only be at home if you need to sleep.

Cindy even had an idea for me, that maybe meals should just be eaten outside! That means, just cook a bunch of food at home, put it in a bunch of Tupperware, and just go on a walk or go to the park or to the downtown area and feast that way!

It’s OK to go to the same place twice

Also, it seems like one of our downsides is this unusual need for infinite novelty. I don’t always find this very useful.

Oftentimes, novelty and seeking novelty can be a huge distraction. For example, if you were the ancient Spartans, was your life goal to travel for the rest of your life? No! You knew that Sparta was the best; you kept your feet planted, and your whole telos of your life was to train for glory in order to defend Sparta!

I still believe that traveling, living abroad, and being a nomad are good things. Yet I think the problem happens when the whole purpose of our life is in order to travel.

No. The purpose of our life is to have kids, produce ideas and artwork, and any place that could allow you to do this best is best.

Everyone is on your team

I think there is also this funny thing that people are unnecessarily antagonistic toward other people. We always see them as a challenge to ourselves.

But what if they, in fact, were on your team, they were your Spartan hoplites, and would defend you, your kid, your wife, your family if shit hit the fan? Certainly, you would have a different opinion about them.

Local

The only useful politics or news is local, like your own city and neighborhood. Not national or international issues.

The problem with news is that it is almost like pornography for our minds; it breaks the tedium of everyday office work, and the novelty is certainly a hit of dopamine to our brains.

Also, we tend to think of, fear of missing out… or this weird ethical notion that it is our duty to be informed about all of these different things.

I would say, more important to be concerned about your upstairs, downstairs, or across-the-street neighbor, to get them free snacks from Trader Joe’s, be kind and courteous to them, always greet them kindly, and always acknowledge their existence rather than to be the typical antisocial millennial, who seeks salvation through some sort of foreign cause?

It never hurts to wave, smile, and say hello

As a very, very simple experiment… Stop driving, start walking. Whenever you see somebody even a quarter mile away from you, throw up the peace sign, or just do a simple hand wave or head gesture towards them. Just acknowledge their existence! I think the greatest tragedy of modern-day life is that we prefer cyber beings, digital people, over flesh humans.

Once again, for anybody who is antisocial but still watches TV shows, HBO Max, sports, baseball, certainly they love humans!

Better to attempt to be friendly, kind, courteous, and cheerful towards your neighbor, and get the cold shoulder rather than not to attempt it at all.

---

Capital markets

Devote 20 years to just one thing?

.

Street Photography Workbook?

Open, 24/7, and true and intelligent –> makes it volatile

Attract market

20B

Impedance close to 0

$12 M a coin

***

You don’t get taxed on it ***

Royal family of London

Tax kills you

.

Tax free institution

Church, universities

Tax abatement sovereign

Just defend the territory

Asset as legal tender . Isn’t taxes on trade, vibration of asset or time

.

No tax, no inflation … 10k transactions

.

Tax

Energy dissipation

.

Energy frequency and vibration

.

Impedance, friction

Holding time

Individual, trust company, sovereign entity

The capital is oscillating in which domain?

.

Think physics

Faux metrics . Constrained synthetic worlds

Think about the greater universe ***

.

Synthetic idealistic world

That’s all they could have understood

Demons vs Bacteria?

See the cells breaking down. Microscope, x ray

Too much alcohol

.

Path to a solution –> inflection point

2009— Jan. Singularity.

.

Engineering, physics, mathematical principles

$1T network

.1% of economy

.1% of the economy is clean water and economy ***

.

If you have never seen clean you don’t know what dirty is

.

Electricity and clean water

.

Problems of abundance

55% improvement a year

55% risk free

If is volatile but 55% risk free!

55% cost to capital risk free

.

Distraction 65%–> but not guarantee

No conventional idea makes any sense

.

More bitcoin –> only way to outperform bitcoin

Bolted on

Bolt ons

Digital capital business

650M borrow at less than 1% interest

.

1.2 B business at 55%

Borrow 1B, at 0% interest

500M, senior note

7.5B raised

7-8B capital to invest in Bitcoin

120% Bitcoin

126% all in?

Double triple maxi all in

5% borrow

50% gain

$500M a year

Capital markets

30 year financial statements

.

1995

3% interest for next 30 years

.

How you get rich

Levered long desirable property

Borrow 100M to buy 100M building, let inflation drive to 200M, 5M of equity

5M 100M debt, lever up

Digital real estate

Put in 100 hours. Or 10,000 hours to Bitcoin?
.

4-5 year due note

.

Don’t get wiped out by short term volatility

.

20-30% a year growth forever

.

20% , 2x revue … forever

.

200x return

2k euro

1,000 euro an hour 21 years

13M in 21 years

More than one is vain

Zergling or Archon?

Push!

Today no Spartan dies!

All you gotta do is nudge it

What is the weirdest and the most bizarre thing in modern day life? Inclosed spaces, sitting? 

Achilles

One visual I really like from the movie Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles is when he is in his little hut, sleeping in with his beautiful babes, and he has woken up by the kid who tells him that he needs to fight this one really steroided out barbarian fighter. 

The first thought… I think the reason why people love camping so much is that it is far more natural and naturalistic; essentially all day you’re outside, even in the evening, you’re al fresco by the fire… hanging out! 

And this is the bizarre thing… what is modernity? The preference to be indoors, with weakening air conditioning, or the preference to sit, instead of the preference to be out and about, traversing the outdoor terrain? 

Ideas

I’ll give you examples; the enclosed modern day gymnasium. Now about a year not having a gym membership anymore… I’ve discovered how bizarre it is.

First, if you think about the naturalistic gymnasium of the ancient Greeks, it was an open air gymnasium. Pretty much like a huge massive plot of dirt or sand, and a bunch of naked dudes working out,, doing bodily combat exercises, training, hanging out talking shop etc.

I think the problem in today’s world is that we have commoditized everything. We’ve even commoditize the human body, and we have applied both capitalistic and consumerist notions of the body.

For example, weight. Weight, like calories is the most insanely foolish idea. 

For example, let us say that you are 6 feet tall, and 300 pounds. Now this is different if you are 80% body fat, a morbidly obese man, or if you are 5% body fat, and you look like a demigod. Imagine like Ronnie Coleman without the steroids.

This is very precious with women; I think this is the bizarre contradiction: men are always trying to gain weight, while women are trying to lose weight.

If we think about this from a modern day capitalistic productivity perspective… With money, we are always trying to gain it, never lose it. But if we thought about money like weight, the analogies starts to change a bit. 

There is nobody on the planet who likes to lose money. Nobody. Also, almost universally… Everyone likes to gain money.

Also… it seems that people also like to spend money. 

But the bizarre irony is that the moment you spend money, you lose money. Then the thought is, that is OK… I’ll just keep working harder, in order to earn more money, in order to spend it more.

White people make money don’t spend it

I almost feel like Kanye West almost figured everything out. Of course not everything, but a lot. 

Are you examples; to me, the notion of golf was insanely bizarre to me. I never really understood the appeal. But then again after talking to my friends who is a contractor named Donnie… He told me that the reason why he loved golf so much was that it was the ultimate stress reliever. Makes sense. Being out in the open, alfresco… And I think most people when they’re playing golf don’t do it with headphones on. They also like to be around the serene grass, and to just focus. I also suppose golf is good because you do it standing, Not sitting.

Even nowadays… The reason why Pickleball has become so insanely virally popular is because it involves standing up, running around, hitting something, making loud noises, and also the funny new ones… Being able to hit it really hard and feeling really tough, and the rally goes on!

I think this is what people don’t understand about Pickleball, especially tennis players… Note, I played varsity doubles in high school, number one.

The number one most difficult thing in tennis is to keep a rally going. If you’re wanting to play for fun. Assuming that you’re trying to win, obviously you don’t want the rally to go on, you just want to win!

Also this tennis is such a great sport, because once again, you’re not sitting on your butt!

Why almost every modern day job is bad

 all modern day technology jobs  are bad. Why? They all promote sedentary sitting behavior, or not moving behavior.

For example, if I was a major tech CEO or whatever… Or some sort of Director or C level executive…  I would almost make it a mandate that all meetings must be done outside, while walking! Even at the new Apple spaceship campus, there is this wonderful Zen garden pond in the center, in the spirit of Steve Jobs. And let us remember, Steve Jobs was all about walking. he did all of his meetings while walking.

Apparently, when little kids want to talk to the parents about serious stuff, the codeword is , “mom… Do you want to go on a walk?”

The reason why I think this is so important and significant is that walking has become seen as a positively bad unconstructive waste of time thing. Instead, it seems that people are more about “running”, or “going on a run.” Running might be the worst modern day insanely brain dead invention of all time. First, I think people do it in order to “exercise”, secondly, in theory it should be in the most egalitarian open thing… You don’t require any excessive equipment for it, in theory as long as you have bare feet, you should be able to do it.

But now the problem is, essentially there is this running industrial complex that happens from the loser Nike corporation, which tries to eventually get you to purchase their foolish loser $300 sneakers.

Think about the ancient Greek. Think about Achilles versus Hector. I think the whole time, they just wore sandals. Like the ultra ultra minimalistic sandals that I think that the company “xero” sells — literally just a flat thing on the bottom, and just some sort of laces to tie it to your feet.

My personal theory is that back then, if you’re fighting an ancient Greece, in the summertime, and it is insanely hot and humid, you don’t want to be like a medieval night, all armored up. Apparently back then… There was a notion of a Linothorax– imagine just armor or body armor made out of 100 fold linen, which could actually stop the penetration of an arrow or a spear. I can personally attest, when you’re in hot and humid climate, linen is amazing.

Remote work

The ideal is to just have an iPhone Pro, the small one, no case, have Verizon 5G, and whenever you need to do any sort of phone call or meeting… Doing it audio only with your AirPods pros on. 

I’ve actually seen people do this… Do walking meetings at the beach, or while hiking in the hills or the mountains, etc.

The reason why this is so beneficial is that it would actually increase the quality of your ideas, and then someways, be beneficial from productivity, innovation perspective.

So… If you really want to make your company great again, release your employees from their little beautiful glass cube cages!

Freedom?

Reading some marketing for the Porsche 911 car, essentially the funny idea is that you want to purchase a car which symbolizes freedom. But does it actually give you freedom? No!

Let us think about how bizarre this idea is; you work yourself to death, you grind your nose against the grinder, and you keeping your head against the pavement floor, in order to extract maximum productivity and maximally increase your income earning potential.

Then, ideas to earn and save enough money to buy a Porsche 911 turbo S. Or a 911 GT three RS.  let us assume it is $100,000, or $250,000.

You fools… Don’t you know you get a bomb ass apartment in phenom penh for only $500 USD a month?

Then do the math, even with $100,000, how many months of rent can you live? And there, food is so cheap… Practically free.

So let us say that solo individual person, and you want to retire to Vietnam Cambodia or Thailand, your whole living expenses might only be about $1000 USD a month. And you live life like a baller.  You never have to work again, never have to check your email, never have to do boring ass meetings,  and you could essentially just hang out and live your best life all day every single day, always eat out, pursue your athletic and mental pursuits etc. Isn’t this the dream?

So what is holding most people back? I wonder if some of it is just lack of knowledge, like nobody ever told them that this was an option, or maybe some sort of hesitant because the person has never left the country, doesn’t he has a passport, Etc. My personal suggestion is to just troll kayak in Google flights, looking for cheap direct flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia or even more locally in other parts of the world, like Mexico Central America even Cuba.

I think the reason why the modern day American is so miserable it’s truth be told… The fact that we have the most productivity and the greatest productive nation on the planet comes with a price. For example,  what the typical German or European or French person doesn’t understand is that for the most part, the structures do not even allow us to travel. For example, the culture in America is very anti-take vacation, the ideal for the typical hard-working tech individual is to never take a holiday, in order to get that raise or promotion or whatever. if you take a week or two, it is seen with chagrin, everyone is secretly jealous or envious of you. And therefore the whole structure is “no, you are not allowed to take a holiday because we are all miserable and suffering here, I refuse to see you happy.“

I joke about this. I was only employed for 10 months of my life, and it took me almost 10 years to unlearn this behavior. 

Am I the only person who checks my email every six months? Or never check it? Am I the only one I know that doesn’t have Gmail or Apple email? Am I the only one I know that has all no notifications besides FaceTime enabled?

The cold is evil

I think the reason why I loved living in Vietnam and Cambodia so much was that the weather was always perfect. Never cold. 

The downside about the cold is that it prevents you from wanting to go outside. You would prefer to be indoors, with your heater on but the point of life is to be outside, the real world. In the elements.

People often complain about the heat, but this is because they have too much body fat on them, they are overfat. They run hotter. This is why I feel the cold so intensely, at around 5% body fat, I have no natural insulation. And yes, I prefer having my sixpack!

We must go further

As a simple exercise, I think the last year has been a bit tricky… Always starting a new beginning is difficult.

For example, not having a gym membership and my typical hypelifting environment.  I literally toured all the gyms in LA, and all of them suck including equinox. Even the really bad thing about equinox, they have terrible $10 made in China barbells! Suggestion to equinox, buy some Texas power bars!

Anyways, my new activity is for me to just wear my 60 pound weight vest, and go on a long walk. I think it might be the single best most portable most effective efficient form of exercise possible.

First, it improves my posture. Before doing this, I always find myself hunched over. Now, I’m very good at standing up straight, chest up, shoulders back.

Second, it gives me more time to flush thoughts out on my iPad Pro, 100% of my writing is all done voice dictating on my iPad Pro, and I think while I get a bunch of typos, the upside is that the quality of my thoughts, or the type of my thoughts are far more interesting.

Isn’t that the point of philosophy thinking and life to gain interesting, unique, substantive ideas?

No, that we have ChatGPT, the game ain’t about how many words you could turn out. That whole 10,000 words a day idea is patently foolish now.

And this is where I think that the future will be less grammatical, more random, less proper?

For example, I built my blogging empire, and I think I got a B in English in high school? 

Also note, all the truly great entrepreneurs never went to business pool. Can you imagine Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos going to business school? No!

---

We must go further!

Distance and range, that is the new game of electric vehicles, and it seems for the most part, the more arrange a car has, the better.

Even now, I think the best car to get is a Prius prime, what… I think you get 600 miles with a full charge and tank of gas?

In fact, if you really want the ultimate road trip car, range is the number one thing to optimize for. Why? If you’re in a good driving flow, you don’t want to stop for gas or wait 15 minutes for your Tesla to recharge to 80%, or have to wait in line.

But then once again, The ideals to never sit, never be stuck in a car.

The uber successful way to live life is simple; to always be walking, to always be moving! 

Don’t hire employees, just use ChatGPT?

Assuming you have an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, and the paid premium version of ChatGPT 4o– do you really need employees anymore?

Let us consider, ChatGPT is 100% responsive, 100% reliable, never needs motivation.

And also, I think this is so innovative because you cannot truly become a 100% solo entrepreneur, without having to rely on anybody else.

The ideal is, never have any employees, never have any staff, and never have any obligations in the physical realm; everything is digital, weightless, frictionless, never requiring you to be anywhere at any time!

Location location location location location!

The number one reason why living in Culver City is the best is that you could literally spend 100% of your day your life while just walking!

In fact, nowadays I ask people how many steps they do a day. The really really successful ones do over 30,000 steps a day! 

Just met a guy named Matt, who runs a tech food truck logistics company, and apparently he does what I just proposed!

Just move it

Another funny thing… For kids, nobody measures their step count! As a funny thought imagine if you gave your kid an Apple Watch or something and which tracked how much they walked a day? 

The ideal is for them to literally spend every single waking moment outside outdoors, in the elements, walking around?

Walk school

Can this be a thing?

---

Go long!

Extend your range — both your real and metaphorical range.

I think tracking your steps is not super useful, but maybe make it a flow or workflow thing idea to just always be outside every single moment, and only be at home if you need to sleep.

Cindy even had an idea for me, that maybe meals should just be eaten outside! That means, just cook a bunch of food at home, put it in a bunch of Tupperware, and just go on a walk or go to the park or to the downtown area and feast that way? 

It’s OK to go to the same place twice

Also, it seems like one of our downsides is this unusual need for infinite novelty. I don’t always find this very useful.

Often times, novelty and seeking novelty could be a huge distraction. For example, if you were the ancient Spartans, was your life goal to travel for the rest of your life? No! You knew that Sparta was the best, you kept your feet planted, and your whole telos of your life was to train for glory in order to defend Sparta!

I still believe that traveling, living abroad, being a nomad are good things. Yet I think the problem happens when the whole purpose of our life is in order to travel. 

No. The purpose of our life is to have kids, produce ideas and artwork, and any place that could allow you to do this best, is best. 

Everyone is on your team

I think there is also this funny thing that people are unnecessarily antagonistic to other people. We always see them as a challenge to ourselves.

But what if, they in fact were on your team, there were your Spartan hoplites, and would defend you your kid your wife your family? If shit hit the fan? Certainly you would have a different opinion about them.

Local

The only useful politics or news is local, like your own city and neighborhood. Not national or international issues.

The problem with news is that it is almost like pornography for our minds; it breaks the tedium of everyday office work, and the novelty is certainly a hit of dopamine to our brains.

Also, we tend to think of, fear of missing out… Or this weird ethical notion that it is our duty to be informed about all of these different things. 

I would say, more important to be concerned about your upstairs or downstairs or across from your neighbor, to get them free snacks from Trader Joe’s, be kind and courteous to them, to always greet them kindly, and to always acknowledge their existence rather than to be the typical antisocial millennial, who seek salvation through some sort of foreign cause?

It never hurts to wave smile and say hello

As a very very simple experiment… Stop driving, start walking. Whenever you see somebody even a quarter mile away from you, throw up the peace sign, or just do a simple hand wave or head gesture towards them. Just acknowledge their existence! I think the greatest tragedy of modern day life is that we prefer cyber beings, digital people over flesh humans?

Once again, for anybody who is antisocial but still watches TV shows HBO Max, sports, baseball, certainly they love humans!

Better to attempt to be friendly, kind courteous and cheerful towards your neighbor, and get the cold shoulder rather than not to attempt it at all? 

---

Al fresco exercise

The feeling of gravity and gravity forces? G FORCES?

Anyone who wants a 911 or just a two seater

Evolve not for survival, but for “thrivival”— to thrive *BEYOND*

Better to do a walking deadlift ,,, or walk around with the barbell than just lift it straight up?

Like portability

portant

• 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.239–241:[…] et prÄ«mum pedibus tālāria nectit
  aurea, quae sublīmem ālīs sīve aequora suprā
  seu terram rapidō pariter cum flāmine portant.[…] and first [Mercury] laced to his feet the golden sandals, with wings by which he can soar over either seas or land, [and] they carry him along with the swift breeze.

Like porter —

deporto— porto, carry away, bear

Amusement, diversion — deporter, desportes?

The word “sport” has an interesting etymology that traces back to the Old French word desport (or disport), which means “leisure” or “amusement.” This Old French term itself comes from the Latin phrase disportare, meaning “to carry away” or “to divert.”

In Middle English, the term evolved into “sport” and was used to describe any kind of activity that provided amusement or entertainment. Over time, the meaning narrowed to refer specifically to physical activities or games that involve competition and skill, eventually leading to the modern understanding of “sport.”

The transition from a broad sense of leisure to the more specific context of physical competition reflects the historical development of organized, competitive activities that became central to many cultures.

New moving weight lifting ideas —

Sleep insanely early?

Stupid early?

Don’t drive it!

I think the Fujifilm X100VI—

EQUIPMENT by KIM

There is no “perfect” camera. Don’t fall into GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) and falsely believe that buying a new camera will make you a better photographer.

If you’re not feeling inspired in your photography, I recommend you to buy books, not gear. Also check out these 75+ Inspirational Photo Books You Gotta Buy. You can also download my free books.

Equipment Articles >

1. GOPRO BONES IS THE GAME-CHANGER
2. ERIC KIM RICOH GR IIIX REVIEW
3. The Optimal Camera
4. Material Matter
5. Just buy it and forget it.
6. Products will not bring you joy
7. DARK GEAR.
8. EVEN THOUGH WE GET THE BEST, WE’RE STILL NOT SATISFIED.
9. HARDWARE IS THE FUTURE.
10. iPad Pro over iPhone Pro
11. Is Leica Overrated?
12. Fujifilm X-PRO 3 over Leica M10
13. Equipment Creep
14. Once You Got Perfect, Then What?
15. WHY I LOVE RICOH GR III
16. One-Handed Photography
17. Why Rangefinders Are Overrated
18. WHY YOU MUST BUY RICOH GR III
19. The Best Equipment is The Equipment You Already Have
20. The Best Camera is the One You Shoot with the Most
21. Why RICOH GR III is the Best Camera
22. Use and Abuse Your Gear!
23. RICOH is the new LEICA
24. In Praise of Banging around Your Camera
25. Electric Cameras
26. Why the RICOH GR III is Better than the Leica Q2
27. Buy a new Ricoh GR III, not a New iPhone
28. The Best Headphones are In-Ear Monitors
29. Are Point-and-Shoot Cameras the Best Cameras?
30. Gear Adaptation Syndrome
31. Satisfice
32. What is the Benefit of “Standalone” Digital Cameras?
33. All Cameras are Good Cameras
34. Why The Future of Photography is Software
35. RICOH MAFIA
36. Use and Abuse Your Gear!
37. Why RICOH GR II is the Best Street Photography Camera
38. The Best Photography/Vlogging Equipment Setup
39. My Favorite Travel Street Photography Equipment
40. Zen Body-Hand-Mind Connection with the Camera
41. Why It Doesn’t Matter What Camera You Shoot With
42. What is the Best Camera and Lenses for Street Photography?
43. The Best Travel Street Photography Equipment 2018
44. 6 Lessons I’ve Learned After Shooting All the Expensive Cameras
45. How to Make Good Photos on a Shitty Camera
46. Why I Shoot With One Camera and One Lens
47. My Travel Equipment, Winter 2017
48. What is the Perfect Camera For You?
49. What to Consider When Buying a Camera

Digital Medium Format Photography

• Why Digital Medium Format is a Game-Changer for Color Photography
• The Upsides and Downsides of Digital Medium Format Photography
• Fujifilm GFX 50R and 45mm f/2.8 Lens First-Impressions Review
• Review of the Pentax 645Z and Digital Medium Format Photography
• 7 Reasons Why I Love Digital Medium-Format Photography
• My Experience Shooting Digital Medium Format in Street Photography
• My Experience Shooting my Friend’s Wedding on Digital Medium Format
• Why Digital Medium Format is the Future of Photography
• Is Digital Medium Format Worth It?
• 7 Lessons I’ve Learned Shooting Fashion For the First time on Digital Medium Format (PENTAX 645Z)

Smartphone Photography >

• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Smartphone Photography
• Benefits of Shooting Street Photography With a Smartphone
• In Street Photography, The Smaller the Camera, the Better

Film Photography 101 >

• Film Street Photography Manual
• What I Learned Shooting 100 Rolls of Black and White Film
• What I Learned Processing 164 Rolls of Film

---

My favorite camera: RICOH GR III

Currently my favorite camera is the RICOH GR III:

• Why the RICOH GR III is the Best Travel Photography Camera
• Why the RICOH GR III is Better than the Leica Q2
• Why the RICOH GR III is the Best Street Photography Camera
• The RICOH GR III (3) is the Best Camera Ever Made.

---

Best Equipment by ERIC KIM

This is a list of my personal favorite equipment in photography, computers, and life:

Of course, this list probably won’t apply to you — but this is advice I would give myself (if I needed to buy stuff):

---

Film cameras

If you’re new to shooting film, pick up a copy of FILM NOTES.

Best film rangefinder

Leica MP + Leica 35mm f/2 Summicron Lens

Best affordable film rangefinder

Leica M6 + Voigtlander 35mm f/2.5 Lens

Best compact film camera

Contax T3

Best medium-format film camera

Hasselblad 500-series

Best black and white film

Kodak Tri-X 400 (pushed to 1600): $5

Best color film

Kodak Portra 400: $8.50

Best film scanner

For medium-format/35mm: Epson v800: $800

For 35mm: Plustek OpticFilm 8100: $270

---

Camera accessories

Best camera shoulder bag

SAIGON SATCHEL

Best camera backpack

Fits 13” Laptop and Camera: Thinktank Perception 15 (black): $120

Best photography neck strap

• Henri Neck Strap
• ERIC KIM Neck Strap: (for RICOH GRII)

Best photography wrist strap

• Henri Wrist Strap

---

Best photography inspiration website

MagnumPhotos.com

Best photography news blog

PetaPixel.com

Best photography software

Adobe Lightroom

Best video editing software

iMovie (free) or Final Cut Pro X ($300)

---

Books

See all my free books.

Best educational photography book

Magnum Contact Sheets

Best black-and-white photography art book

“Exiles” by Josef Koudelka

Best color photography art book

“The Suffering of Light” by Alex Webb

Best photography handbook

Street Notes

Best philosophy book

On the Shortness of Life – Seneca ($8) // 10 Lessons Seneca Has Taught Me.

---

Best digital tools

Best laptop

Maxed-out 13” MacBook Pro (Refurbished)

Best phone

The smallest iPhone available (currently iPhone Mini)

---

Best Mac Apps

Best writing app

IA Writer (for writing)

Best screen recorder

Camtasia

Best image resizer

JPEGmini Pro

---

Audio

Best earbuds

In-ear monitors

---

Apparel

Best underwear

ExOfficio Men Boxer Brief (black): $26

Best T-shirt

Outlier NYC Merino Wool T-Shirt

Best socks

Outlier NYC Black Merino Wool Socks

Best pants

Merino Wool Leggings (black)

Best glasses

LINDBERG – Titanium

---

Finance

Best bank

Chase

---

Best entrepreneurial tools

Best blogging platform

WordPress.org + Genesis theme

---

Best paid online services

Best cloud storage

Dropbox (Pro)

---

Diet & Nutrition

Food

Intermittent fasting — with one big meal a day (only dinner)

Workout

Deadlifts (one rep max) + squats + dumbbell press + chin-ups + pushups

---

Conclusion

Of course this is just a list of stuff that work for me. It probably won’t work for you.

But I got inspired to make this list– because it took me about 10 years to figure out the best equipment for me. And this works for me, and I hope it can help simplify your purchasing decisions (at least in photography and some other details).

I’ll continue to do articles and videos related to equipment– because I do believe (up to a certain degree) having the ‘right’ equipment in life makes life easier. But the problem is falling victim to GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) where we are buying stuff for the sake of it (has happened to me).

If you already have a bunch of equipment that works for you– stick with it. But if you need some help, I hope this list helped you.

Always,
Eric

Then everything else follows!

The hierarchy for family economics:

1. The husband
2. The wife
3. The kids

Seneca’s life in photos:

In praise of Fujifilm:

At the age of 36, after my world travels, my domination of the street photography sphere, a little time to think and meditate, compile my thoughts etc.… I really do believe now that Fujifilm is the way.

Truth be told, I have nothing but good things to say about Fujifilm. They have always treated me well, and I respect all of the people in the Fujifilm sphere. My recent workshop in Hanoi and Saigon with Chu Viet Ha, and all of the Fujifilm global events I went to.

Why

OK… I’m starting to think about a good analogy between car companies.

First, we all know that Toyota is the best. There is no second best. Certainly Tesla is the coolest and sexiest, the most innovative, the most radical, the most forward thinking car, but in terms of the best car, it is bar none Toyota.

Even I was thinking about the new Toyota crown signia, I saw a brand new one in white, on the dealership lot in Culver City, and I was blown away! The design is so forward thinking, so innovative… truth be told if I had to purchase a brand new automobile in 2024, that would definitely be the car I would want, because it is really one of a kind, you bought it, you would never see anybody else on the road with it!

Anyways back to photography — my thought about the desire for a Leica M rangefinder is like the desire for a Porsche 911 car. But I have personally discovered is that anybody who drives a Porsche 911 car, they are all insecure shorty guys, who don’t really really have anything else going for them.

And this is what is so funny; anybody who drives a Porsche 911 thinks that they are so cool, but not really. They are just another shorty guy drone.

The same thing with the world of photography; it seems that everyone always has penis envy with the guy who owns the newest Leica M camera. And after critically engaging with the whole photography world from age 21 to 36, nearly 15 years ,,, what I have come to realize is that so much of the photography industry is based on insecurity, everybody trying to “prove themselves”, to some sort of random authority figure?

First, Henri Cartier Bresson is out. He was and is now a lame duck. 

I think the sneaky thing is that what Leica is trying to do is to essentially prostitute the image the legacy or the concept of the romantic Henri Cartier-Bresson; the idea that we live off the grid, travel the world and planet, prance around with our little Leica M rangefinder camera in the romantic narrow streets of Paris, etc.

Probably one of the greatest benefits that I’ve learned studying philosophy is that essentially, the whole French romantic movement is essentially a bunch of degenerates. As an American, growing up, the notion of romance, being “romantic“, I never really double thought about it. It was always seen as a good thing. To be romantic, was always as a positive notion.

But what I discovered is that romanticism is essentially an escape from reality; we create these fictitious fake false fantasy landscapes and realities, to seek some sort of alternative utopia to our miserable daily grind of remote work, zoom calls, emails, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious”

A funny thing that I experienced when traveling the world, attending these fancy photography shows and exhibitions etc. was that typically… the real photographers, the real stars of the show would just show up wearing some sort of shabby outfit, and not even bring their camera with them. On the other hand, the would be photographers would show up, full suit and regalia, sporting the newest most expensive Leica M camera, proudly wearing it around their neck, trying to signal that they were in in fact “serious” photographers.

I think the truth of the matter is that all these photographers tend to be a bunch of insecure skinny fat anemic individuals, who are overly sensitive, overly romantic, I don’t think any of them even lift weights.

I came to break the chain

I think my entire ethos has always been disruptive. In the early days, when my blog first started to pick up steam, it seems that a lot of people were either jealous or envious of my success, because I was the first and only person who was effectively able to become a productive entrepreneur in the field of photography, who was actually able to make a living from it.

And my honest assessment is that typically, we tend to hate, or to debate the success of others, when we are envious or jealous of them. I actually catch myself… whenever somebody mentions somebody else, who is maybe adjacent to my field, I always try to give them praise, even though I might think that they are a dicey personality. Because if somebody is successful, but he seems a little bit shady or uncertain to me, the thought I have is “They must certainly be doing something right… maybe something I am unaware of.”

Never hate, only praise.

Hate is good

I think my greatest joy of being the most hated photographer alive is that hate typically signals relevance. 

For example, you would never hate anybody who is irrelevant.

In fact, the second people start to hate you, it is an insanely good sign that you are becoming relevant and successful. The second you stop being hated on… it is a kiss of death; to not be hated on is a sign or a signal that you are no longer relevant.

Think about the youth. As long as you are still cool or relevant to teenagers, 12-year-olds, 18-year-old kids on YouTube… Very good sign.

Photography today

Also some sneaky things I’ve learned about photography book publishers: 

First, it is kind of a modern day depotism. I will not name any names, but, in trying to be friendly and cordial, make some good introductions etc.… I was responded with some of the most hateful, pernicious, toxic language that made me super angry? From an individual who was very short, very fat and ugly. It was funny —  I met this individual and was super friendly introduced myself, and she told me “I know who you are”. And I did not know who she was.

Anyways, I think in the world of photography and art, it is essentially a grand fellatio giving contest. You are trying to give metaphorical head to all of these so-called individuals in power; publishers, who in fact, inherited the whole publishing empire from their grandparents grandparents, and that is why the whole publishing industry is a total scam and a sham; we think it is built on egalitarian notions of merit, but no. It is modern day depotism, currying for favors, etc. 

Honestly, the whole world of photography and art is a scam. The only way that these art galleries, art things get created is not through art… But instead… Another business, and as a family considers their future, they want to get into the fine art market, in order to funnel the family money to keep the trust fund alive. 

Have you ever wondered… going into a random town, seeing a fine art gallery or a fine art photography studio or space… And wondering… how do they pay the rent or keep this thing afloat? I can almost guarantee you that the money is not coming from the photography or art, but somewhere else. 

Even buying a Picasso is more a tax haven than anything?

Instagram is not the way

Insta-slavery; would you sign yourself up to become a digital slave? Obviously no! But this is what Instagram, Facebook is. Essentially you are selling your self-esteem for likes, which is essentially in theory… A bunch of bots.

For example, a thought experiment: let us say that you have 100,000 followers, and every time you upload an image, you got 10,000 likes. You feel good about yourself. But what if I snap my fingers, waved a magic wand, and revealed to you that all of these followers you have, were all bots? And every single like that you got in your life, was from a bot. With this change how you feel? 

Why Fujifilm

OK… let us consider, Fujifilm is probably superior in every single shape form and way.

First, it is stronger, more robust. The problem with any Leica camera — it is so fragile and weak! You would never let your kid play with the $7000 body, and a $3000 lens. Even if your kid is a genius… If he accidentally trips, boom, $10,000 down the drain.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire or whatever… Foolish mistake that a lot of people make is that you think that you’re rich, you don’t care. Not true! The reason people become rich is because they do care! 

The ultimate point of a camera is something you could use and abuse, throw around, drop on the concrete from waist level, a camera you could teach your kid to use, with zero ounces of fear. 

The best camera in 2024

If I critically think about it, my own opinion… No alliances, and this is why you should trust ERIC KIM… Is that I speak my honest truth, without any sneaky sponsorships, now that I am independent bitcoin millionaire. 
I believe the Fujifilm X100 VI (6, sixth generation) to currently be the best camera on the market.

The Ricoh GR HDF is apparently out, and seems like a great value proposition. But I think it is not really available, or sold out or backordered or something. 

And also… the critical flaw of the Ricoh GR digital camera  is that they just don’t last. Now as a young parent, if I had the option of having an unreliable Lamborghini or a reliable Prius, I would take a Prius in a heartbeat! And also the other day… because the Prius is so narrow and skinny, I was able to find a super clutch parking spot at the La Paloma market in LA! I was so happy, and so overjoyed because if I had a loser SUV or even a minivan… Or any car that was even marginally bigger than a Prius… I would not be able to fit it in that spot, and have to hunt for a parking spot for hours!

Once again guys, don’t be a fool; if you live in LA, assuming you ever want to do anything, and you’re a billionaire whatever… always the correct strategy is to have the maximally small compact car.

Even if you have the option, perhaps the optimal strategy is to have a Tesla model 3 over a Tesla model Y, my friend Kevin has three kids, and he could fit them all in the backseat of his Tesla model three! Don’t get the Tesla model Y.

Also, I recently saw the brand new Tesla model 3 performance in Quicksilver at the Century city mall, and it is flawless! I think I actually prefer it over cybertruck!

Cyber truck is still probably the coolest car on the road, but still… When it comes to parking… It is bad.

Park it.

Digital technology

The reason why purchasing any digital Leica is very foolish decision is that it will be outdated in a year or two; you’re automatically pissing down at least $2000-$3000 down the drain. 

Only that… But the cameras aren’t even that good. Although this fake marketing about manual focus whatever… kind of a gimmick.

No Leica Q camera — which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix camera with a body kit.

No Leica SL camera… Which is once again, I think Panasonic Lumix S series camera rebranded. 

All of these photographers are muppets

All these other people… They are just puppets and muppets. None of them own their own opinion, because none of them are independent, self owned, and all of them are on Instagram.

Very very simple heuristic: Better to think about Instagram like McDonald’s. Would you brag about how many hamburgers that McDonald’s sells a day? No. So why would you brag about how many followers you have? Or how many likes you get? Because once again, the critical bad thing here is that as long as you are in the dirty sewer water, feeding your kid dirty sewer water (via Michael Saylor)– infant mortality rates are gonna be 70% you’re going to get dysentery and cholera etc.

Instagram is the new sewer water. Would you drink sewer water? Of course not! Certainly not feed it to your kids!

---

The path forward

Very very simple… The future is digital publishing, digital books, cyber books, open source free permissionless, PDF etc.

I’m starting to get super annoyed, come on… why are you hiding your books behind a pay wall. There is no downside to make it open, free, direct download, open source, open access etc.

Don’t be a fool… money and success are not equated… which means just because you sell your stuff for a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re more successful.

What is true success as a photographer? To be self owned, self independent, not to have an Instagram, to have a self hosted website and blog, a self hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), to shoot small JPEG, to shoot all day every day… Without thinking twice.

Infinite motivation on EK BLOG

---

Start Here

1. Books
2. Products
3. Workshops

---

Forward the power!

Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com, delete your Instagram if you need a friend with inspiration, for this to them!

And also note… All of these email newsletters are always open source; feel free to copy and paste this anywhere, translate it to your language on Google translate or ChatGPT etc.

Spread the love!

EK NEWS >

---

Now what?

Stop buying those Leicas– real streettogs shoot with Ricoh or Fujifilm!

Leica is for loooooosers! (besides the film ones)

ERIC

---

STOICISM 101 >

---

This book shall never die

Free ebook for life– feel free to download, copy, remix it or translate it to anyone!

100 Lessons From The Masters Of Street Photography

Direct PDF DOWNLOAD >

---

Before taking care of others

Video podcast

Audio

LEICA IS FOR LOOOOOSERS!

In praise of Fujifilm:

At the age of 36, after my world travels, my domination of the street sphere, a little time to think and meditate, compile my thoughts etc.… I really do believe now that Fujifilm is the way.

Truth be told, I have nothing but good things to say about Fujifilm. They have always treated me well, and I respect all of the people in the Fujifilm sphere. My recent workshop in Hanoi and Saigon with Chu Viet Ha, and all of the Fujifilm global events I went to.

Why

OK… I’m starting to think about a good analogy between car companies.

First, we all know that Toyota is the best. There is no second best. Certainly Tesla is the coolest and sexiest, the most innovative, the most radical, the most forethink car, but in terms of the best car, it is bar none Toyota.

Even I was thinking about the new Toyota crown signia, I saw a brand new one in white, on the dealership lot in Culver City, and I was blown away! The design is so forward thinking, so innovative… Tribute told if I had to purchase a brand new automobile in 2024, that would definitely be the car I would want, because it is really one of a kind, you bought it, you would never see anybody else on the road with it!

Anyways back to photography — my thought about the desire for a Leica M rangefinder  is like the desire for a Porsche 911 car. But I have personally discovered is that anybody who drives a Porsche 911 car, they are all insecure Shorty guys, who don’t really really have anything else going for them.

And this is what is so funny; anybody who drives a Porsche 911 thinks that they are so cool, but not really. They are just another Shorty guy drone.

The same thing with the world of photography;  it seems that everyone always has penis envy with the guy who owns the newest Leica M camera. And after critically engaging with the whole photography world from age 21 to 36, nearly 15 years ,,, what I have come to realize is that so much of the photography industry is based on insecurity, everybody trying to “prove themselves”, to some sort of random authority figure?

First, Henri Cartier Bresson is out. He was and is now a lame duck. 

I think the sneaky thing is that what Leica is trying to do is to essentially prostitute the image the legacy or the concept of the romantic Henri Cartier-Bresson; the ideas that we live off the grid, travel the world and planet, prince around with our little Leica M rangefinder camera, the romantic narrow streets of Paris, etc.

Probably one of the greatest benefits that I’ve learned studying philosophy was that essentially, the whole French romantic movement, who are essentially a bunch of degenerates. As an American, growing up… The notion of romance, being “romantic“, I never really double thought about it. it was always seen as a good thing. To be romantic, was always as a positive notion.

But what I discovered is that romanticism is essentially an escape from reality; we create these fictitious fake false fantasy landscapes and realities, to seek some sort of alternative Utopia to our miserable daily grind of remote work, zoom calls, emails, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious”

A funny thing that I experienced when traveling the world, attending these fancy photography shells and exhibitions etc. was that typically…  the real Farmer’s, the real stars of the show would just show up wearing some sort of shabby outfit, and not even bring their camera with them. On the other hand, the would be photographers would show up, full suit and regalia,  sporting the newest most expensive Leica M camera, proudly wearing it around their neck,  trying to signal that they were in in fact “serious” photographers.

I think the truth of the matter is that all these photographers tend to be a bunch of insecure skinny fat anemic individuals, who are overly sensitive, overly romantic, I don’t think any of them even lift weights.

I came to break the chain

 I think my entire ethos has always been disruptive. In the early days, when my blog first started to pick up steam, it seems that a lot of people were either jealous or envious of my success, because I was the first and only person who was effectively able to become a productive entrepreneur in the field of photography, who was actually able to make a living from it.

And my honest assessment is that typically, we tend to hate, or to debate the success of others, when we are envious or jealous of them. I actually catch myself… Whenever somebody mentioned somebody else, who is maybe adjacent to my field, I always try to give them praise, even though I might think that they are a dicey personality. Because if somebody is successful, But it seems a little bit shady or uncertain to me, the thought I have is “they must certainly be doing something right… Maybe something I am unaware of.”

Hate is good

I think my greatest joy of being the most hated photographer alive is that hate typically signals relevance. 

For example, you would never hit anybody who is irrelevant.

In fact, the second people start to hit you, it is an insanely good sign that you are becoming relevant and successful. The second you stop being hated on… Is a kiss of death; to not be hated on is a sign or a signal that you are no longer relevant.

Think about the youth. As long as you are still cool or relevant to teenagers, 12-year-olds, 18-year-old kids on YouTube… Very good sign.

Photography today

Also some sneaky things I’ve learned about photography book publishers: 

First, it is kind of a modern day depotism. I will not name any names, but, in trying to be friendly and cordial, make some good introductions etc.… I was responded with some of the most hateful, pernicious, toxic language that made me super angry? From an individual who was very short, very fat and ugly. It was funny —  I met this individual and was super friendly introduced myself, and she told me “I know who you are”. And I did not know who she was.

Anyways, I think in the world of photography and art, it is essentially a grand fellatio giving contest. You are trying to give metaphorical head to all of these so-called individuals in power; publishers, who in fact, inherited the whole publishing empire from their grandparents grandparents, and that is why the whole publishing industry is a total scam and a sham; we think it is built on egalitarian notions of merit, but no. It is modern day depotism, currying for favors, etc. 

Honestly, the whole world of photography and art is a scam. The only way that these are galleries, art things get created is not through art… But instead… Another business, and as a family considers their future, they want to get into the fine art market, in order to funnel the family money to keep the trust fund alive. 

Have you ever wondered… Going into a random town, seeing a fine art gallery or a fine art photography studio or space… And wondering… How do they pay the rent or keep this thing afloat? I can almost guarantee you that the money is not coming from the photography or art, but somewhere else. 

Instagram is not the way

Insta-slavery; would you sign yourself up to become a digital slave? Obviously no! But this is what Instagram, Facebook is. Essentially you are selling your self-esteem for likes, which is essentially in theory… A bunch of bots.

For example, a thought experiment: let us say that you have 100,000 followers, and every time you upload an image, you got 10,000 likes. You feel good about yourself. But what if I snap my fingers, waved a magic wand, and revealed to you that all of these followers you have, were all bots? And every single like that you got in your life, was from a bot. With this change how you feel? 

Why Fujifilm

OK… let us consider, Fujifilm is probably superior in every single shape form and way.

First, it is stronger, more robust. The problem with any Leica camera — it is so fragile and weak! You would never let your kid play with the $7000 body, and a $3000 lens. Even if your kid is a genius… If he accidentally trips, boom, $10,000 down the drain.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire or whatever… Foolish mistake that a lot of people make is that you think that you’re rich, you don’t care. Not true! The reason people become rich is because they do care! 

The ultimate point of a camera is something you could use and abuse, throw around, drop on the concrete from waist level, a camera you could teach your kid to use, with zero ounces of fear. 

The best camera in 2024

If I critically think about it, my own opinion… No alliances, and this is why you should trust ERIC KIM… Is that I speak my honest truth, without any sneaky sponsorships, now that I am independent bitcoin millionaire. 
I believe the Fujifilm X100 VI (6, sixth generation) to currently be the best camera on the market.

The Ricoh GR HDF is apparently out, and seems like a great value proposition. But I think it is not really available, or sold out or backordered or something. 

And also… The critical flaw of the Ricoh GR digital camera  is that they just don’t last. Now as a young parent, if I had the option of having an unreliable Lamborghini or a reliable Prius, I would take a Prius in a heartbeat! And also the other day… Because the Prius is so narrow and skinny, I was able to find a super clutch parking spot at the La Paloma market in LA!  I was so happy, and so overjoyed because if I had a loser SUV or even a minivan… Or any car that was even marginally bigger than a Prius… I would not be able to fit it in that spot, and have to hunt for a parking spot For hours!

Once again guys, don’t be a fool; if you live in LA, assuming you ever want to do anything, and you’re a billionaire whatever… Always the correct strategy is to have the maximally small compact car.

Even if you have the option, perhaps the optimal strategy is to have a Tesla model 3 over a Tesla model Y, my friend Kevin has three kids, and he could fit them all in the backseat of his Tesla model three! Don’t get the Tesla model Y.

Also, I recently saw the brand new Tesla model three performance in Quicksilver at the Century city mall, and it is flawless! I think I actually prefer it over cybertruck!

Cyber truck is still probably the coolest car on the road, but still… When it comes to parking… It is bad.

Park it.

Digital technology

The reason why purchasing any digital Leica is very foolish decision is that it will be outdated in a year or two; you’re automatically pissing down at least $2000-$3000 down the drain. 

Only that… But the cameras aren’t even that good. Although this fake marketing about manual focus whatever… Kind of a gimmick.

No Leica Q camera — which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix camera with a body kit.

No Leica SL camera… Which is once again, I think Panasonic Lumix S series camera rebranded. 

All of these photographers are muppets

All these other people… They are just puppets Muppets. None of them own their own opinion, because none of them are independent, self owned, and all of them are on Instagram.

Very very simple heuristic: Better to think about Instagram like McDonald’s. Would you brag about how many hamburgers that McDonald’s sells a day? No. So why would you brag about how many followers you have? Or how many likes you get? Because once again, the critical bad thing here is that as long as you are in the dirty sewer water, feeding your kid dirty sewer water (Michael Saylor)– infant mortality rates are gonna be 70% you’re going to get dysentery and cholera etc.

Instagram is the new sewer water. Would you drink sewer water? Of course not! 

---

The path forward

Very very simple… The future is digital publishing, digital books, cyber books, open source free permission list, PDF etc.

I’m starting to get super annoyed, come on… Why are you hiding your books behind a pay wall. There is no downside to make it open, free, direct download, open source, open access etc. 

Don’t be a fool… Money and success are not equated… Which means just because you sell your stuff for a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re more successful.

What is true success as a photographer? To be self owned, self independent, not to have an Instagram, to have a self hosted website and blog, a self hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), to shoot small JPEG, to shoot all day every day… Without thinking twice.

Infinite motivation on EK BLOG

Start Here

1. Books
2. Products
3. Workshops

Forward the power!

Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com, delete your Instagram if you need a friend with inspiration, for this to them!

And also note… All of these email newsletters are always open source; feel free to copy and paste this anywhere, translate it to your language on Google translate or ChatGPT etc.

Spread the love!

EK NEWS >

---

Now what?

Stop buying those Leicas– real streettogs shoot with Ricoh or Fujifilm!

Leica is for loooooosers! (besides the film ones)

ERIC

---

Germans are Pro bitcoin!

Intellectual tourist

.

Winners are doing no work

Create your own game or leave the game

.

Block Trainer

Economists don’t understand money

.

Austrians didn’t have cryptography, the internet

Shared immutable true ledger

True money

.

No capital value in any stock

14,000 peso to dollar

Cash flow value is worthless

The country you live in will not go on forever ***

.

How to create capital?

Currency derivatives

.

Why are they dying?

Dirty

.

Gout is caused by alcohol, sugar

.

The money is dirty

Don’t feed your kid sewer water

Don’t bleed patient!

.

Capital is economic energy

15-20 years

.

Land only 50 year asset ***

.

Be a sovereign, emperor Tokyo, royal family

Real men shoot Fujifilm!

Japan > Germany

Open Source link

1. Bitcoin

Self driving or nothing? This is literally 99% of the headache of driving?

The true path to freedom; unshame yourself!

What is the metaphorical ball and chain in our new modern day life? Shame. It applies not only to people of Asian East Asian descent, or Confucian values… Also in America, with the Quaker protestant morals and ethics being around shame.

Certainly within a Christian Catholic mentality as well; also maybe to Jewish people as well? And also, the Japanese, maybe almost anyone living in an industrialized, modern day world and civilization.

Shame is learned and taught and reinforced

One thing I love about Seneca… Is that he is so free pure, and great. Fortunately because he has wise parents, ever since he is born… We have never instilled any shame culture on him.

There’s a really bad thing in Korean culture, which is called “cheng-pee”, which literally means shameful. I think Korean people superficially say it to be cute, but if you really think about it… It is actually quite insidious.

For example, you will see it over and over again when a kid is running around naked without pants on, almost about everything.

American shame?

In America, we do have notions of shame, but it is not said so directly. For example if you have a young kid who is running around naked at the house, you’re probably won’t say “shame shame shame shame shame!” Put on some clothes or else you will bring shame onto our family and all of your family members and past generations.  

The genesis of shame

Funny enough… shame is not an ethic that Jesus preached. Shame is rather a form of social control.

For example, growing up Catholic Korean Catholic… All this guilt and shame around porn pornography, masturbation etc. And all these weird superstitions that you would grow hairy palms if you jerked off? 

Also, very funny… Even the modern day times, with all these fake macho guys at the gym etc.… Whenever you joke about Porn and jerking off… All guys will always side chuckle a little bit shamefully, because obviously all the guys do it.

But technically, assuming you grew up up without religion and modern day shamed notions… None of it should really be shameful. Maybe gross, or unhygienic, but not shameful.

This is where Japanese culture is really fascinating to me; like there is no Christian Judeo morality holding back the Japanese; and therefore, pornography is not really seen as a big deal in Japan. Whereas in America, we all believe it to be porn to be a little bit morally reprehensible. Even to progressive people. 

Why is being naked seen as being shameful? 

I have some theories.

First, in the Bible… The second Adam and Eve take a bite out of the apple from the garden of Eden… Apparently the first thing that Adam and Eve realize is that they were naked, they feel shame and they immediately want to cover up. God knows and discovers that they took a bite of the forbidden fruit.

Some subtle nuances;

First, where does this notion of the forbidden fruit even come from? Kind of a bizarre notion. Essentially the idea is that it is better to be naked and dumb and happy, rather than to possess your own self wisdom rationality and intelligence and judge the world?

The second… Why is it considered shameful to be naked, either in private or public?

Shame is good at selling (overpriced) clothing 

Shame sells! Some theories:

The first theory is a capitalistic one. You cannot make money by telling people to be naked. You got to sell them clothes.

Second, it seems that by breeding insecurity is a smart strategy if you want people to purchase or desire to purchase certain clothes in articles of clothing, in order to feel “cool“? For example, at the age of 36, I feel the wisest I have ever been in my life. No more lame and loser Nikes, sneakers, etc. Only losers were Nikes, Jordans, whatever.

The true intelligent footwear to wear is either the vibram five finger shoes, or if you have a kid, just getting them those super minimalist water shoes on Amazon which only cost about 10 bucks. 

Cars are the new shoes for adults?

Another theory; when you are kid, and maybe before you have a drivers permit or license, you can’t drive. Therefore, shoes and sneakers are like a metaphorical car or vehicle. When you are a middle school or highschooler a teenager… We are yet rich enough to buy cars but we could buy shoes.

Now that we are adults, and we are richer, and we could do stupid things like finance a car with a down payment, and have a monthly payment, cars and automobiles are like the new sneakers. Think about it… Both have to deal with transportation transit and getting around and moving around, being seen, fashion being fashionable etc.

Cars are fashion objects

If you just need a car to get around, the truly intelligent thing is to get a used Toyota Prius, the 2010 edition. Otherwise, all cars are just fashion?

And also, cars… They come in and out of fashion every 3 to 6 months, and there’s always a new car being released. In fact, whether we like it or not, LA, Southern California, California, the states, the planet… A car or automobile Vehicle, a truck SUV whatever… Might be one of the grandest industries in America and beyond?

But lots of problems here:

First, I have a theory that one’s happiness is inversely proportional to how much time you have to either spend seated in a car, driving around etc. And I’m starting to think that the payoff is not worth it ; for example,  let us see you have the option to drive an additional 30 minutes to go somewhere that is maybe 40% nicer than just going somewhere local that you could access via walking. Typically that optimization is not worth it.

Why? Opportunity cost. A 30 minute drive there, 30 minute drive back… That is a full hour otherwise you have spent just walking around!

The metro E line is the future 

Taking the metro is a far better bet. For example, on killing 10 birds with one stone; the joys of taking the metro, especially the metro E line in Los Angeles is multifold:

First, you have the joy and privilege of being able to stand the whole ride, and even shift around your weight and walk around the train if you want!

Second, you get an insanely cool view of the city! Playing SimCity with Seneca, there’s this notion of a maglev train; a magnetic elevated train!

It doesn’t have to be magnetic, just elevated. The reason why the metro line in LA is so phenomenal is that you are above traffic, you are above the ground level, and you get this really interesting panopticon view of the city! 

Third, kids love it! I don’t know any kid who doesn’t like to take the metro, it is so fun for them! Even for my niece Amelia who is now in the first or second grade, seven or eight years old, After taking her and her younger brother Benjamin to the California science Center via the metro E line, she asked me and Cindy… Can we take the metro back home (to Orange County)?

The future might be more basic than we think it is?

Also, watching this cute film at the California science Center about cities of the future… The general idea is that in the future, everyone would just be taking some sort of magnetic electric elevated train somewhere, And on the mid and bottom and middle levels, would be some of the fools who have to self drive their own cars. In the middle layer would have self driving cars.

Or more simply put, in the future, only poor people have to drive themselves?

Visions?

Singapore is often cited as being a city of the future, but it is not. Truth be told Singaporeans don’t really like living in Singapore; they would prefer to live in the states if they could.

Maybe the closest thing I have to witnessing a city of the future is Culver City, the only city which you could actually walk around all day, and never get bored, and you could also do all your grocery shopping here at Trader Joe’s or Erewhon or Whole Foods. Even nowadays, a supermassive innovation that we got is being able to do the Amazon fresh grocery deliveries so might pull in I think 80% of the average American family, time and resources is wasted occurring food and groceries.

The future of food is here

And also, let us consider… It is the year 2024, it is very common to get the same day prime delivery of almost any single item on Amazon. Shouldn’t we apply the same ethos to food, which is really the only critical thing we need in order to live? We don’t have free food… Yet, but at this point we have free clean water, just drinking from the tap or filtered water at home! And at this point, you could purchase coffee in bulk, on Amazon and it is so cheap practically free! The “fresh roasted coffee” 5 pound bag on Amazon, the yirgacheffe Ethiopian blend quite good!

How to unshame yourself? 

God sent me to break the shame. I’m the true and living, all the rest of you guys are vain. 

First, get rid of those loser AirPods, throw them in the trash. Better to be ghetto and hood, if you want to listen to something, music podcasts or whatever, just crank up the volume on your iPad Pro or iPhone, and listen to it loud in public or even in private. If somebody tells you to quiet down, just lower the volume and continue.

And actually this is the funny polarity that I have observed and discovered; almost everybody else is always listening to AirPods pros, which means that they can’t even hear you.

Nowadays, I have a new heuristic or the way that I separate people; people have something in their ears, or don’t.

Headphones or noise canceling headphones or AirPods pros are like condoms for your ears. Imagine if you had a noise canceling thing on your penis, a noise canceling condom. Probably would not be good for sexual pleasure.

And the truth is, I think our sense of hearing is actually 1000 times more acute than our power of vision. For example, the reason why hoking is so irating to me is because I have very sensitive earlobes! And also the reason why the smell of second hand smoke whether cigarettes, marijuana, or even vape… Perhaps there is also more wisdom in our nose than our eyes. 

Therefore just observe it… When you’re out in public or at the gym or whatever, separate people into the two categories; people with headphones on, people without. Seek the naked ear lobe hole folks.

All people with headphones and AirPods on are simply drones

The iPhone is the new drug?

Second, throw your iPhone Pros into the trash. I notice it nowadays… Very subtly; when I am walking around with my 60 pound weight vest on, and I look at somebody, and then they want to glance at me, and they do for half a second, and then half a second they do this nervous twitch in which what they do is check their phone… or they are in New York Manhattan, or in a crowded elevator, I will see people open up their phones, check the time, refresh their email inbox, etc.… Simply as it means to avoid eye contact or inter action with others?

Don’t open up or check your phone when you feel nervous

Simple suggestions include whenever you make eye contact with somebody, or even if you see somebody half a block away looking at you, just throw up the peace sign, or give them a head nod. You would be surprised, people can spot you from half a mile away. 

You would want all the votes you can

Maybe a random thought is think like you are the mayor, you are a firefighter, a public servant, or if you’re running for mayor. If this were the case, you would want to be maximally friendly to every single human being you encounter, because you want their votes! This means being nice friendly and courteous and cheerful and acknowledge the existence of people who are even antisocial, bizarre?

I have a simple rule; first, always be nice friendly and courteous to anybody you encounter, even if they give you bad vibes. And also, always better to risk being friendly and saying hello to somebody, even if they may give you the cold shoulder or pretend that you didn’t greet them? 

In fact, this is my personal read on things; when you see somebody, that you have maybe seen before, and you have a low-key suspicion that they are somehow envious jealous or afraid or intimidated by you, because you make them feel smaller… You actually might be right. And therefore, when you say what’s up to them, and say hello, but they kind of pretend like they didn’t see you do it… It is typically a signal that yes they did see you, but they’re too much of a pussy and coward to acknowledge you.

If this were in fact the true case, carry on! 

And then, let us say that you didn’t know this with 100% supreme accuracy, then, you continue to greet them in a friendly manner, or do you then also retaliate and give them the cold shoulder? 

I say do the more courageous path; to pretend like you didn’t see them, giving the cold shoulder is an act of cowardice; therefore doing the opposite thing is more courageous! 

In fact in modern day times, to greet and say hello to strangers, might be one of the greatest acts of courage? 

---

Make friends with security guards.

Why? First, honestly a lot of security guards, because they are outside all day just walking around… are just friendlier and happier than the average office drone. Second, most of them have not taken the traditional educational route in life, which means that they tend to be much more interesting to talk to, rather than the average university graduate and career person.

In fact, the only interesting conversations I’ve had is from people from the hood, maybe people in the military, some kids, and those who we would consider “nontraditional”. In fact, 99.99% of people you encounter, in the states are quite boring. The second someone bores you, just excuse yourself and say you have to use the bathroom and walk away.

For example, you’ll find more interesting sociological truth wisdom and interest from somebody who is real ghetto, really from the hood, rather than a fake ass average person.

***

Drain?

OK let us assume that you are a battery and you cannot be recharged in the middle of the day. The only way you can recharge your battery is when you go to sleep at night.

That means any single interaction social interaction, engagement whatever could either have a positive or negative effect on you.

I’m sorry to realize this… but the truth is that some people will essentially just capture you, and just keep talking nonsense to you, and refuse to let you leave. And the whole interaction is insanely draining. You could feel it physiologically, in terms of your attention span, your energy levels, and also you just feel boredom. 

This is my personal heuristic — if I know somebody, whether a friend family member acquaintance or whatever, and I asked them how they are doing and chat about them… Their family whatever, and they never asked how my son Seneca is doing, this is a very bad sign. 

In fact I have a new heuristic; whenever anyone shows even an ounce of interest in Seneca, seems concerned about his well-being, shows affection to him with their hand in a friendly manner, or praises him, they will 100% forever be on my good side.  

Also the opposite; for friends and family members who have never asked about Seneca or his well-being, even after several encounters, I shall shun them.

Misery loves misery

To be happy as rare. I am probably the only happy person that I know, and Seneca is also rare; the only happy kid I know. 

I would say that 99.99% of people are miserable. And the way that they could feel better about themselves is by dragging other people down, spewing hate, etc.? Very counterproductive.

In the UK they call it the tall poppy syndrome; you see a guy driving around the new Lamborghini, and then you’ll find some sort of way to discredit him, saying that he has a small dick, or he cheated for that money etc.

At least a good thing in America is that often our jealousy and envy could be positive and productive; we see Jeff Bezos Elon Musk and the like becoming super successful, and we aspire to become like them.

Or, maybe if you see somebody driving a certain car, in the US we think —

Wow, if I also work super hard, one day I could also have that same car! 

Therefore, at least in America we do have this notion of a constructive envy.

Building muscle is the ultimate democratic thing 

Also in bodybuilding, I think we often use other men and their physiques as a role model; we all want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, is always plastered around all across the planet.

But a simple thought: I think body glorification is 1 trillion times more virtuous than car fellatio, or even money glorification. 

For example, I would never switch spaces with any other human being on the planet, irregardless of how wealthy or rich or powerful they are.

Jeff Bezos is short, only 5 foot seven. Kanye West is also short, maybe 5 foot five. I think Kendrick Lamar is only 5 foot two? Jay Z is cool, but he’s too old now. 

Also, any billionaire in their 50s or 60s would probably trade their wealth in order to become 20 years old again.

Even if you were worth 100 billion or $1 trillion, and you’re 90 years old, wouldn’t you trade 100% of your wealth in order to become 21 years old again?

And truth be told, the most important thing is for our youth, our strength, our bodily vigor, our muscle, our height, our happiness and joy! 

How do you know if somebody is old or not? Look at their arms.

I saw some pictures of Hugh Jackman on the red carpet, and if you look at his forearms… Even though he has a bulging vein in it, his arms look old. You could tell by their skin quality.

Even the same thing with women, apparently the best thing to do is judge the character of their skin, or their hand! Because I don’t think there is something as hand aesthetic surgery yet, which means you cannot fake your age via your hands.

If you want to see whether someone is a man or woman or their age ,,, feel and hold and inspect their hands!

---

Unwealth

You can truly determine how rich somebody is by what they don’t own.

For example, really really insanely rich people don’t own or wear watches; they are not a slave of time. 

Also, insanely successful and rich people like Carlos Slim don’t own an iPhone or a smartphone; because they are not slaves to their inbox. 

Even a thought, if I ever had to buy Seneca a phone, I would just buy him a dump phone, even something that doesn’t have text messaging! To train him that if he really needs to make a phone call, you could just make a phone call? And it doesn’t matter if he gets teased in school; all these other kids are basic. 

In fact if you really really think about it, the super super rich and successful people don’t even own a car! If you lived in Manhattan, I don’t even think you own a car– nor is it even a desirable thing. If you live in Manhattan, nobody wants to drive themselves. Or even be stuck in a car; even the super super rich people would prefer to take the subway, even though it is crowded, at least you’re not stuck in traffic!

Don’t draw attention to yourself

Something which is really genius that the Wachowski brothers, now sisters, did is they never granted interviews, they never really showed their face in public, etc.… Which was insanely genius because they have all of the upsides of success without the downsides like being mobbed in public. 

The really really really rich smart successful powerful people are hidden; they don’t draw attention themselves because they know the downsides of fame.

In fact, I feel bad for people like Dr. Dre or Jay Z or whatever; they can’t even go out without being mobbed etc. And one of the greatest joys and pleasures of being human and alive is to simply go outside for a walk, in a public square, to be totally anonymous. In fact, the ideal is to be super super rich and powerful, and have a lot of labor power latent within you… Having a lot of economic power, but also being 100% anonymous. Why? Let us consider the misery of a Brad Pitt; estranged from his children, his beautiful ex-wife Angelina Jolie, and it doesn’t matter if he has all of the good looks in the world, or all of the cool cars whatever… He can’t just walk around the block, or enjoy himself at the beach! Unless you put on a facemask a ski mask or something that covers his face up?

Suggestions

If celebrities really wanted to be low-key and enjoy their anonymity, they would just drive a white Toyota Prius — the ultimate stealth car. If you pop out of a Prius, no one will think that you’re that famous actor oractress or celebrity. Even Kim Kardashian, I wonder if there is certain days she would just prefer to be outside and just wanna go on a walk?

I think this is also the genius of Kanye having his 100% facemask on, I’m not sure how it feels breathability wise, but, assuming that he not wearing a certain outfit, or driving a certain car, in theory he should be able to walk around in public without having people stare at him, they would only stare at the facemask not knowing it was him. 

Via negativa wealth

Some new radical thoughts on wealth:

I think true wealth is inversely proportional; the things you don’t have the things you don’t own in order to maintain.

The less you own the less you have to maintain, the wealthier you are.

For example, I would not wish for a Lamborghini McLaren or any hyper sports car on even my worst enemy. Why? The critical issue here is that maintenance costs are an effing nightmare. And insane headache! Because whether you like it or not, even the rich people you are jealous of also feel physiological and mental pain and anguish, they also sleep poorly and feel terrible. Why? They sacrifice their life, their personal freedom and their health life time soul for money!

The limits of money?

How much wealth is enough wealth? Simple: enough to pay your rent, buy ground beef at Amazon fresh, and then just bundle the rest of the money into bitcoin.

Think long

Why hybrid is the way:

With cars, it is not even a money thing. Like the laws of physics; sooner or later you’re going to have to get an oil change, and it will not only be very expensive, but time consuming, insanely annoying etc. I think this is where it makes more sense to get some sort of maybe Hybrid sports car or Lexus LC500– in theory you could just take it to any ordinary oil change place, because it is a Toyota, you could easily get it repaired or change the oil. Also, the now discontinued Acura NSX is a hybrid; which means you get stellar miles per gallon, and also it should require less maintenance than any other non-Japanese hyper sports car. And I guess because it is discontinued now, it should hold its value? And because Acura is a Honda… Hondas are reliable, and also not difficult to find parts to fix. 

No oil changes is ideal 

Maybe this is also the logic of having an all electric sports or hyper car; in theory, an electric sports car should require less maintenance and gasoline or hybrid one;  I think the only thing you probably have to change or fix or maintain is refill the window wiper fluid? 

Everyone wants the butterfly doors or the scissor doors or the Lambo doors — but I think the true intelligent optimization here is that you have some sort of electric car that could do this? Maybe this is also where the BMW i8 is a good idea; because it has the butterfly or scissor doors? And it is either all electric, or Hybrid I think?

And also if you really wanted the billionaire doors on a budget, just get a Tesla model X! You get the gull wing doors, the same thing  on that one really really rare and expensive Mercedes car, or the DeLorean, for only about $65,000?

Tesla Model X Plaid

I also think this is where the Tesla model X plaid is so genius; the 0 to 60 speed is 2.5 seconds; faster than a Porsche 911, and also you could have a family of six all seated? And at worst, if shit hits the fan, I suppose you could also live inside of it?

Why do you want it?

Question: do you want it for what it is, or what it symbolizes? 

I think the big issue here is the question; do you actually like that Lamborghini, the idea of the Lamborghini, actually owning it, the idea of it, or the totem of it?

It is all imaginary in our mind. For example if I knew that I owned a Lamborghini with the scissor doors just parked in my garage, but I never drove it… Certainly I would not really have the benefit of it. But just knowing at the back of my head that I got it, is what makes me smile?

Portable wealth

I think this is also where bitcoin is useful; I think the new modern day digital dick measuring contest will be; how many bitcoin do you own? And it is like your metaphorical dick size; the more bitcoin you got, the longer your cyber dick.

Kanye had a funny quote saying that being a male porn star was an objective way to measure them– essentially, their penis size. In theory the guy with the 20 inch dick should be the best porn star. But I would also not wish this even not my worst enemy, because it would seem very uncomfortable to just walk around, without having to tuck it or wrap it around your leg or something.

But I think the issue here is that with the whole dick size thing, we all know that African-American men statistically have the largest or the longest penis size. But statistically they are not the richest nor the most powerful men in America.

Therefore the question is; when we try to do a metaphorical thick measuring contest, what are we trying to do? I think what we are trying to do is to jockey for a position, in terms of economic power?

Once again, it is not money that we seek, but economic power.

---

What is it that we all truly seek?

I think this is where I go beyond Seneca and the stoics, also beyond even my best friend Nietzsche.

Have you ever met a philosopher or a stoic who looks like me?

The problem with Seneca the younger is that I think he was a fatty boy. I think the true bust statue of him and his head he was bald, and had a triple chin. Makes sense; even Seneca “On Anger” writes, we should not get offended by truthful facts; why would you be offended if somebody made fun of you for being bald, when in fact you actually are bald? The better response is to just poke fun at yourself; better to poke fun at your baldness, rather than feel shameful about it?

Also, Seneca critiques people who spent too much time exercising, and that rather, our focus should be on training our mind and our soul. But is this a sour grapes fallacy;

You hate people you wish you were?

Making fun of yourself is the best defense

For example, if somebody makes fun of you for being Asian and having a small dick or whatever, just call it a baby turtle. That it pokes out every once in a while. Or that you have a “chode”– a penis which has more girth than length.

When you poke fun at yourself, it is an impregnable defense. 
I even remember in high school, whenever somebody would tease you for being gay or whatever, the best response was “I love dick!” And then after that, nobody had anything left to say.

Humor, dark humor, black stoic Spartan humor is key?

We stoics of the future

Whenever people think about the future, people are foolish; they think about adding more technology to our lives, throwing on more vision pros, more AirPods pros, more time in your self driving car etc. 

But in fact, the true path to the future is via negativa– the true future is more spartan, less physical, more cyber and digital.

More cyber real estate which is bitcoin, more digital money which is also bitcoin, more time outdoors in the direct sun with your shirt off, which is the true way of living the dream. 

Living the dream!

---

Radical?

I suppose the question is do we really need to be radical here?

I think there is some sort of like intelligent wise radicalism, which is just stick to your own guns, following your own gut, refusing to just be another drone. I’d rather be Brad Pitt and Tyler Durden than Edward Norton.

And I think the problem here is that we have weird role models now. Everyone wants to be Warren Buffet; but do you want to be a fat old man, who is just sitting in hunched over our newspaper all day, even if you are the world’s second richest man?

Therefore the new godhead is wealth being super rich. Being in the Forbes top 100, ideally number one.

There is no second best.

---

Why settle for second? 

The American way —

In America, our whole ethos and impetus is towards being the best, number one. There is no second best.

Nobody wants the silver. Just look at the Olympics, we always measure by the number of gold trophies. Better to get one gold medal for your country, rather than 1000 silvers.

“One good girl is worth a 1000 bitches” Kanye Bound 2, YEEZUS album

I think this is where it is so critical to be so insanely wise about choosing your life partner your wife etc. Don’t settle for second best.

And also, this is where where you live is critical; Culver City is the best, in all of Los Angeles, no second best.

I think, opting for the best is the best path forward. This is why America is number one for entrepreneurship on the planet!

Certainly there is bad things about trying to always be number one. But truth be told, assuming you’re not taking drugs or doing weird stuff, I don’t think it hurts?

---

The ethos of the best

I think this is why America is so productive; we all desire to be the best! We want to be the most rich and the most successful, within our friends circle and family circle, and then maybe beyond that, spreading our circles and sphere of influence a bit further out.

For example, I’m happy that I’m the number 1 greatest street photography blogger of all time, nobody will ever take the crown from me, no matter how hard they try. Just ask ChatGPT!

Then I then suppose that the next step forward is to discover a new niche, and also dominate that. Perhaps I have a passion for domination.

This is why when I go to the gym, or when I used to go to the gym, it was always my number one goal to be the strongest guy in the gym, by a huge fold. This is why I lifted 10 plates, a 25 and a five on each side; and broke the weightlifting universe with my 1,000 pound atlas lift. 

I believe this accomplishment and will last forever.

You only have to do it once. 

What is the next thing I want to dominate?

Anything you have a true passion for, autotelic; it is very easily achievable, if you do not have to consider economic payoff, making money etc. Or making other people happy, or even giving utility to other people.

A random thought I have on my mind is towards lifestyle; now that I am 36 years old, about the same age which Tim Ferriss wrote the four hour work week? Maybe I could become the next Tim Ferriss? Tim Ferriss is great; but I think the issue is that he is short, balding, insecure, and I think he is also not yet married and childless, maybe he has a dog? And also, I don’t think he’s really figured things out for himself yet; he’s always onto the next thing, just seeking endless distraction for himself? 

Maybe I’ll be the next Tim Ferris! 

Suggestions for Tim:

1. Get rid of advertisements on your podcast, you’re rich enough.
2. Maybe your next step is just writing a really good philosophy book, which is 100% honest, and doesn’t try to be a best seller or sell well. And maybe just give away a free PDF e-book version of it, open access, open source, and then sell the printed cover to your fanbase?
3. Try to get married and have at least one kid?

---

How and why lifestyle is such a critical thing to consider

I kind of hit the lifestyle that shouldn’t because it typically revolves around buying some sort of equipment and gear.

My personal thought is that lifestyle should just be a mental, a mindset, which should actually be “via negativa”– the ideal lifestyle you look more like a zen stoic spartan monk, rather than a fat short old balding loser with a Lamborghini. 

Making more money, but also spending no money?

If you really really really gotta buy something, just get it on Amazon Amazon prime! For example, I got this fantastic new all black Sun hat, on Amazon Amazon for only 10 bucks, one day delivery?

 in fact, maybe the intelligent path forward is to just always purchase all of your clothing on Amazon, or Uniqlo?

Why? I think it just makes sense. You’re cutting out the middleman, all the stuff by Lululemon is just made in the same factory in Vietnam, I think $100 pair of tight leggings from Lululemon, might only cost $10 for them to produce? The rest of those $90 is probably profit for the Lululemon corporation.

Apparently nowadays on Amazon, you could purchase all these duplicate clothing, in which they take the inseam and the measuring of Lululemon men shorts, and just create a duplicate, with inferior materials. But if you just want something simple and cheap, it seems to be logical this way.

Or, design it yourself! I recently had the epiphany I hate sleeves; and therefore, I just took some heavy duty steel scissors I got at home, and I just took my old -32 merino wool black T-shirt and just cut off the sleeves! Boom, brand new outfit that cost me nothing. 

Just buy it on Amazon! Problem solved.

***

Brands are for cowards

I put zero faith in anybody who drives a base level Audi, like an Audi Q3 three or A3, an entry-level BMW or Mercedes, or even an entry-level Porsche 718. They are signaling some serious insecurity here.

Everybody knows that a Toyota Prius is the best car, but for men… They think it is demasculating to drive a Prius?

I was talking to one of the guys who worked at the Toyota dealership, and I asked him what car he thought I drove. The first thing he thought was 911? Which is pretty cool; because I guess I have the 911 personality, without having to Maintain that $100,000 loser car.

In fact, if I had to do some sort of brand new car project today, my idea would be get a brand new Prius prime, and matte black wrap it, murder it out, no loser tints, and paint the doorhandles matching paint colors. The new Prius 911 looks great; look at the horizontal tail light it looks awesome!

Real men drive Priuses

Everything else is for losers!

ERIC

---

Fashion choices

Cars and clothes are all fashion choices.

If you live somewhere where it is really really strong sun, by a sun hat, not a loser baseball cap.

For your car, get a Prius.

For your body, 60 pound weight vest — my new stoic Spartan fashion body armor accessory?

---

Shame and economic productivity

I think the reason why this is so critical is that there seems to be an interesting connection between being “cool“, and shame?

The first thought; is being “cool” the opposite of being shame shameful? 

In fact, when I think about the social politics of K-12 education, honestly, thinking back of it as a 36-year-old adult, it is all so ridiculous!

Lots of insane things here.

First, maybe there is some sort of standardization which happens here; the de facto trend is for a guy, you must own a pair of Nike sneakers, everything else is shameful and subpar?

What are the things that did not exist when I was a kid was Amazon Amazon prime; which is the great equalizer of all things. Even when I was a kid, purchasing a sneakers was quite expensive; even in high school, a pair of all white K Swiss sneakers, which was the cool shoe at the time, was still about $75; I recall this deal in which at footlocker, if you bought two of them, you could buy two for $100, which meant that each was $49. As a kid, that seemed like a good deal for me!

Even as a high schooler — I had some part-time jobs, and I would also get a stipend for the local Korean American community center that I worked at. But, like a fool I literally blew every single paycheck I got on sneakers, clothes, etc. I didn’t make that much money, maybe $200 a month, $100 here, another $200 here, a large sum of money might be $300… But still, I may be invested that money in high school, it would have probably set me on a better track in my early 20s and even mid 20’s!

To save money is the really radical thing here?

What seems anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist? To save your money! 

Actually if you think about it… The whole ethos is saving money kind of doesn’t really make sense in a consumer capitalist sense.

Also think that the problem about saving money is that maybe instead of thinking about saving money, the better idea is not spending your money, and using that money to invest.  Because as you earn money, perhaps it makes more sense to take that money, and instead of spending it on super fool as things, investing that money, and growing it, and gaining it?

---

Am I the first?

Video Podcast

The sweetest word in the English language: Bitcoin

Bitcoin Audio

Real money

Toyota Crown Signa — super fascinating car?

The ideal outfit as the most via negativa and naked —

Simple — insanely frugal Spartan lifestyle and just funnel all of your money into Bitcoin!

Entrepreneurship by KIM

Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:

1. Emotional Readiness is *Physical* Readiness?
2. Annoyance & Entrepreneurship
3. Why Doesn’t Anything Satisfy Me?
4. ZERO FINANCIAL CONCERNS
5. How to Gain Ascendancy
6. Business vs Entrepreneurship?
7. TAKE REAL CHANCES
8. Making Money as a Hobby
9. The Best Exercises for Entrepreneurs
10. INCOME VS EXPENSES MONEY LIFESTYLE PHILOSOPHY
11. Entrepreneurship is the privilege of being able to attempt something new
12. How to Become More Influential
13. The Point of Life is Entrepreneurship?
14. How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
15. Become the Outlier
16. Self Reliance
17. How to Extend Your Reach
18. NEWS: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
19. PVP (Player vs Player)
20. How I became so influential
21. WE LOVE THE *SENSATION* OF RISK-TAKING
22. WHY HIGH PROFIT MARGINS?
23. INNOVATION THOUGHTS
24. OVERCONFIDENCE IS GOOD.
25. GARAGE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
26. PERHAPS IT IS GOOD TO BE “DELUSIONAL”
27. USE YOUR WEALTH TO BUY STUFF, OR TO BUILD AND INNOVATE STUFF?
28. HOW TO THRIVE
29. Target Demographic
30. Ambition Over Happiness
31. Anti Collaboration
32. The Will to Economy
33. Why New?
34. CHOOSE ADRENALINE.
35. No Looking Back.
36. 1000x Different
37. BECOME SPENDTHRIFT
38. THE BENEFIT OF JUST ONE.
39. EXTREME INNOVATION.
40. Practicality is Boring
41. BECOME YOUR OWN STANDARD.
42. NEVER STOP ITERATING.
43. CONDENSE.
44. Take Lots of Small Financial Risks
45. Control Over Convenience
46. Why Are Chinese Companies So Innovative?
47. INSANELY DIFFERENT.
48. Why Doesn’t Anything Ever Satisfy Me?
49. THE GREAT PASSION.
50. Perhaps Dissatisfaction is Good
51. ONE REP MAX.
52. WHAT DO YOU *REALLY* WANT IN LIFE?
53. LIFE IS ABOUT STRIVING FOR MORE.
54. NEVER STOP LINKING.
55. THE GREATEST.
56. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!
57. THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
58. ERIC KIM CRITIQUE OF ROMANTICISM
59. COMPLACENCY.
60. JUST BUY IT.
61. ALL ABOUT YOU.
62. MOVE THE WORLD
63. Boring or Not Boring?
64. What if Your Past Self were Inferior to Your Present Self?
65. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROGRESS
66. CULTURE IS YOUR ENEMY.
67. Difficulty & Interest
68. The Will to Expansion
69. What is Work?
70. SOUL IN THE GAME.
71. JUST START IT.
72. Not Boring
73. PRIDE IN YOUR OWN NAME / BRAND
74. AS MUCH AS YOU CAN TOLERATE.
75. Speed is Paramount
76. TAKE IT BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
77. A Life With No Risk Taking is *NOT* a Life Worth Living
78. Dissatisfaction is Good
79. GREATER STRENGTH, GREATER CHALLENGES.
80. In Praise of the New
81. Uncorrupted Desires
82. You Cannot Fake Passion
83. SELF-OVERGOING
84. FORM YOURSELF.
85. Personal Entrepreneurship
86. RELENTLESS.
87. PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.
88. A Life of Expansion
89. SELF-ENTREPRENEURSHIP
90. YOU ARE THE EXCEPTION.
91. Use Your Life as an Experiment to Self-Develop Yourself to Heights Never Seen Before
92. Invest in New Developments
93. Investing Towards What End?
94. The 90%/10% Principle in Entrepreneurship
95. Speed Wins
96. The Philosophy of Happiness
97. When to Over-Estimate, When to Under-Estimate?
98. Never Stop Iterating
99. Money as a Tool for Life and Artistic Experimentation
100. Less But More Premium
101. Mainstream vs Low-Key Success
102. Why Dissatisfaction is Good
103. SEEK YOUR OWN PERSONAL MAXIMAL BENEFIT INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING
104. Manifest Your Destiny
105. Is it Best to *Not* Communicate Your Inner Thoughts or Ideas With Others?
106. CREATE THINGS YOU WISH TO SEE MANIFESTED IN THE WORLD
107. How to Do More Work
108. CONTROL.
109. Competition is for Losers
110. Change.
111. Your Competitive Advantage with Insanely Fast Wifi and High Speed Internet
112. Pseudo Individualism
113. Natural Internal Promoting vs External Promptings

Think for Yourself.

1. Survival vs Thrivival
2. Become Rich
3. SECRETS.
4. Why it is Better to Beg for Forgiveness than Ask for Permission
5. Thinking About the Past Prevents You From Thinking About the Future
6. How to Predict the Future
7. Tools of Mass Distraction
8. So What?

FREEDOM

• On Leaving a Legacy
• I wanna be me!
• Productivity for personal freedom
• How to Purchase your Freedom

---

Never stop innovating.

---

Entrepreneurship Mindset

• What is Your Dream in Life?
• 8 Blogging Productivity Tips
• Why Be Normal?
• How Much Suffering Are You Willing to Endure to Achieve Your Dreams?

---

Put a Dent in the Universe.

• Innovate for the Sake of Innovating!
• Reality is Malleable!
• Stoic Entrepreneurship
• Against Self-Preservation
• The Purpose of Life is to Make New Stuff!

An essay on thinking:

First, what is the most desire thing, the most desired trait in today’s world? To think. 

I think I am actually a very very sensitive person; I am extremely sensitive to audio visual information, ideas, words mines etc. I take everything personally, over personally; perhaps, rather than trying to negate this, this might be my superpower? I think this is how I could psycho analyze people so well, and even myself? 

Street smarts

Assuming that I might be the greatest street photographer of all time, yes, even better than Henri Cartier-Bresson, then it seems like I have a mighty task at hand. To propagate and to promote street photography to the limits and beyond. 

First, maximum exposure to the streets, public life, street life etc. Probably my most formative thing as of late is walking around lot every single day, with my 60 pound weight vest on. 

Even as a funny exercise, go on a walk with your weight vest on, your camera, and shoot street photos with your weight vest on! You’re killing at least two birds with one stone;  first, you get an incredible workout, and secondly, you’re making art!

---

My social imperative

I think in today’s world, maybe the best approach is to think about your imperative; things that you must do because it is your self-appointed task in life, because you so believe in it so deeply.

I’ve always had the philosophy in the ideas that if you pursued your passion hard enough, even without thinking about social political or economic or monetary payoff; you would succeed.

For example, advice that I believed in which I still believe; the upside of pursuing your passion in life — in fact, the number one issue in today’s world is that nobody has a passion anymore, nor is anyone permitted to have a passion.  For example, the pernicious element of modern day capitalism is that in order to be virtuous, you must have your passion either directly or indirectly lead to some sort of social political monetary payoff. Or more or less… Your passion can only be made legitimate if it can directly or indirectly help you make a bunch of money.

I think one of the piece advice that I got from one of my high school teachers, which actually paid off was that if you pursued your passion, hard enough and diligently enough… Sooner or later it would pay off. He told me in the class that it certainly wouldn’t make you a bunch of money, but you should be at least able to make a living from it. 

Making a living

The stoic Spartan economic strategy;  we glorify and we deify our extreme and insane frugality; whenever I need inspiration or a vision… I always go back to the movie 300, and I always rewatch it… Because I’m a visual person, it centers me.

For literature, if I only had one book for the rest of my life it would probably be the Iliad by Homer. Achilles is my alter ego.

He who adapts the fastest shall win

I think this is something that Michael Saylor said; that an economics life biological life etc.… He who adapts the fastest shall win! 

Add optician is difficult process because there is no manual no playbook, no blueprint. And also the tricky thing is that a blueprint of the past only worked in the past because it was so disruptive at the time, but it probably won’t be applicable to modern day times.

Even Peter Thiel so wisely predicted, that the next billion dollar unicorn would not be a search engine or whatever; he almost predicted the rise of AI and ChatGPT; and he was right. Slowly but surely… chatGPT open AI is starting to eat the market share of Google; Google is starting to sweat bullets, and so is Apple. 

It seems like the magical unicorn right now is Nvidia; which is something I have been familiar with ever since I was a kid. Essentially when you’re applying counterstrike 1.6, whoever had the best card, the newest the fastest most powerful and videographics card, would have the most frames per second, which would actually give them a strategic advantage. Even though very small.

And now, these video games are starting to become insane. Kids nowadays prefer to play video games over anything else,,, note the rise of mobile based games, and still nowadays… Gaming computers, wanting to become a pro gamer or whatever. 

And I think, even though people like to play games on the iPhone, maybe the iPad… There’s still seems to be this prediction for people to rather sit, use a gaming computer, a gaming chair, because they prefer the haptics of tactical keyboard, and also mouse?

---

The ultimate privilege 

What is the dream or living the dream? Being in Culver City, I see I met a lot of people; who work at Apple Amazon Warner Bros. discovery Sony pictures etc. And it is a bit sad;  yes yes yes you could drive your Ferrari to work, but the second you pull up to the parking lot in the parking garage, you are forced to be inside a depressing building all day.

I’m shocked even even Apple which I always considered the peak of success aesthetics and greatness — I don’t think I’ve ever met a happy person that I’ve met working at Apple besides my friend Anthony Larson? All these people who work at Apple in Culver City, they are so gloomy and depressed looking. They have designer clothes, but no tan, not enough freedom and time in the sun. I see them all drive their expensive cars into the Apple parking lot on Washington, to park it, and spend the rest of their days in their beautiful glass cube cage.  

---

Goals?

Life goals are interesting; because they are centered around your own personal philosophy and ethos.

I typically like to ask people what their life goals are, their passions etc. Because it often signals who they are, what they believe in etc. Certainly there is no hierarchy in what seems like a wise idea or goals .,, why there are a certain like goal is wiser foolish is all subjective. And also hindsight is 20-20.

For example, one might have said that Steve Jobs wasting all this time going to Japan whatever or going to India was wasting time or doing Calligraphy was a waste of time, but ultimately it percolated into all the beautiful apple products we got today.

Therefore my simple suggestion is permit yourself to all the superficial random interests that you got, because you never know how it will come in handy. 

On thinking for yourself

Never read the news, never seek it; all news is bad and toxic.

Only that, but practically everything modern is bad. Any modern thinker the last 100 years, there are really no good ones. Only good ones I include NASSIM Taleb, Peter Thiel, and now Michael Saylor. Everyone else is bad.

The strange advice in today’s world is that we are not permitted to think for ourselves, by ourselves. We need to give fellatio to great thinkers who came before us, in order for it to be legitimate or warranted.

And truth be told… All these things are flawed. Just look into their personal lives; or their physique or how they look like. This matters.

For example, Nietzsche had extreme gastrointestinal problems his whole life, and also, he was always traveling and trying to find a new place to live before he settled somewhere I think in Italy because he was quite sensitive to climate, the weather? Nietzsche even has a theory that the reason why Arthur Schopenhauer was so dark and gloomy was simply because of the poor German weather. I; Berlin in the middle of the winter is depressing as hell. Same goes with Prague or the South of France and Marseille during the winter time. For the most part, winter in Europe sucks. Especially Eastern Europe.

I actually wonder… Because of the poor weather, that is why Russian thinkers, Russian writers tend to be so dark and morose?

Climate matters.

For example, currently peak summer here in Los Angeles,  and it is so glorious! There’s nothing that in Lins me and my joy as much as seeing the sunrise first thing in the morning from my apartment window! It actually gives me a motivation to go out!

Thinking about the last winter cycle; how depressing and gloomy it was. I think I’m like a plant; I need maximum sun exposure in order to grow.

Where being solitary is good 

If you think about all the great artists of the past, the great thinkers… The great philosophers, most of them were quite solitary in their pursuits.

For example, any thinker or artist who aligned themselves with some sort of cultural or theoretical movement, have not lasted.

For example, nobody really remembers any of the “Cubists” besides Picasso. Because Picasso was smart; he was a master marketer and promoter of himself; so for any skinny fat anemic emo art loving loser who says that the art should speak for itself is false. 

Art is marketing.

What is art?

 to me, maybe just being alive is art?  For me, it is all art, artful, artistic, etc.

For example, your lifestyle how you live is art; let us recall that the word art “facere” means to make.

How to become a great street photographer 

Maybe this is time for ERIC KIM to get back into street photography 2.0. We have already rode the first grand wave, and now… After a brief lull… We are back in the game! 

My critique of all street photographers, all the masters, Henri Cartier bresson magnum and the like  is many.

First, maybe we should think about HCB like Socrates or Plato.  All philosophers after Socrates is bad and degenerate. There is a screen shift in philosophy towards ethics and morality. Before Socrates, it was more about nature of the universe, deeper thoughts. And the really bad thing is when we tried to make it all into a science; this is where economics and all economic theory is bad. All these twig men try to turn economics into a science and mathematics but it is not. My idea is economic theory that is not at least 300 years old. Better to read Aristotle on economics modern day… Even the school of economics, they are too modern. Maybe not as bad as the American or or sneakers… But still… modern all too modern! 

Think Greek

The Greeks invented the Olympics. And we all know and recognize that ancient Greece was the Apex in epitome of all human civilization. Even better than the Romans. 

Even watching recent Olympics, my plenty site that in tradition, the Greeks always went first, even though now they are the most weak major out there. They certainly have their cultural clout of the past… Yet, now they are impotent in terms of economics; Which is bad because economics is now the new head of power on the planet.

Once again, we will not see World War III the future wars and battles are all economic battles. Economics, money and capitalism is the new modern bond which holds all of humanity together, which is good because it promotes peace. Even though there are lots of evil of capitalism, I think it is still positive on the planet; because you are self interested economizing individual, you will not want war, you will want peace because peace is better for economics, material wealth and money. 

For example there is no oligarch in mainland China who wants World War III, because he will desire to have his fine whiskey, drive his Rolls-Royce, send his kids to college in America, buy a nice house in Vancouver etc.

Economic theory

This is where economic theory becomes so interesting to me, because assuming that use the internet, have a bank account balance, a credit card, use Visa, use Apple Pay, have an iPhone etc.… You are implicated in economics, the planet. 

The first interesting thought I had which was inspired by Cindy thinking about economics and the human body.

For example, when it comes to physical culture with men; it is all centered around gain. Just like money. You don’t want any losses.

Then, this becomes terrible because a man’s ego is only tied to how much weight or muscle mass or whatever he puts on! Also the problem with powerlifting; if too much of your ego is centered around your personal record number… Sooner or later you might dip into steroids or weird stuff in order to boost your numbers. or maybe something foolish, and injure yourself because you’re chasing those numbers in a fragmented way.

… Would you judge Achilles based on his dick size, how big his biceps were, how much he could dead lift and squat? No. It was his lethality in battle, PVP, 1v1.

And this is my current choice; I don’t know any other man in the flesh is more masculine, more charming, more handsome and as strong as me.

As long as the other man cannot lift 1000 pounds, or 10 plates, he is no match for me.

Even all of these powerlifters and strong men, who are all on steroids and balding, or bald… They are no match for me.

Even the rock, who is obviously juicing his eyeballs out; he has chicken legs? He wishes that his legs were as strong as me. 

Even Zac Efron, I feel bad that he is such a Shorty guy, only about 5 foot seven? Even though very handsome?

---

The path forward

So what is the logical path forward?

First, your art will outlast you. Your art through your children, your art through your artwork etc.

Either children or art,,, ideally both.

You do not seek your own personal immortality, this is first a philosophically disgusting notion, and also biologically impotent. I doubt if you were 300 years old, you would be able to ejaculate.

Where we should be very suspicious of Silicon Valley people 

Currently speaking, the nerds have taken over. Why because they are the richest. Once again, if you take nerds with good intentions and too much money, and too much power… Things go awry.

For example, Mark Zuckerberg, who might have more power than the US president; has good intentions, he is a nerd, and will forever be that way.

Bill Gates; the uber nerd, just see what Steve Jobs said about him in Walter Isaacson’s biography —  and think about that Elon Musk tweet, “the quickest way to kill your boner.”

Even Peter Thiel, I love him to death, but I’m not sure if he’s actually interested in having kids? I think the last time I checked he had a male partner… But no kids?

Jeff Bezos wants to go to space and leave earth behind.

Elon Musk is still good; he wants to get the planet off of fossil fuels, and make human life interplanetary. He is probably one of the greatest innovators entrepreneurs of all time, who has created value literally out of nothing.

As much as you can critique Tesla cars, the don’t lie; the Tesla model Y is the most desired car on the planet, and also the best selling one, made in the USA!

So the irony is, if you are truly a red blooded American, you would be very pro Tesla.

---

My personal thought is that it is all physical, physiological and body-based; no no no, you cannot be a 400 pound obese man with 80% body fat, and have “self-confidence”.

However there are some other subtle pernicious things; you could be 6 foot tall, with a six pack,  Super jacked and buff, but still have low self-confidence because you’re comparing your self your body your physique with all these other guys at the gym who are all on steroids.

“I Snapchat my dick size!” – Ye

Another weird thing, especially when it comes to men, young boys and adolescence etc.; this obsession with penises, penis size?

You’re not going to have a 20 inch long dick, no matter how hard you try. Neither is that a desirable thing?

Also I think this is a reason why video photos and recording of sexual intercourse is fake; nobody ever has sex with their super beautiful babe, with huge spotlights on, bright LEDs; I think the natural thing for humans is to do it in the dark, under the sheets, at night, before we sleep? Or maybe even in the middle of the night?

I think the reason why this matters is because I think, 99.9% of men, maybe nearly 100%, unless you’re some super radical religious anti porn person;  is probably watching porn, maybe every night, every single night, every single day? In private on their iPhone, in the bathroom, in Google incognito mode, or Safari private mode, Brave browser incognito mode,  or on their laptop with a VPN, torrenting some random Maria Ozawa Japanese porn stuff on pirate bay? 

I mean it’s fine; I don’t think that there is any Mistic evil to pornography. I mean if you think about it, people prostitute themselves all the time, some do it with their bodies, some do it with their souls, some do it with their minds, some do it with their intelligence their fingers their mouths, their butt holes, etc.

“ I’ve woken up from an enlightened man’s dream, checking Instagram comments to crowd source my self esteem” – Ye

The first simplest way to boost self-esteem is via negativa; that means deletion. Delete your Instagram, delete your Facebook Snapchat whatever.

Some hilarious ironies:

1. Have a kid or kids: the irony is I think for beautiful and fertile women, ultimate goal is the desiring to find the ideal mate to get a grand child. Therefore, the hilarious irony is that as a man once you got a kid, a young cute kid, it is a signal that you’re not a chump; if somebody already had the audacity to marry you and birth you are kid, it is a signal that they are good mate.
2. Top off, shirt off — show off your full body tan, Ronaldo style, and I think here is the critical thing… All these guys have this false assumption that somehow women want some steroid out super insanely muscular looking guy, like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie. It is funny; I think it is better to be Paul dark and handsome with a six pack, with a more lean look, kind of like Brad Pitt in fight club, or even the guys in the movie 300; the guy who jumps and chops off the arm of the Persian slave driver.

What’s the point of being attractive to women if you’re already married and have kids?

Honestly, I think it just feels good, gives your confidence, makes you happier, more joyful, more gay, more upbeat bright and happy!

In fact, my personal observation is in every day life… Men are super awkward around women in the flesh?

Chest up, shoulders back, stand straight up?

One of the greatest things that I am grateful for is that I am tall; 5‘11“, I just lie and I say I’m 6 feet tall. Like all men, I always round up.

Certainly, your height is something you can never change, irregardless of how many billions of dollars you got. For example even Jeff Bezos, even though he has the biggest metaphorical dick size on the planet, in one of the richest men, one of the great downsides is that he is super short; only about 5‘7“ tall? And now, I’m pretty certain he’s on some sort of steroids are weird testosterone boosting stuff because first his arms don’t look natural; too buff, too many veins, especially that he’s around 60 years old? Also, if you look at the early days of him as a super uber nerd, the takeaway point:

Once a nerd, always a nerd.

Once a nerd, forever a nerd.

One of a kind?

MONZA

Make plastic cool again! Those huge ass bigass Nalgene water bottle in plastic — so much lighter than steel!

Ladies love me!

I’m sexy and I know it

I tend to never regret my actions, only my non-actions ;; things I wished I did or stood up for.